The Wind in the Willows: A River Adventure by Kenneth Grahame, Study notes of Poetry

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The Wind in the Willows

By Kenneth Grahame A Language-Illustrated Classic by Michael Clay Thompson Royal Fireworks Press Unionville, New York

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The first paragraph of Grahame’s novel is an announcement—almost a manifesto—of the power of poetics in prose. We hear splashes of whitewash and alliterated adjective and noun pairs such as divine discontent , and we see the movements of the Mole captured in the meter of the sentence: First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and stairs.... Grahame captures the scraping sound of Mole’s scratching: So he scraped and scratched and scrabbled and scrooged and then he scrooged again and scrabbled and scratched and scraped, working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself, ‘Up we go! Up we go!’ till at last, pop! his snout came out into the sunlight, and he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow.

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and scraped, working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself, ‘Up we go! Up we go!’ till at last, pop! his snout came out into the sunlight, and he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow. ‘This is fine!’ he said to himself. ‘This is better than whitewashing!’ The sunshine struck hot on his fur, soft breezes caressed his heated brow, and after the seclusion of the cellarage he had lived in so long the carol of happy birds fell on his dulled hearing almost like a shout. Jumping off all his four legs at once, in the joy of living and the delight of spring without its cleaning, he pursued his way across the meadow till he reached the hedge on the further side. ‘Hold up!’ said an elderly rabbit at the gap. ‘Sixpence for the privilege of passing by the private road!’ He was bowled over in an instant by the impatient and contemptuous Mole, who trotted along the side of the hedge chaffing the other rabbits as they peeped hurriedly from their holes to see what the row was about. ‘Onion- sauce! Onion-sauce!’ he remarked jeeringly, and was gone before they could think of a thoroughly satisfactory reply. Then they all started grumbling at each other. ‘How STUPID you are! Why didn’t you tell him—’ chaffing : adj. lighthearted joking row : n. a noisy quarrel, rhymes with plow jeeringly : adv. rudely and mockingly

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‘Well, why didn’t YOU say—’ ‘You might have reminded him—’ and so on, in the usual way; but, of course, it was then much too late, as is always the case. Sixpence for the privilege of passing by the private road! It all seemed too good to be true. Hither and thither through the meadows he rambled busily, along the hedgerows, across the copses, finding everywhere birds building, flowers budding, leaves thrusting— everything happy, and progressive, and occupied. And instead of having an uneasy conscience pricking him and whispering ‘whitewash!’ he somehow could only feel how jolly it was to be the only idle dog among all these busy citizens. 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. He thought his happiness was complete when, as he meandered aimlessly along, suddenly he stood by the edge of a full-fed river. Never in his life had he seen a river before—this sleek, sinuous, full-bodied animal, hither and thither : here and there copses : n. small woods, small groups of trees meandered : v. followed a winding course, wandered sinuous : adj. curving

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dust. As he gazed, something bright and small seemed to twinkle down in the heart of it, vanished, then twinkled once more like a tiny star. But it could hardly be a star in such an unlikely situation; and it was too glittering and small for a glow-worm. Then, as he looked, it winked at him, and so declared itself to be an eye; and a small face began gradually to grow up round it, like a frame round a picture. A brown little face, with whiskers. A grave round face, with the same twinkle in its eye that had first attracted his notice. Small neat ears and thick silky hair. It was the Water Rat! Then the two animals stood and regarded each other cautiously. ‘Hullo, Mole!’ said the Water Rat. ‘Hullo, Rat!’ said the Mole. ‘Would you like to come over?’ enquired the Rat presently. ‘Oh, its all very well to TALK,’ said the Mole, rather pettishly, he being new to a river and riverside life and its ways. The Rat said nothing, but stooped and unfastened a water rat : a ratlike rodent that is semiaquatic, similar to a beaver pettishly : adv. with childish bad temper

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rope and hauled on it; then lightly stepped into a little boat which the Mole had not observed. It was painted blue outside and white within, and was just the size for two animals; and the Mole’s whole heart went out to it at once, even though he did not yet fully understand its uses. The Rat sculled smartly across and made fast. Then he held up his forepaw as the Mole stepped gingerly down. ‘Lean on that!’ he said. ‘Now then, step lively!’ and the Mole to his surprise and rapture found himself actually seated in the stern of a real boat. ‘This has been a wonderful day!’ said he, as the Rat shoved off and took to the sculls again. ‘Do you know, I’ve never been in a boat before in all my life.’ ‘What?’ cried the Rat, open-mouthed: ‘Never been in a—you never—well I—what have you been doing, then?’ ‘Is it so nice as all that?’ asked the Mole shyly, though he was quite prepared to believe it as he leant back in his seat and surveyed the cushions, the oars, the rowlocks, and all the fascinating fittings, and felt the boat sway lightly under him. ‘Nice? It’s the ONLY thing,’ said the Water Rat solemnly, as he leant forward for his stroke. ‘Believe sculled : v. rowed with sculls, small oars gingerly : adv. cautiously, with great care

