{"author":"Kenneth Grahame","author_id":"Kenneth+Grahame","total_quotes":23,"quotes":[{"text":"All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered.","author":"Kenneth Grahame","tags":["awe","living","nature"],"id":11199,"author_id":"Kenneth+Grahame"},{"text":"There he got out the luncheon-basket and packed a simple meal, in which, remembering the stranger's origin and preferences, he took care to include a yard of long French bread, a sausage out of which the garlic sang, some cheese which lay down and cried, and a long-necked straw-covered flask wherein lay bottled sunshine shed and garnered on far Southern slopes.","author":"Kenneth Grahame","tags":["baskets","bread","food","meals","picnics","sausage","slopes","sunshine"],"id":12820,"author_id":"Kenneth+Grahame"},{"text":"The clever men at Oxford Know all there is to be knowed - But they none of them know as half as much As intelligent Mr. Toad.","author":"Kenneth Grahame","tags":["scholars","scholarship"],"id":60493,"author_id":"Kenneth+Grahame"},{"text":"The rapid nightfall of mid-December had quite beset the little village as they approached it on soft feet over a first thin fall of powdery snow. Little was visible but squares of a dusky orange-red on either side of the street, where the firelight or lamplight of each cottage overflowed through the casements into the dark world without. Most of the low latticed windows were innocent of blinds, and to the lookers-in from outside, the inmates, gathered round the tea-table, absorbed in handiwork, or talking with laughter and gesture, had each that happy grace which is the last thing the skilled actor shall capture--the natural grace which goes with perfect unconsciousness of observation. Moving at will from one theatre to another, the two spectators, so far from home themselves, had something of wistfulnessin their eyes as they watched a cat being stroked, a sleepy child picked up and huddled off to bed, or a tired man stretch and knock out his pipe on the end of a smouldering log.","author":"Kenneth Grahame","tags":["december","nightfall","village","walk","winter"],"id":68708,"author_id":"Kenneth+Grahame"},{"text":"It was a pretty sight, and a seasonable one, that met their eyes when they flung the door open. In the fore-court, lit by the dim rays of a horn lantern, some eight or ten little field-mice stood in a semicircle, red worsted comforters round their throats, their fore-paws thrust deep into their pockets, their feet jigging for warmth. With bright beady eyes they glanced shyly at each other, sniggering a little, sniffing and applying coat-sleeves a good deal. As the door opened, one of the elder ones that carried the lantern was just saying, 'Now then, one, two, three!' and forthwith their shrill little voices uprose on the air, singing one of the old-time carols that their forefathers composed in fields that were fallow and held by frost, or when snow-bound in chimney corners, and handed down to be sung in the miry street to lamp-lit windows at Yule-time.","author":"Kenneth Grahame","tags":["christmas","christmas-carol","december"],"id":70642,"author_id":"Kenneth+Grahame"},{"text":"After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be resting yourself, as to see all the other fellows busy working.","author":"Kenneth Grahame","tags":["holiday","rest","vacation","wind-in-the-willows","work"],"id":88609,"author_id":"Kenneth+Grahame"},{"text":"A careful inspection showed them that, even if they succeeded in righting it by themselves, the cart would travel no longer. The axles were in a hopeless state, and the missing wheel was shattered into pieces.","author":"Kenneth Grahame","tags":["missing","hopeless","wheel "],"id":107434,"author_id":"Kenneth+Grahame"},{"text":"The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spellbound by exciting stories; and when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea.","author":"Kenneth Grahame","tags":["rivers","storytelling"],"id":138705,"author_id":"Kenneth+Grahame"},{"text":"The Wild Wood is pretty well populated by now; with all the usual lot, good, bad, and indifferent - I name no names. It takes all sorts to make a world.","author":"Kenneth Grahame","tags":["all-sorts","bad","community","good","world"],"id":159035,"author_id":"Kenneth+Grahame"},{"text":"The pageant of the river bank had marched steadily along, unfolding itself in scene-pictures that succeeded itself in stately procession. Purple loosestrife arrived early, shaking luxuriant locks along the edge of the mirror whence its own face laughed back at it. Willow-herb, tender and wistful, like a pink sunset-cloud was not slow to follow. Comfrey, the purple hand-in-hand with the white, crept forth to take its place in the line; and at last one morning the diffident and delaying dog-rose stepped delicately on the stage, and one knew, as if string music has announced it in stately chords that strayed into a gavotte, that June at last was here. One member of the company was still awaited; the shepherd-boy for the nymphs to woo, the knight for whom the ladies waited at the window, the prince that was to kiss the sleeping summer back to life and love. But when meadow-sweet, debonair and odorous in amber jerkin, moved graciously to his place in the group, then the play was ready to begin.","author":"Kenneth Grahame","tags":["flowers"],"id":167828,"author_id":"Kenneth+Grahame"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":23,"pages":3,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}