| | 1 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Canterbury Pilgrims  | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | THE summer moon, which shines in so many a tale, was beaming over
a broad extent of uneven country. Some of its brightest rays were
flung
into a spring of water, where no traveller, toiling, as the writer
has, up
the hilly road beside which it gushes, ever failed to quench his
thirst.
The work of neat hands and considerate art was visible about this
blessed
fountain. An open cistern, hewn and hollowed out of solid stone,
was
placed above the waters, which filled it to the brim, but by some
invisible
outlet were conveyed away without dripping down its sides. Though
the
basin had not room for another drop, and the continual gush of
water
made a tremor on the surface, there was a secret charm that forbade
it
to overflow. I remember, that when I had slaked my summer thirst,
and
sat panting by the cistern, it was my fanciful theory that Nature
could
not afford to lavish so pure a liquid, as she does the waters of
all meaner
fountains. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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