"Old country" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was difficult to see in the subdued light, but I fancy that among the band of hardy men that sat round the table there was scarcely one who had not a tear in the corner of his eye. The thoughts of all took the same direction, I am certain — they flew homeward to the old country in the North, and we could wish nothing better than that those we had left behind should be as well off as ourselves. The melancholy feeling soon gave way to gaiety and laughter; in the course of the dinner the first mate fired off a topical ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... cabin. It put me in mind of the question of a Western gentleman whom I met at St. Augustine. He had come to Florida against his will, the weather and the doctor having combined against him, and was looking at everything through very blue spectacles. "Have you seen any of those fine old country mansions," he asked, "about which we read so often in descriptions of Southern, life?" He had been on the lookout for them, he averred, ever since he left home, and had yet to find the first one; and from his tone it was evident that he thought the Southern ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... good in the old country," said Lady Chelmer, pleased. "Look at the trouble we all take to come here to encourage the dear boys;" and the words ended ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... of the leaders who hold the good old strict rule; find good masters for my honest men-at-arms; break one more lance with Du Guesclin; and take to rule my vassals, till my fields, and be the honest old country Knight my father was before me. Said I well, ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to say that, really. Rum is about the only decent thing in this place. Rum keeps us alive. If any man says a word against rum, I'll call him an infernal ass. I meant to say the country, gentlemen—this rotten old country, don't you know. No cricket, no society, no Bass, no anything. Supposing we had gone to Canada with our—our capital and energies, wouldn't they have received us with open arms? And what's the reception we get here? Now, gentlemen, what I propose ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... would be able to tell him that; he called the car that was waiting at the station, and soon he was answering questions about America. But Bryden wanted to hear of those who were still living in the old country, and after hearing the stories of many people he had forgotten, he heard that Mike Scully, who had been away in a situation for many years as a coachman in the King's County, had come back and built a fine house with a concrete floor. Now there ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... how he sat, he withdrew, and took his violin again, and played all the tunes of the old country he could think of, recalling Dooble Sandy's workshop, that he might recall the music he ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... to borrow money, and if they did borrow money from him he was afraid they would pay it back, and make him trouble counting it. He told dad he wanted to get back into America, and become a citizen again of that grand old country of the stars and stripes, and asked dad how he could do it, for he said he had rather work in a slaughter house in America than be a grand duke in England. I never saw dad look so sorry for a man as he did for Astor, and he told him the only way was to sell out his ranch in London and ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... alterations had been made in the subsequent structure at various times, and many beauties destroyed, especially during the period of the Reformation, enough of its pristine character remained to render it a very good specimen of an old country church. Internally, the cylindrical columns of the north aisle, the construction of the choir, and the three stone seats supported on rounded columns near the altar, proclaimed its high antiquity. Within the choir were preserved the eighteen ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... summer weather glows; but the good Colonists have their little rejoicings without the orthodox adjuncts of snow and frozen fingers and iron roads. Far up in the bush the men remember to make some kind of rude attempt at improvising Christmas rites, and memories of the old country are present with many a good fellow who is facing his first hard luck. But the climate makes no difference; and, apart from all religious considerations, there is no social event that so draws together the sympathies of the whole English race ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... all do in Old Ireland. Bless her! she's a dear old country, and I'm as sorry as anybody to say good-by to her. But, all the same, I am glad to see England (poky, stiff sort of place it seems). Say now, Alice, do you like my dress? It was made in Dublin; it's the height of ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... crazy about it and all of them agreed that Effie ought to go to Paris or Milan. The slangy Boy with the rag-time Shirt went them one better, and said that all of the phoney Melbas in the country ought to pull for the Old Country and wait until ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... be back. You see, it's rather a good offer, this Bombay agency, and I'm bound to have to hop over to the old country every now and then to ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... there and become citizens. My father did. Do you think he'd live in Ireland now? Not he. He talks all the time about Ireland and the hated Sassenachs—that's what he calls you English—and he urges the fellows at home in the old country to fight for their rights. But since he made his fortune and became an American citizen the devil a foot has he ever put on Irish soil. He's always going, but he hasn't go there yet. And as for ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... all? Wait for good fortune? Is there any good fortune like what ye've just told me? Sure I'm ten times the happier man since I came into this room." He put his arm around her and sitting beside her drew her closely to him. "Listen, dear," he said, "listen. We'll go back to the old country. Our child shall be born where we first met. There'll be no danger. No one shall harm us with that little life trembling in the balance—the little precious life. If it's a girl-child she'll be the mother of her people; and if it be a man-child he shall grow up to carry on his father's ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... it fell on a Sunday when it was "kept" on the Monday, with a slightly clouded feeling that it wasn't exactly the same thing. Travelled persons, who had spent the anniversary there, were apt to come back with a poor opinion of its celebration in "the old country"—a pleasant relish to the more-than-ever appreciated advantages of the new, the advantages that came out so by contrast. More space such persons indicated, more enterprise they boasted, and even more loyalty they ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... Mr. Baring-Gould's well-known 'Old Country Life,' describes the life and environment of an ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow
