European Source Book

Famous quotes containing the words european, source and/or book:

    When the inhabitants of some sequestered island first descry the “big canoe” of the European rolling through the blue waters towards their shores, they rush down to the beach in crowds, and with open arms stand ready to embrace the strangers. Fatal embrace! They fold to their bosoms the vipers whose sting is destined to poison all their joys; and the instinctive feeling of love within their breasts is soon converted into the bitterest hate.
    Herman Melville (1819–1891)

    If, for instance, they have heard something from the postman, they attribute it to “a semi-official statement”; if they have fallen into conversation with a stranger at a bar, they can conscientiously describe him as “a source that has hitherto proved unimpeachable.” It is only when the journalist is reporting a whim of his own, and one to which he attaches minor importance, that he defines it as the opinion of “well-informed circles.”
    Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966)

    And she straiked me three times o’er her knee;
    She changed me again to my ain proper shape,
    And I nae mair maun toddle about the tree.
    —Unknown. Alison Gross. . .

    Oxford Book of Ballads, The. James Kinsley, ed. (1969)