Johnyxxx
Senior Member
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2014
- Member Type
- Interested in Language
- Native Language
- Czech
- Home Country
- Czech Republic
- Current Location
- Czech Republic
Hello,
Can anybody help me to understand what the idiom like breeds like means in the context?
‘Anyhow the vicarage reeked of it. A low old house, with lots of little windows and far too many doors; and, as I say, the trees too close up on one side, almost brushing the glass. No wonder they said it was what they call haunted. You could feel that with your eyes shut, and like breeds like. The Vicar – two or three, I mean, before my own gentleman – had even gone to the trouble of having the place exercised. Candles and holy water,
that kind of thing. Sheer flummummery, I call it. But if what I’ve heard there – and long before that gowk of a George came to work in the house – was anything more than mere age and owls and birds in the ivy, it must badly have needed it. And when you get accustomed to noises, you can tell which from which.
Walter de la Mare, Crewe, 1936
Thank you very much.
Can anybody help me to understand what the idiom like breeds like means in the context?
‘Anyhow the vicarage reeked of it. A low old house, with lots of little windows and far too many doors; and, as I say, the trees too close up on one side, almost brushing the glass. No wonder they said it was what they call haunted. You could feel that with your eyes shut, and like breeds like. The Vicar – two or three, I mean, before my own gentleman – had even gone to the trouble of having the place exercised. Candles and holy water,
that kind of thing. Sheer flummummery, I call it. But if what I’ve heard there – and long before that gowk of a George came to work in the house – was anything more than mere age and owls and birds in the ivy, it must badly have needed it. And when you get accustomed to noises, you can tell which from which.
Walter de la Mare, Crewe, 1936
Thank you very much.