... mind of the old country," he said, when he had made acquaintance with the interior of half-a-dozen cottages. "The people seem just as kind and friendly, and improvident, and idle, and happy-go-lucky as my friends at home. That old Sassenach Forester, ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... over here lately colonial editors from all the Colonies of the British Empire, and what is the opinion which they expressed as to the worst thing they saw in the old country? The representatives of every Colony have expressed the opinion that the worst they saw here, was the extreme of poverty side by side with the extreme of luxury. Do not you think it is very impressive to find an opinion like that, expressed in all friendship ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... of civilities goes on aboard most ships, and serves to help make the time pass away. Differences of rank and station are supposed to be pretty well levelled down in the colonies. Most of the time-worn prejudices of the old country, it is true, melt away before the revivifying breath of colonial life, yet sometimes "Mrs. Grundy's" awful features will show themselves, hiding the old foolish face under a ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... which my mother also was unwilling to leave. My uncles, moreover, had been sent to England for their education, where one of them continued to reside; and my family thus kept up communication with the old country. ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... has occurred, and certainly never before, in any time or place, could you have seen such representative gatherings of the British race from all parts of the world as you will see if you stroll any day into the verandah and smoking-room and bar of the Bloemfontein Club. From the old country and from every British colony all over the world these men of one race, in a common crisis, here for one moment meet, look into each others' faces, drink, and greet and pass on; to be drawn back each to his own quarter of the globe and separated when the crisis is passed ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... go again, mister! That's I don't know how many times you've let off that there prize word of yours, neefarious. There, don't bluff, sir; to use your old country word, them as plays at bowls must expeck rubbers. No, no, no, don't you begin ordering your fellows to meddle with me, because I'm rather nasty when I'm interfered with, 'sides which I've got some one inside ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... Nicknames he is particularly fond of: the cat is Raminagrobis, or Grippeminaud, or Rodilard, or Maitre Mitis; the mice are 'la gent trotte-menu'; the stomach is Messer Gaster; Jupiter is Jupin; La Fontaine himself is Gros-Jean. The charming tales, one feels, might almost have been told by some old country crony by the fire, while the wind was whistling in the chimney and the winter night drew on. The smile, the gesture, the singular naivete—one can watch it all. But only for a moment. One must be childish indeed (and, by an odd irony, this exquisitively sophisticated author falls into the ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... kept to the kindly old country fashion of admitting her handmaid to the table with herself. "Why not?" she would say. "In the first place, why should we keep the table about, half an hour longer than we need? And I suppose hot cakes and coffee are as much nicer ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... his doctor's bill. It's a cash business, Rosie. All you do with such a machine like Hahn's is get it well placed, drop your penny in the slot, and see one picture after another as big as life. I remember back in the old country, the years before we came over, when I was ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... scattered over the landscape, and filling the nooks of the hills with luxuriant foliage. Old villages scattered frequently along our track, looking very peaceful, with the peace of past ages lingering about them; and a rich, rural verdure of antique cultivation everywhere. Old country-seats—specimens of the old English hall or manor-house—appeared on the hillsides, with park-scenery surrounding the mansions; and the gray churches rose in the midst of all the little towns. The beauty of English scenery ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... princesses wear them, her baby's clothes like a young duke's, her house furnished like a lord's, and only Bridget and Biddy and Polly to do the work of cook, scullery-maid, butler, footman, laundress, nursery-maid, housemaid, and lady's maid. Such is the array that in the Old Country would be deemed necessary to take care of an establishment got up like hers. Everything in it is too fine,—not too fine to be pretty, not in bad taste in itself, but too fine for the situation, too fine for ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... astonishing lack of tact as well as lack of judgment. The former Secretary of State seems to be going on the presumption, like many other native Americans not actuated by a feeling of prejudice or race hatred, that German-Americans have left their hearts behind them in the old country and are, therefore, unable to feel as true American citizens should feel toward their country and everything involving ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... with religious rites are interesting, as, for instance, the golden knife with which the old Druids cut the mistletoe with pomp and much mystic ceremony. The early Christians made use of the knife and symbolized the cross when feasting; indeed, the old country habit—which is now deemed a sign of vulgarity—of crossing the knife and fork after dining, took its origin in that act of devotion, for together they form the Greek cross. Browning refers to ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... with the scenes described. Thus I found an exquisite pleasure, the other day, in reading Mr. Tuckerman's "Month in England,"—a fine example of the way in which a refined and cultivated American looks at the Old Country, the things that he naturally seeks there, and the modes of feeling and reflection which they excite. Correct outlines avail little or nothing, though truth of coloring may be somewhat more efficacious. Impressions, however, states of mind produced by interesting ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... was a coloured illustration representing the funeral procession of Gambetta, as it wound slowly past the veiled statue of Strasburg on the Place de la Concorde. These displays of patriotic feeling are forbidden, but they come to the fore all the same. Here, as elsewhere, the clinging to the old country is pathetically—sometimes comically—apparent. A rough peasant girl, employed as chambermaid in the hotel at which we stayed, amused me not a little by her tirades against the Prussians, spoken in a language that was neither German nor French, but a ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... of the settlers who came to the Fair Play territory came from families who had left their homes in the old country to escape political, economic, and social restrictions, only to be made unwelcome in their new homes in the settled areas of Pennsylvania. Displaced persons in a new country, they were forced by lives of conflict to ...
