Homework

palsy (n) - paralysis

Euroclydon (n) - a cyclonic tempestuous wind which blows in the Meditteranean.

zephyr (n) - soft, gentle breeze

hob (n, british) - flat top part of a cooker, or a separate flat surface, containing gas or electric rings for cooking on.

extant (adj) - still existing  

wight (n) - person, creature, being, whit, thing, something, anything.

glazier (n) - a person whose profession is fitting glass into windows and doors.

copestone (n) - a finishing touch or a crowning achievement, a culmination.






"It was a queer sort of place --- a gable-ended old house, one side palsied as it were, and leaning over sadly.  It stood on a sharp bleak corner, where that tempestuous wind Euroclydon kept up a worse howling than ever it did about poor Paul's tossed craft.  Euroclydon, nevertheless, is a mighty pleasant zephyr to any one in-doors, with his feet on the hob quietly toasting for bed, "In judging of that tempestuous wind called Euroclydon," says an old writer   --- of whose works I possess the only copy extant --- "it maketh a marvellous difference, whether thou lookest out at it from a glass window where the frost is all on the outside, or whether thou observest it from that sashless window, where the frost is on both sides, and of which the wight Death is the only glazier."  True enough, though , as this passage occurred to my mind --- old black-letter, thou reasonest well.  Yes, these eyes are windows, and this body of mine is the house.  What a pity they didn't stop up the chinks and the crannies though, and thrust a little lint here and there.  But it's too late to make any improvements now.  The universe is finished; the copestone is on, and the chips were carted off a million years ago." 


-pg. 14