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leaned back blissfully into the soft cushions. ‘WHAT a day I’m having!’ he said. ‘Let us start at once!’ ‘Hold hard a minute, then!’ said the Rat. He looped the painter through a ring in his landing-stage, climbed up into his hole above, and after a short interval reappeared staggering under a fat, wicker luncheon-basket. ‘Shove that under your feet,’ he observed to the Mole, as he passed it down into the boat. Then he untied the painter and took the sculls again. ‘What’s inside it?’ asked the Mole, wriggling with curiosity. ‘There’s cold chicken inside it,’ replied the Rat briefly; ‘coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssalad frenchrollscresssandwichespottedmeatgingerbeer lemonadesodawater—’ ‘O stop, stop,’ cried the Mole in ecstacies: ‘This is too much!’ ‘Do you really think so?’ enquired the Rat seriously. ‘It’s only what I always take on these little excursions; and the other animals are always telling me that I’m a mean beast and cut it VERY fine!’ The Mole never heard a word he was saying. Absorbed in the new life he was entering upon, intoxicated with gherkins : n. a small variety of cucumber

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the sparkle, the ripple, the scents and the sounds and the sunlight, he trailed a paw in the water and dreamed long waking dreams. The Water Rat, like the good little fellow he was, sculled steadily on and forebore to disturb him. ‘I like your clothes awfully, old chap,’ he remarked after some half an hour or so had passed. ‘I’m going to get a black velvet smoking-suit myself some day, as soon as I can afford it.’ ‘I beg your pardon,’ said the Mole, pulling himself together with an effort. ‘You must think me very rude; but all this is so new to me. So—this—is—a—River!’ ‘THE River,’ corrected the Rat. ‘And you really live by the river? What a jolly life!’ ‘By it and with it and on it and in it,’ said the Rat. ‘It’s brother and sister to me, and aunts, and company, and food and drink, and (naturally) washing. It’s my world, and I don’t want any other. What it hasn’t got is not worth having, and what it doesn’t know is not worth knowing. Lord! the times we’ve had together! Whether in winter or summer, spring or autumn, it’s always got its fun and its excitements. When the floods are on in February, and my cellars and basement are brimming forbore : v. refrained from an impulse

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‘Aren’t they—aren’t they very NICE people in there?’ said the Mole, a trifle nervously. ‘W-e-ll,’ replied the Rat, ‘let me see. The squirrels are all right. AND the rabbits—some of ’em, but rabbits are a mixed lot. And then there’s Badger, of course. He lives right in the heart of it; wouldn’t live anywhere else, either, if you paid him to do it. Dear old Badger! Nobody interferes with HIM. They’d better not,’ he added significantly. Nobody interferes with HIM. pron. v. prep. pron.

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subj. AVP

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--prep. phrase--

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----------------------------independent clause-------------------------- a simple declarative sentence

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This sentence has concentrated power that would be lost if it contained additional modifiers. What if it said, “Nobody really interferes with him very much”? ‘Why, who SHOULD interfere with him?’ asked the Mole. ‘Well, of course—there—are others,’ explained the

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Rat in a hesitating sort of way. ‘Weasels—and stoats—and foxes—and so on. They’re all right in a way—I’m very good friends with them—pass the time of day when we meet, and all that—but they break out sometimes, there’s no denying it, and then— well, you can’t really trust them, and that’s the fact.’ The Mole knew well that it is quite against animal- etiquette to dwell on possible trouble ahead, or even to allude to it; so he dropped the subject. ‘And beyond the Wild Wood again?’ he asked: ‘Where it’s all blue and dim, and one sees what may be hills or perhaps they mayn’t, and something like the smoke of towns, or is it only cloud-drift?’ ‘Beyond the Wild Wood comes the Wide World,’ said the Rat. ‘And that’s something that doesn’t matter, either to you or me. I’ve never been there, and I’m never going, nor you either, if you’ve got any sense at all. Don’t ever refer to it again, please. Now then! Here’s our backwater at last, where we’re going to lunch.’ Leaving the main stream, they now passed into what seemed at first sight like a little land-locked lake. Green turf sloped down to either edge, brown snaky tree-roots gleamed below the surface of the quiet water, while ahead stoats : n. short-tailed weasels, chestnut with a white belly allude : v. to refer to indirectly backwater : n. a still part of a river not reached by the current