— The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784 - A Study of Frontier Ethnography • George D. Wolf
... I was no more in Greece. I had come to another country, where a new language, a new history, a new literature opened before me. Here, at last, I began to assume a reasonable attitude towards the question of the language of my old country, and here first I could read Palamas with understanding. Gradually, his greatness began to dawn on me, and, finally, my admiration for him had grown so much that when on April, 1914, I reached Greece as a travelling fellow from Harvard University, I had decided to concentrate ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... strong. Never stronger. Never so well as when I'm full up with work. But you don't hurry around enough in this dear, sleepy old country. Men lunch. In New York all the lunch one has time for is to swallow a plasmon lozenge in ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... do you not write me about things that I really care for in the good old country—the budding trees, the pleasant weather, news of old friends, gossip of good people—cheerful things? I pray you, don't be concerned about what any poor whining soul may write about me. I don't care for myself: I care only for him; for the writer of personal ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... My brave old Country! I have watched thee long Still ever first to rise against the wrong; To check the usurper in his giant stride, And brave his terrors and abase his pride; Foresee the insidious danger ere it rise, And warn the heedless and inform the wise; Scorning the lure, the bribe, the ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... so numerous as the Irish, but somehow they have a knack of getting on. They are not clannish like the Irish. Each hangs by his own hook. Then there are the Germans, who are pretty numerous, a very respectable body of men, with a sprinkling of Italians and Swiss. The Germans keep up their old country fashions, hold their Verein, meet and make speeches, sing songs, smoke pipes, and drink thin wine. Lager-beer has not ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... prolonged and deepened the impression. They had found each other again, a few days later, in an old country house full of books and pictures, in the soft landscape of southern England. The presence of a large party, with all its aimless and agitated displacements, had served only to isolate the pair and ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... rotation to the ball. It was thus unavoidable that some should be very early, as well as some very late. Mr. Spottiswoode, as Provost, was of course among the first after the Colonel and his lady, old country people, who stood arm-in-arm, bluff and bland, under the evergreens over the door, and shook hands with everybody, great and small—a family of pretty ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... view, and to the prospect of having nothing to worry them for three or four more weeks. Turkey, however, had declared war; and now, they heard, they were disembarking immediately in Egypt. The troops were undecided whether or not to be pleased. Most of them had hoped to see the Old Country and their relatives there. Mac did not care a straw, for he saw no delights in an English winter camp, and Egypt was said to be a fine interesting country. Every one set about telling wild tales of Egypt; and proceeded to walk more rapidly about the ship, collecting ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... provided for crowds of visitors; simply nothing but an ordinary street-door opening directly on the street, and very little, if any, broader or higher than those of the private houses adjacent. There was not even the usual covered way or archway leading into the courtyard behind, so often found at old country inns; the approach to the stables and coach-houses was through a separate and even more narrow and winding street, necessitating a detour of some quarter of a mile. The dead, dull wall was worn smooth in places by the involuntary ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... his mother and me; but it was permitted on the understanding that he was to come back when he was twenty-one, and then decide whether he would remain in England or return to the Colonies. In the winter of 1868 he did come to England, and had a season's hunting in the old country; but there was no doubt in his own mind as to his settling in Australia. His purpose was fixed, and in the spring of 1869 he made his second journey out. As I have since that date made two journeys to see him,—of one of which at any rate I shall ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... log school had not a robing-room. The end was that a Methodist circuit-rider took in our settlement in his rounds, which resulted in a majority of those who attended his services uniting with the Methodist church. The ministers who came from the Old Country in those early days were singularly unfit for new settlements. The Anglican on landing assumed he was the only duly accredited clergyman, and was offended at his claim being slighted, while his feelings were jarred by the lack of conditions ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... served, her place was with them. They would look to her for guidance and counsel. She would not fail them. She did not once think of danger, nor did she dream that by doing as she proposed she was severing herself entirely from the pleasant life at the fine old country seat which ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... islands are still the heart and home of the Empire. This was the rock whence its younger peoples were hewn. Our nation has produced the men and the machinery that govern our commonwealth. The lonely places, farthest removed from us, will be peopled largely by and through the work of children of the Old Country. There, wherever her children go, ...
