St. Nicholas's Trouble

by Felix Timmermans (1886-1947), Flemish author

"De nood van Sinter-Klaas" (1924, in Het keerseken in den lanteern) is a tale of St. Nicholas and his comrade Knecht Ruprecht, set in modern, 20th-century times:

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Es fielen noch ein paar mollige Flocken aus der wegziehenden Schneewolke, und da stand auf einmal auch schon der runde Mond leuchtend über dem weißen Turm.

An Early 19th-Century Pastorale

"Landscape of a Couple Alone at Sunset," (19th cent.) by Cornelis Lieste (1817-61)
Oil on panel, 60 × 79 cm, in the Collectie Rademakers
From Wikimedia Commons

Keats (1795-1821)
English poet.

TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS.

[Southampton,] Tuesday Morn [April 15, 1817].

My dear Brothers—I am safe at Southampton—after having ridden three stages outside and the rest in for it began to be very cold. I did not know the Names of any of the Towns I passed through—all I can tell you is that sometimes I saw dusty Hedges—sometimes Ponds—then nothing—then a little Wood with trees look you like Launce's Sister* "as white as a Lily and as small as a Wand"—then came houses which died away into a few straggling Barns—then came hedge trees aforesaid again. As the Lamplight crept along the following things were discovered

Beyond Strange

Shakespeare

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

(The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Act I, Sc. V )
[From "Hamlet: Entire Play" [MIT])


Quoted often enough and interpreted easily enough; I will leave it at that.