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at a very early hour that morning, as people WILL do, and had not paused for bite or sup; and he had been through a very great deal since that distant time which now seemed so many days ago. ‘What are you looking at?’ said the Rat presently, when the edge of their hunger was somewhat dulled, and the Mole’s eyes were able to wander off the table- cloth a little. ‘I am looking,’ said the Mole, ‘at a streak of bubbles that I see travelling along the surface of the water. That is a thing that strikes me as funny.’ ‘Bubbles? Oho!’ said the Rat, and chirruped cheerily in an inviting sort of way. A broad glistening muzzle showed itself above the edge of the bank, and the Otter hauled himself out and shook the water from his coat. ‘Greedy beggars!’ he observed, making for the provender. ‘Why didn’t you invite me, Ratty?’ ‘This was an impromptu affair,’ explained the Rat. ‘By the way—my friend Mr. Mole.’ ‘Proud, I’m sure,’ said the Otter, and the two animals were friends forthwith. ‘Such a rumpus everywhere!’ continued the Otter. sup : n. a sip provender : n. food impromptu : adj. unplanned forthwith : adv. immediately rumpus : n. a commotion

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‘All the world seems out on the river to-day. I came up this backwater to try and get a moment’s peace, and then stumble upon you fellows!—At least—I beg pardon—I don’t exactly mean that, you know.’ There was a rustle behind them, proceeding from a hedge wherein last year’s leaves still clung thick, and a stripy head, with high shoulders behind it, peered forth on them. ‘Come on, old Badger!’ shouted the Rat. The Badger trotted forward a pace or two; then grunted, ‘H’m! Company,’ and turned his back and disappeared from view. ‘That’s JUST the sort of fellow he is!’ observed the disappointed Rat. ‘Simply hates Society! Now we shan’t see any more of him to-day. Well, tell us, WHO’S out on the river?’ ‘Toad’s out, for one,’ replied the Otter. ‘In his brand- new wager-boat; new togs, new everything!’ The two animals looked at each other and laughed. ‘Once, it was nothing but sailing,’ said the Rat, ‘Then he tired of that and took to punting. Nothing would please him but to punt all day and every day, and a nice mess he made of it. Last year it was house-boating, and togs : n. clothes punt : v. to use a flat-bottomed boat propelled by a long pole

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The Mole looked down. The voice was still in his ears, but the turf whereon he had sprawled was clearly vacant. Not an Otter to be seen, as far as the distant horizon. But again there was a streak of bubbles on the surface of the river. The Rat hummed a tune, and the Mole recollected that animal-etiquette forbade any sort of comment on the sudden disappearance of one’s friends at any moment, for any reason or no reason whatever. ‘Well, well,’ said the Rat, ‘I suppose we ought to be moving. I wonder which of us had better pack the luncheon-basket?’ He did not speak as if he was frightfully eager for the treat. ‘O, please let me,’ said the Mole. So, of course, the Rat let him. Packing the basket was not quite such pleasant work as unpacking the basket. It never is. But the Mole was bent on enjoying everything, and although just when he had got the basket packed and strapped up tightly he saw a plate staring up at him from the grass, and when the job had been done again the Rat pointed out a fork which anybody ought to have seen, and last of all, behold! the mustard pot, which he had been sitting on without

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knowing it—still, somehow, the thing got finished at last, without much loss of temper. The afternoon sun was getting low as the Rat sculled gently homewards in a dreamy mood, murmuring poetry- things over to himself, and not paying much attention to Mole. But the Mole was very full of lunch, and self- satisfaction, and pride, and already quite at home in a boat (so he thought) and was getting a bit restless besides: and presently he said, ‘Ratty! Please, I want to row, now!’ low, homewards, poetry, over, Mole* The Rat shook his head with a smile. ‘Not yet, my young friend,’ he said—‘wait till you’ve had a few lessons. It’s not so easy as it looks.’ The Mole was quiet for a minute or two. But he began to feel more and more jealous of Rat, sculling so strongly and so easily along, and his pride began to whisper that he could do it every bit as well. He jumped up and seized the sculls, so suddenly, that the Rat, who was gazing out over the water and saying more poetry-things to himself, was taken by surprise and fell backwards off his seat *assonance : a poetic technique of repeating a vowel sound, especially to create a particular tone or feel in an idea