— The War and Unity - Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer - Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918 • Various
... himself, Raleigh lifted his country into success more than any other one man of his time. To this day he is honoured alike in the old country that gave him birth, and in the new country to which he gave new life. His energy, enterprise, and fame are now a part of England's history and pride, while his disgrace and death belong to his king. Thomas Hariot was for nearly ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... Eric," called Mrs. Ericson. "I've got cob corn for supper, Nils. You used to like it. I guess you don't get much of that in the old country. Here's Hilda; she'll take you up to your room. You'll want to get the dust off you ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... afraid," the sailor retorted, a slight angry flush rising through his sunburn. "If I speak not fast, it is because I have not been from the old country as long as you. You do not like me because I am too much of a ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... In the old country the secret of obtaining luxury and economy combined in building has been learned, and rich and poor, fashionable and unfashionable alike live in "flats." In America, people have not yet learned this lesson, but cling to the old and barbarous custom ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... and stuff! He knew better before we had sailed! An English squire in this wretched old country, forsooth! when the new republic is before him! No, no, Mr. Audley, I'll be open with you. I saw what you were up to when I got your letter, and Fernan—Got his lesson very well, he had. And when I came down, a friend in London gave me another hint. It won't do, I can ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... It went on among them both; across the seas in their old country, and here in England, till they were made Christians. There is no doubt about it. I could give you tale on tale which would make your blood run cold. Then they learnt to throw away those false gods who ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... remember that money I've been savin' off an' on when I could git a dollar here an' there that was extra? Well, there's as much as ten of 'em now, an' I'm agoin' ter spend 'em—all of 'em mebbe. I'm agoin' ter ride in them 'lectric-cars, an' so be you. An' I ain't goin' ter no old country fair, neither, an' no more be you. Look a' here, Abby, the folks are goin' again ter-morrer ter the fair, ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... always treats a merchantman like gentlemen on the high seas, and I never knew one on 'em to turn their backs on friends or foes. What a pity they ever cut adrift from the Old Country! Howsoever, matey, it can't be helped, and you had better up with the port studding-sails, hang out all the rags, and make the ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... the Rockland-born children remembered the farm-house, when they had grown to be men. Such are the recollections that come over poor sailor-boys crawling out on reeling yards to reef topsails as their vessels stagger round the stormy Cape; and such are the flitting images that make the eyes of old country-born merchants look dim and dreamy, as they sit in their city palaces, warm with the after-dinner flush of the red wave out of which Memory arises, as Aphrodite arose from the green ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... green of plantations and woodland was varied with brown grainfields, where grain had been, and with ripening Indian corn and buckwheat; but more especially with here and there a stately roof-tree or gable of some fine new or old country house. The light was mellow, the air was good; in the excitement of her drive Daisy half forgot her perplexity and discomfiture. Till the doctor said, suddenly looking round at her with a smile, "Now I should like to know the history of ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... I threw up my berth at home you wondered why I was in such a hurry to leave the old country, and home, and you, and it was very hard not to tell you the real reason. I came out here to make enough money to set up housekeeping, and, dear, I want you to come and help me, now I have succeeded so far. I know it is a tremendous thing to ask, and that I am entirely ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... country, at beautiful Arlington, with the woods and fields and streams and mountain vistas around him. He lived in the country all his life, and died in the country, at his home in Fairfax County, an owner of land, loving the land; his home, a fine old country seat of colonial pattern, the scene of domestic peace and love and hospitality; his voice, that of the good people of his vicinage; his life, daily tasks, intermingled with daily studies and contemplation; his ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various
... motored along the Portsmouth Road through the warmly-beautiful autumn countryside, a feeling of exultation, of intense personal love for, and pride in, the old country, filled his heart. Why had he stayed in London so long when all this tranquil, appealing loveliness of wood, stream, hill and hollow lay close at hand? There are folk who deny the charm of Surrey—by ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... next. Having been rid of her old husband and left an earl's widow with a fine fortune, a town house, and some of the most magnificent jewels in England, 'twas not likely she would long bury herself in an old country house, hiding her beauty in weeds and sad-coloured draperies. She would make her period of seclusion as brief as decency would permit, and after it reappear in a ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... meself in the old country," said Kelly. "But ye can ride farther here. There's more room before ye ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... was Miss Betsy and Master Teague. Miss Betsy had a sister lived with them. Her name was Miss Polly. They was French folks from the old country. ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... am not," asseverated Fink. "How can any one make or read poems in these days of ours, when we are constantly living them? Since I have been back in the old country, scarce an hour passes without my seeing or hearing something that will be celebrated by knights of the pen a hundred years hence. Glorious material here for art of every kind! If I had the misfortune to be a poet, I should now be obliged to rush out in ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... the causes of the troubles, which, we trust, may be corrected by the ordinaries of the dioceses where the troubles have occurred. The Visitor says: The Poles, who seek a living in this country, are men determined to make times lively in their old country fashion. In Buffalo, Detroit, and other cities, they have turned out in fighting trim, and expressed a loud determination to have things ecclesiastically their own way or perish. These church riots are a scandal, and, if the truth were known, they have ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... Columbus. He elaborated a deep plan to find a new route to an old country. Circumstance revised his plan for him, and he found a new WORLD. And HE gets the credit of it to this day. He hadn't anything to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... few years after the Quaker control of East Jersey began, a new and fiercer persecution of the Covenanters was started in the old country, and shortly afterwards Monmouth's insurrection in England broke out and was followed by a most bloody proscription and punishment. The greatest efforts were made to induce those still untouched to fly for refuge to East Jersey; but, strange to ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher
