No sun, no moon,
No morn, no noon,
No dawn, no dusk, no proper time of day--
No sky, no earthly view,
No distance looking blue.
No road, no street, no t'other side the way--
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member,
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No ... vember!
I love, though not as licensed victuallers love, the little monosyllable
_nip_. What a nimble agility, what a motive power, in that curt,
imperative word!--the pistol-shot which starts the boat-race, the brief,
shrill whistle which starts the train. "Just nip off your horse and pull
out that stake." "You nipped out o' the army," said a snob to a friend
of mine, who had retired some years before the Crimean invasion, and
who, in his magisterial capacity, had offended the snob; "you know'd t'
war wor' a-coming; you nipped out, you didn't relish them Rooshan
baggonets a-prodding and a-pricking. You nipped out o' th' army; you
know'd t' war wor' coming. Good morning. I think you were right."
When the wind bloweth in from the Orient, or when our discretion has
collapsed before a lobster salad (that claw looked so innocently pink,
and that lettuce so crisp and green!) then is poor human nature but too
prone to be querulous; we disagree, like the lobster, with our fellow
creatures; we are peevishly disposed to _nag_.
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