FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41  
42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   >>   >|  
tina and Lavinia, Camillia and Lydia, Curlanda and Orlanda; wherever did they get those names?' 'Where did my wife get her necklace, brother?' 'She knows best, Jasper. I hope--' 'Come, no hoping! She got it from her grandmother, who died at the age of 103, and sleeps in Coggeshall churchyard. She got it from her mother, who also died very old, and who could give no other account of it than that it had been in the family time out of mind.' 'Whence could they have got it?' 'Why, perhaps where they got their names, brother. A gentleman, who had travelled much, once told me that he had seen the sister of it about the neck of an Indian queen.' 'Some of your names, Jasper, appear to be church names; your own, for example, and Ambrose, and Sylvester; perhaps you got them from the Papists, in the times of Popery; but where did you get such a name as Piramus, a name of Grecian romance? Then some of them appear to be Slavonian; for example, Mikailia and Pakomovna. I don't know much of Slavonian; but--' 'What is Slavonian, brother?' 'The family name of certain nations, the principal of which is the Russian, and from which the word slave is originally derived. You have heard of the Russians, Jasper?' 'Yes, brother, and seen some. I saw their crallis at the time of the peace; he was not a bad-looking man for a Russian.' 'By-the-bye, Jasper, I'm half-inclined to think that crallis is a Slavish word. I saw something like it in a lil called Voltaire's Life of Charles. How you should have come by such names and words is to me incomprehensible.' * * * * * 'What is your opinion of death, Mr. Petulengro?' said I, as I sat down beside him. 'My opinion of death, brother, is much the same as that in the old song of Pharaoh, which I have heard my grandam sing:-- '"Cana marel o manus chivios ande puv, Ta rovel pa leste o chavo ta romi." When a man dies, he is cast into the earth, and his wife and child sorrow over him. If he has neither wife nor child, then his father and mother, I suppose; and if he is quite alone in the world, why, then, he is cast into the earth, and there is an end of the matter.' 'And do you think that is the end of a man?' 'There's an end of him, brother, more's the pity.' 'Why do you say so?' 'Life is sweet, brother.' 'Do you think so?' 'Think so! There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41  
42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

brother

 

Jasper

 
Slavonian
 
things
 
Russian
 

opinion

 

crallis

 

family

 

mother

 

chivios


necklace

 

Petulengro

 

travelled

 

incomprehensible

 

hoping

 
Pharaoh
 

grandam

 
sorrow
 

Camillia

 
Lavinia

Curlanda

 

matter

 
father
 

suppose

 

Orlanda

 

sister

 

Mikailia

 

Pakomovna

 

Piramus

 

Grecian


romance

 
nations
 

principal

 

church

 

Whence

 

Indian

 

Ambrose

 

Sylvester

 

account

 

Popery


Papists

 

Slavish

 

gentleman

 

inclined

 

called

 

Charles

 
grandmother
 
Voltaire
 
Coggeshall
 

Russians