... of the eighteenth century that this gentleman, of whom John Adams wrote, "He had been admired, revered, and almost adored," chose as the spot for his house the height above the Neponset River. If we follow the old country Heigh Waye to the top of Unquity (now Milton) Hill, we will find the place he chose, although the house he built has gone and another stands in its place. Fairly near the road, it overlooked a rolling ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... Vinsear of Lonstead Abbey. It was certainly not a love match on the lady's side, for the baronet was twenty years her senior, and his tastes in no respect resembled hers. But she was already of "a certain age," and despairing of a lover, accepted the good old country squire, and was located for the rest of her life as ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... and "went after this present world;" having no objection, of course, to the restoration of Popery: but preferring some more comfortable method than an invasion which would inevitably rob them of their ancestral lands and would seat needy and greedy Castilians in their old country houses, to treat their tenants as they had treated the Indians of Hispaniola, and them as they had ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... travelled in this slumbrous old country of yours I've seen considerable stagnation, but this licks the worst I've struck yet. Your town pretty well fathoms the depths. Are the folks ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... no rabbits here," was the reply; "nor any animals like them. In 1851, a gentleman living near Dunedin, New Zealand, was on a visit to the old country, and it occurred to him that it would be a nice thing to have rabbits in New Zealand, so that they could amuse themselves by chasing the little creatures with dogs. On his return from England he brought seven rabbits, and they were the ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... the Old Country, after many in foreign climes, was not an unqualified success. On the morning of Christmas Eve I went for a walk and lost myself. After wading through bog systems and bramble entanglements for some hours I came out behind a spinney and there spied a small urchin with red cheeks ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various
... who take the responsibility of government, who aspire to it, live for it, intrigue for it, scramble for it, who hold to it tooth-and-nail when you can get it, see you that no man is left to find a day for himself. In this old country, with its seething hard-worked millions, its heavy taxes, its swarms of ignorant, its crowds of poor, and its crowds of wicked, woe the day when the dangerous man shall find a day for himself, because the head of the Government failed in his duty in not anticipating ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... sky, and not upon the earth, that I was surprised to find a change. Explain it how you may, and for my part I cannot explain it at all, the sun rises with a different splendour in America and Europe. There is more clear gold and scarlet in our old country mornings; more purple, brown, and smoky orange in those of the new. It may be from habit, but to me the coming of day is less fresh and inspiriting in the latter; it has a duskier glory, and more nearly resembles sunset; it seems to fit some subsequential, evening epoch of the world, as though America ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... worthies had jolly suppers at the humble taverns of the city, and wilder revelries in an old country house on the Passaic, which is celebrated in the "Salmagundi" papers as Cockloft Hall. We are reminded of the change of manners by a letter of Mr. Paulding, one of his comrades, written twenty years after, who recalls ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... I wonder where she learnt all those profane songs? From some liberal folk in the old country, no doubt; they ill become a puritan. If she were a little slower in her speech, what an angel she would be! As it is, she is a very good woman, tongue ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... Sally reeled off a 10 knot skane of yarn today. My valentine was an old country plow-joger. The yarn was of my spinning. Aunt says it will do for filling. Aunt also says niece ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow
... and children. It did me good to breathe free air; it did me good to be done with the captain and see, instead, the creature at my side. I felt for all the world as though she were some girl at home in the Old Country, and, forgetting myself for the minute, took her hand to walk with. Her fingers nestled into mine, I heard her breathe deep and quick, and all at once she caught my hand to her face and pressed it there. “You good!” she cried, and ran ahead of me, and stopped and ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rags like them in the old country," Billy sneered. "They had to come over here to get decent clothes and decent grub. ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... support. Occasionally a fur trader, driving a pack-horse laden with furs, passed through the town. The huts and log houses of the first settlers were still standing, and some of the people kept up an acquaintance and correspondence with their relatives in the old country. ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... Miss KATE RORKE, they seemed to me to be what the author had made them—i.e., stagey. Miss DOLORES DRUMMOND, as Mrs. Veale, is very good, and Miss MARIE LINDEN, except in one stagey bit in the Third Act, plays with great care and judgment. The interior of the old country church (Act III.) is a masterpiece of scenic art and stage arrangement,—a perfect picture by Mr. W. HARFORD. I wish I could say the same of the denoument of the interrupted marriage, which strongly reminded me of a pictorial heading to some exciting chapter in a penny novelette ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... Thompson, Sir William Roberts, Dr. T. Lauder Brunton, Dr. F.W. Pavy, Dr. Burney Yeo, and many more have given their advocacy to the same purpose. It is urged by all these authorities that there is a needless consumption of animal food even in the old country, and they all agree that an exaggerated value is attached to butcher's meat on the part of the public. If representative medical opinion thus protests against the use of an unnecessary amount of animal diet in the climatic ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... pretty decent stock too, only he hadn't sense enough to stay at St. John's where his dad put him, but had to go rampagin' all over the country till he'd clean forgot any bringin'-up he'd ever had, and landed up as a sort o' bailiff, as they call 'em over in the old country, on an estate down on the eastern shore. Then he met Helen Bladen and 's sure's you live she 'changed the name and not the letter and changed for a heap sight worse 'n the better' when she eloped ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... that this love of the hearthstone and old family memories should have disappeared. The great man whose character is sought to be delineated in this volume never lost to the last this home and family sentiment. He knew the kinships of every one, and loved the old country-houses of the old Virginia families—plain and honest people, attached, like himself, to the Virginia soil. We pass to a brief description of the old house in which ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... a high-toned gentleman, and his whole heart was in the enterprise. He at once put me at ease. We acted together most cordially from that time forth, and it was at his house that all the details of the seminary were arranged. We first visited the college-building together. It was located on an old country place of four hundred acres of pineland, with numerous springs, and the building was very large and handsome. A carpenter, named James, resided there, and had the general charge of the property; but, as there was not a table, chair, black-board, or any thing on ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... into the rustic local art of the past, and to give it new life by reproducing, in the furniture of the "Children's Houses," the forms and colors of tables, chairs, sideboards, and pottery, the designs of textiles and the characteristic decorative motives to be met with in old country-houses. This revival of rustic art will bring back into use objects used by the poor in ages less wealthy than ours, and meanwhile may be a revelation in "economy." If, instead of school benches, such simple and graceful objects were manufactured, even this school furniture would show how beauty ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... Mr Lennard, I guess this poor old country of yours has about enough serious matters on hand just now without worrying about comets. ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... their accommodation. They were at once taken to the warm interior of the horticultural building, and I saw them spending their Sabbath in some degree of comfort in the tepid water of the basin, without even guessing that in the old country it ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... years in England, and, because her father was a prosperous man who humored her slightest wishes, she occasionally returned to take her pleasure in what she called the Old Country. It is a far cry from the snowy heights of the Pacific slope to the pleasant valleys of the North Country, but in these days of quadruple-expansion engines, distance counts but little ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... were grown upon an old tree, one of whose limbs had been grafted with some unknown variety of fruit so long ago that the history was forgotten; only that an English gardener, many years before, had brought some cuttings from the old country, and one of them had somehow come into the possession of John Thacher's grandfather when grafted fruit was a thing to be treasured and jealously guarded. It had been told that when the elder Thacher had given away cuttings he had always stolen ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... am a native of the Province of New York, and being a colonial like yourselves, I think we allow too little credit to the old country in the war. I speak as one who through the force of circumstances has been an eye witness to many of the facts. My name is Robert Lennox, sir, and my companions are Captain Stuart Whyte and Lieutenant John Lanham of His Majesty's ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... see my early grave in an unanointed soil opened to receive me—even here, encircled by these terrors, the hope which has beckoned me to the perilous sea upon which I have been wrecked, still consoles, animates, enraptures me. No I do not despair of my poor old country, her peace her liberty, her glory. For that country I can do no more than bid her hope. To lift up this island—to make her a benefactor to humanity, instead of being the meanest beggar in the world—to restore to her her native Powers and her ancient ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... age - for if my recollection serve me, it has been a manufacturing town barely one-and-twenty years - Lowell is a large, populous, thriving place. Those indications of its youth which first attract the eye, give it a quaintness and oddity of character which, to a visitor from the old country, is amusing enough. It was a very dirty winter's day, and nothing in the whole town looked old to me, except the mud, which in some parts was almost knee-deep, and might have been deposited there, on the subsiding of the waters ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... system of Congregationalism so successfully put into practice soon afterwards in the wilderness of New England, and to which so much of American freedom political as well as religious is due, was not easy to adopt in an old country like the Netherlands. Splendid churches and cathedrals, the legal possession of which would be contended for by rival sects, could scarcely be replaced by temporary structures of lath and plaster, or by humble back parlours of mechanics' shops. There were questions of property of complicated ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of the elder guests sat down to a game of whist, the younger ones danced Money Musk, Squire Beverly and Mrs. Stephen Hatton leading, while Harry played the old country dance with a snap and movement that made hearts bound and feet forget that age or rheumatism ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... promptly. Yet for all his scorn of Nevill's grotesque superstitions, he was not in a confident mood. He did not expect much good from this visit to Ben Halim's old country house. And the worst was, that here seemed their last chance of finding out what had become of Saidee Ray, if ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... discovered; and what its consequences may be, not only upon this continent, but upon the world, wiser heads—heads more versed than mine is in monetary science—must tell. There is much speculation here as to the effects which the late wonderful discovery will produce in the States and the old country. Of course we expect to be inundated with emigrants, coming, I suppose, from every part of the world, and truly, for all I can tell, there will be gold ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... the particular clock of the poem, which stood upon another staircase, in another quaint old mansion,—although the verse belongs truly to all old clocks in all old country-seats, just as the 'Village Blacksmith' and his smithy are not alone the stalwart man and dingy shop under the 'spreading chestnut-tree' which the Professor daily passes on his way to his college duties, but belong wherever a smithy stands. Through the meadows in ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... various endearing appellations among his intimate friends. By some he was called 'a country gentleman of the true school,' by some 'a fine old country gentleman,' by some 'a sporting gentleman,' by some 'a thorough-bred Englishman,' by some 'a genuine John Bull;' but they all agreed in one respect, and that was, that it was a pity there were not more like him, and that because there were not, the country was going to rack ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... never very discreet. He hinted at undeserved misfortune, and there is no doubt that he looked upon himself as the victim of injustice. My fancy played with the various forms of fraud and violence, and I agreed with him sympathetically when he remarked that the authorities in the old country were so damned technical. But it was nice to see that any unpleasantness he had endured in his native land had not impaired his ardent patriotism. He frequently declared that England was the finest country in the world, sir, and he felt a lively superiority over Americans, ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... is my third. It's a nice schools, as schools go. I never had much use for them, though. In the Old Country we never held with them much when I was a lad. I dare say you boys'll be tryin' to play football like all the rest ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... down, one of them hurried out by the chambers aforesaid, and came back again in a little while with a great bunch of roses, very different in size and quality to what Hammersmith had been wont to grow, but very like the produce of an old country garden. She hurried back thence into the buttery, and came back once more with a delicately made glass, into which she put the flowers and set them down in the midst of our table. One of the others, who had run off also, then came back with a big cabbage-leaf ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... could work with me in surmounting some of the especially bad places. Now that you have come we shall be able to get ahead nearly twice as fast. I suppose you came out by the last mail, eh? And how are things going in the dear old country?" ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... they manage it, these young Jews, all healthy-looking and of military age—how did they contrive to keep out of the Army? Was there some secret society which protected them? Or were they all so preposterously clever that the Old Country would straightway evaporate into thin air unless they sat in some comfortable office, while our own youngsters were being blown to pieces ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... feeling in England with regard to the war, he assured me that it had all along given him the greatest pleasure to feel that the Southern cause had the sympathies of so many in the 'old country,' to which he looked as a second home; but, in answer to my questions, he replied that he had never expected us to give them material aid, and added that he thought all governments were right in studying only the interests of their own people and in not going to war for an 'idea' ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... in it, that the old gentleman trimmed and cared for himself. They were delicious grapes; and there were black currants, which the grandfather liked, because he had liked them when he was a boy himself in the old country, but which no Boy's Town boy could have been induced to take as a gracious gift. Another boy had a father that had a green-house; he was a boy that would let you pull pie-plant in the garden, and would bring out sugar to let you eat it with in the green-house. ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... dining-room of the Mitre Inn, I happened to be seated at table with an old country clergyman who had just entered his son at Oxford and was evidently a rural parson of the good old high-and-dry sort; but as I happened to speak of the sermons of the day, he burst out in a voice gruff with theological contempt and hot toddy: "Did you hear that young upstart this afternoon? ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... business makes him perfectly rabid. Here he is, with all his splendid organisation and brutal efficiency, and he can't even knock a dent into our undisciplined, back-chatting, fool-ridden, self-depreciating old country! I, for one, sympathise with the Boche profoundly. On paper, we don't ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... and bowed gracefully to the Duchess de Champdoce, making a series of half-jesting apologies for her intrusion. She had been utterly unable, she said, to resist the pleasure she should experience in seeing an old country neighbor, the more so as they were now separated by so short a distance. She had, therefore, disregarded all the rules of etiquette so that they might have a cozy chat about Poitiers, Bevron, Champdoce, and all the ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... averse to go near, was so beautifully and nicely arranged that it had none of its usual repulsiveness; and the sight of the whole place, and the quaint-looking rustic people, was so pleasantly envious. We stopped to gossip with a bewitching old country dame, whose market stock might have sat, with her in the middle of it, for its picture; the veal and poultry so white and delicate-looking, the bacon like striped pink and white ribbons, the butter so golden, fresh, and sweet, in a great basket ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... paid. The day she went away I gave her a check in full, and if she done what always before she does, it's in the bank drawing interest. Let it go on staying in the bank drawing interest. So far as we know, she ain't got no people in this country at all. In the old country, in Hungary? Maybe, yes. But Hungary is yet all torn up by this war—no regular government there, no regular mails, no American consuls there, no nothing. Time for them foreigners that they should get their ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... which he strove to enliven by conversing, one after the other, with the Captain and his two mates. From all of them, he learnt something; but from all he turned away, as they commenced discussing the comparative merits of the United States, and the old country; a subject he had neither the wish to enter on, nor fortitude to prosecute. Not daunted, he attacked mate the third; and was led to infer better things, as the young gentleman commenced expatiating on the "purple sky," and "dark ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... never meant to—I did mean you to sit out six—but you're the most gallant little idiot I've ever struck. Besides, you come from the old country, ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... can't either," Mr. Bullsom declared. "This is one of the proudest nights of my life. Do you know what we've done up there at Westminster, eh? We've given this old country a new lease of life. How they were all laughing at us up their sleeve, eh! Germans, and Frenchmen, and Yankees. It's a horse of another colour now. John Bull has found out how to protect himself. And, Brooks, my boy, it's been mentioned to-night, and ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... again Harry Warrington and his brother had pored over the English map, and determined upon the course which they should take upon arriving at Home. All Americans who love the old country—and what gently-nurtured man or woman of Anglo-Saxon race does not?—have ere this rehearsed their English travels, and visited in fancy the spots with which their hopes, their parents' fond stories, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the beautiful solicitude with which these treasures are surrounded, suggests the reflection that the old country has something to learn from the new in the matter of distinguished custodianship. We have no place of national pilgrimage in England that is so perfect a model as Washington's home at Mount Vernon. It is perhaps through lack of a figure of the Washington type ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... demands and I'll spare you. You can go free back to your old country. It's for Diane's sake! Her life, perhaps her happiness, can be saved! Hurry, man! ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... A cure can only be effected under such circumstances when the powers of nature are sufficient to overcome both the NARCOTIC and the DISEASE. That they will relieve we do not deny, but they will never cure. It reminds us of an old country doctor who advised a lady to smoke tobacco to cure acid dyspepsia. She followed the prescription for over thirty years and at last accounts was not cured yet. In all seriousness we ask would any other remedy except a narcotic or stimulant be used with such persistency for anything like this length ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... be properly founded, with due regard to our future honorable position in the world. Therefore every obligation in the old country must be scrupulously fulfilled before leaving. The Society of Jews and the Jewish Company will grant cheap passage and certain advantages in settlement to those only who can present an official testimonial from the local authorities, ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... valuable part of his training in the Canadian backwoods. During his student days he combined the theory of theology with the practice of "logging," in proportions which were mutually beneficial, and which greatly aided his success as a minister on his return to the old country. Sylvanus Cobb studied in Edinburgh, lodging with his brother in the story next the sky at the corner of Simon Square, supported by red herrings, oatmeal, and the reminiscence that Carlyle had done the same within eyeshot of his front window ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... branches of the coppice wood the sun seemed to be setting in a bed of molten gold. Our conversation was animated and incessant. In the old and curious church of Guibray, the Count shewed us his family pew with the care and particularity of an old country squire. Meanwhile Mr. Lewis was making a hasty copy of one of the very singular ornaments—representing Christ bearing his cross—which was suspended against the walls of the altar of a side chapel. You have it ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... across Althea's room to light the lamp—there are no electrics in my old country home. As I went in I stumbled over a rug whose corner had been drawn into a bunch by the edge of a trunk which had been pulled too far toward the middle of the room. I encountered a chair hung full with clothing; I pushed what felt like a shoe out ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... difficult things. The minister and deacons were nearest the pulpit. The boys and colored people were assigned the back pews or those in the gallery. This idea of "social dignity" was brought from the old country, but gave way in the growing oneness ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various
... painted red and blue drawn by six-horse teams adorned with gay harness and jingling bells. Also, there was a thriving coastwise trade, up to old Salem and Newburyport where the clipper ships were built, and down to the West Indies. These ships brought back sugar, molasses, and rum, and from the old country came clothing, and furniture, and all sorts of luxuries, for the thriving merchants were building comfortable homes and furnishing ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... Mr. Wilkins sat down and buried his head in his hands, then went to his stable, and had Wildfire saddled for a good gallop over the country. Mr. Dunster waited for him in vain at the office, where an obstinate old country gentleman from a distant part of the shire would ignore Dunster's existence as a partner, and pertinaciously demanded to see Mr. Wilkins ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... years of travel, during which I had seen men under almost every variety of government, religion, and climate, I looked round to discover if there were not still new combinations under which human nature was to be investigated. I had traversed the old country until satisfied, if not satiated; and I had sailed many a weary thousand miles from west to east, and from north to south, until people, manners, and customs were looked upon by me ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... warmness throughout the whole congregation, who shouted for joy and comfort, to think that the Lord had been so gracious as to satisfy us in this country with the very same religion with ... our beloved brethren in the old country, according to the scriptures; and that such a worthy ... of London, should write in so loving a manner to such poor worms as we are. And I beg leave to say, That the whole congregation sang out that they would, through the assistance of God, remember you in their prayers. They altogether give ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... an apparent lunatic playing a game called Golf; a game which later was to be more familiar to me, and myself to become one of the greatest lunatics of all. The run home was in no way remarkable, except for the intense anticipated pleasure of again seeing the old country. ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... that same road to-day. That it was so early laid out is probably owing to the fact, that such men as Emanuel Downing were on its route, and John Winthrop, Jr., at Ipswich. Downing called his farm "Groton," in dear remembrance of his wife's ancestral home in "the old country." ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... that our resources are but half developed, and yet hundreds of thousands of our workers have gone, and are still going, to produce wealth where it is less urgently needed. The remnant of the race who still cling to the old country are not only numerically weak, but in many other ways they show the physical and moral effects of the drain which emigration has made on the youth, strength, and energy of the community. Our four and a quarter millions of people, mainly agricultural, have, speaking generally, a very low standard ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... have been natural to suppose that Allorron and his people would have welcomed the protection now offered by the new government. I invited them to return to their old country, from which they had been expelled, and to rebuild their villages on their old sites, where they could recommence their cultivation, and form a new settlement under the ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... he was now brought forward and introduced to everybody. Among the Aroostook gentlemen he found an old acquaintance who had met him in New Sweden, and who now told him that, owing to the death of a relative in the old country, a snug little property awaited him, and that a lawyer in Bangor was advertising and searching ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... sheepmen in the old country, Shorty," he drawled. "There ain't any cattle ranges there, you know. Do you know the difference between a sheepman in Scotland, say, ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... off for a time. Except when I went, to McGill with money I earned on a wheat barge, I haven't stopped work since I was a boy. Now I'm getting tired and think I'll pull out and go across to look at the Old Country. My father was an Englishman, and I have some money ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss |
