Alexander Andrew Knox

“ Of course London is pleasant in September when the seat of empire is your own—but it is pleasant as sleep is after toil, or night after day. I like, as well as any man, to have the library in the club entirely to myself, and to moralise in the deserts of Old Bond Street, but human nature has also its social and its gorgeous side. I have a rich vein of duchesses in my mind, which I can open up during the London season. ”

“ What a destiny it was to be born the summer king of that lovely land, where the blue waters of the Mediterranean wash the rocks upon which the orange trees grow; where the air is so delicate and light that one draws in contentment and happiness with every breath. So very easily ruled are the people in this southern paradise, that it was not necessary to be a great, nor a wise, nor a good king ”

“ The time has arrived when Europe and China must be brought together, and all the ridiculous shams and caricatures of government, which have hitherto interfered with this result, be swept away, peacefully if possible—if not, by the strong hand of power. We have not tolerated the misgovernment of thirty millions—why should we stand by quietly and witness the degradation and oppression of three hundred millions, if we have the power to prevent it, and that without a violation of the canons of public policy and right which regulate the intercourse of nations even in the Western world? ”

“ British hands must never wield the scourge, or knot the halter for torture, or stay the slave who has endeavoured to escape from his hard bondage, even if, peradventure, he has shed human blood in the attempt to recover his freedom. Upon such a point we will have no half-measure or compromise—it must not be. What is it to us if a slave-owner, or his agent, who throws himself across the path of a fugitive slave, and compels the unfortunate man to slay him in self-defence, has been stricken to the earth? ”

“ What will the jury think when they are told that your picture of alleged cruelty is a total misrepresentation?—that your husband had taken you to Brussels for your own pleasure, because he always endea- voured to gratify your smallest whim?—that upon one occasion you were sitting in the most luxurious room of the most luxurious hotel of that famous city, he surrounding you, as usual, with every comfort you could desire;—that in a playful mood he stole behind you, having taken your own scissors from your own work-box, and cut off just the end of your hair, enough to garnish a little locket? ”

“ No! like Hippolytus, I curse the sex,—but the iron has entered into my soul. I am their slave. Were my Sophia to be torn from me to-morrow—I know it—within a few months I should be the victim of some fresh fascination—I can’t resist it—I can’t struggle against it. You all of you know my particular wrongs, and that I am not a husband who yields his neck to the axe without a struggle—but I, I Brown, falsely named the Avenger, had I been on the jury in poor Barber’s case the other day, I would have kicked him out of court, and found a verdict for the wife without the smallest hesitation. ”

“ It is pleasant to turn from a country, even though it be one with which all our sympathies are bound up by community of language, of religion, of race, but upon which rests so direful a stain, to another which is shaking off chains as heavy as those which ever oppressed the poor negro’s limbs. It is something to have lived to see the independence of Italy all but consummated, and to feel that, if life be spared but a short while longer, the consummation will be achieved. Victor Emmanuel has now taken possession of Southern Italy. ”

“ A spirited gushing young thing with candid blue eyes, and great decision of character, takes a young lady friend by the arm, and in the artless confidence of virgin friendship leads her across the room as if she had some secret of great weight and moment to impart to her,—but as they pass the young millionaire she pours into him a good raking fire from the corner of her eye, and takes up position so as to silence the artillery of the more languid combatant. ”

“ Here, then, are three creatures—forgive me, Flora—one creature, Peg Dobbs: a mere man, that is myself: and a bright angel, I need not say who that is—all wretched. At this moment, Sir Cresswell glides down, to his Court in his brougham, like a beneficent genius on a sunbeam, and sets us all free. Do you suppose that such an union as that between Hateful Peg and myself could be hallowed to all eternity? ”

“ How bright the night is in those southern seas—and how solemnly the great moon seems to hang just over one’s head; and when the evening dews have fallen, how warm the air is, as one paces the deck, with the sound of the rushing waters falling fitfully on the ear. Far as the eye can reach around, nothing but water—water—everywhere reflecting the myriad stars with which the firmament is studded. The Asia held steadily on her way, and below were the sleepers dreaming of their English homes. ”

“ But if London at all times is better than any other place you could name, what is it not during the season, when every joy is at its climax, and when all your friends and acquaintances from all parts of the country, and from all parts of the continent, and from all parts of the world, come dropping in thick as gnats used to be in summer evenings—when there were summer evenings, and there were gnats. ”

“ Walk about the streets of London with an observant eye, and amongst other strange sights you will notice many persons who pass you by with so abstracted an air that you feel sure that though their bodies are in London their souls are out of town. They are smiling fantastically—they are making strange gestures—they are muttering to themselves—their minds are far indeed from the turmoil of cabs, and omnibuses, and jostling people amongst whom they are making their way. ”

“ When the continental nations adopt such a system of internal government as will leave them without a fear of danger from within, they will be able to disarm—not before. As long as one remains in arms, all will remain in arms. As long as the Continent is armed, England must look to her own security. Meanwhile, nothing can be more contemptible—nothing more unworthy of the English character than the periodical panics which run like wild-fire throughout the nation. Why should England fear France, or indeed Europe? We have but to will our own security, and the thing is done. ”

“ Presuming a perfect accord and harmony of political sentiments between Great Britain and her Australian colonies, the Canadas, and the United States of North America, should such an Alliance as this fear, for one moment, all that could be done by a world in arms? Of course, diplomatic traditions, and dynastic considerations, stand in the way upon our own side of the Atlantic; and upon the other there are the first upheavings of a young nation which is just becoming conscious of its own strength, and a kind of robust contempt for the old political experience of Europe. ”

“ What a sight it is, that Grand Stand on the Derby Day! It is to be questioned if ever—save, perhaps, on the battle-field, where everybody is intent upon killing everybody—there is anywhere else to be found such a mass of human beings under the influence of precisely the same idea at the same moment. You trace the progress of the horses round the course by the direction in which all the heads are turned. And how the ladies do flirt in platoons! There is no great chance of skirmishing upon the Grand Stand at Epsom. ”

“ There are the begging-letter writers, a most ingenious class, admirable for their industry: the regular beggars, who spend the proceeds of their day’s whining upon gin, and ham, and eggs: the people who live by loan-offices: the people who live by burning their houses down, and cheating the insurance office: the bill swindlers: the horse chaunters: and so forth. All these people get on somehow; though, happily, it is a well-established rule, that London rogues give themselves the greatest amount of trouble, and produce the smallest results. Lazy men should take to honesty as to an easy-chair. ”

“ Go and number the sands of the sea-shore, or the gnats who fly round your head on a summer’s evening, and you may be able to number the children of London. They ooze out from the pavement; they settle on the windows of the humblest apartments like flies. You can’t drive in a cab at a moderate speed down any of the London streets for fear of crushing a score or two of them under the horse’s feet. There is not a blind alley which is not choked with them. ”

“ What a pity it is that all our National collections of pictures, of statues, of antiquities, of objects of Natural History, should be shorn of half their value from the meanness of the various buildings in which they are exhibited to public view, and from the confused manner in which they are huddled together. We have, in London, but one room which is really worthy of the purpose to which it is devoted, and that is the new Reading-room of the British Museum. This, indeed, is a magnificent apartment—a credit to the country, and a great boon to all men engaged in literary pursuits. ”

“ Kings were not to have midday to themselves,—the great ones of the earth the dawning and the twilight,—whilst the great mass of mankind, the millions of the earth, were to hew their wood and draw their water when the glorious sun had sunk below the horizon, and to delve and dig and labour in the dark. It is not enough that another man sees for me. ”

“ A Frenchman’s first impressions of London can scarcely be favourable. He has but small appreciation of the comforts and conveniences which the town really contains; and he has an intense longing for various luxuries which it does not contain. Our foreign visitors would scarcely care a button about the well-paved and well-lighted streets on either side of Regent Street—but in Regent Street itself they would miss the splendour of the cafés, and the glare of lights at night, and the rattle of the dominoes, and the little marble tables under the canopies, and the moving gesticulating crowds. ”

“ The Emperor of the French has just shown himself infinitely superior in statesmanship and intelligence to the courtiers whom he has hitherto used rather as the instruments of his policy than as his councillors and colleagues. For some nine years past France has been dumb. For nine years that great country which has contributed so much to the intellectual life of Europe has been struck with the curse of sterility in this respect. ”

“ In its silken meshes the Wanderer has been caught for the two hundred and sixty-seventh time. Hapless Being! his case is beyond the reach of art. I see it in the vulturelike look with which he devours the charms of the yellow-haired Miriam. It is an awful sight to see all that suffering, and experience, and wisdom subjugated—though but for an hour—by a foolish puppet, whom I or any bystander, not being in love with her, can easily enough perceive to be the ordinary mixture of coquetry and commonplace. Ah, Ikey, Ikey! ”

“ It is better to be in London, and to be free, and to look up the pleasant people as you feel a thirst for their presence. Under ordinary circumstances nothing is duller, as far as society is concerned, than country life in England; and out of England it can scarcely be said to exist. Whatever they may be to the natives of the countries, foreign capitals are to English people but as watering-places,—delightful for a time, but in the long run poor substitutes for London during the season. ”

“ But what a wonderful sight the Ride is during the season. You have scarcely recovered your breath from the effect of one vision which has cantered past, when four come on a-breast under the guardianship of two tall wretches with violent whiskers. Then the little gentleman with the tippet—may his shadow never be less!—trots past on his lean horse, and gives time for the restorative agencies of nature to come again into play. ”

“ If ever there was a loiterer by old bookshops, and a lover of old crinkum-crankums of every kind, I am that idle, useless person: but of all the fair sights which the London streets can show, the fairest are those beautiful young maids and matrons who, as the season grows fervent, are drawn about in their triumphal cars by horses such as Greece never dreamed of, for all the testimony of her Elgin marbles. How all that human ingenuity could contrive, or human industry procure from all quarters of the globe, has been lavished on these Summer Queens ”

“ War is always unpopular with Prussia, as every one knows who has ever witnessed the amount of domestic misery consequent upon a desire for what is called the “mobilisation” of the army, when the soldiers are called back from their ploughs and their shop-boards to the ranks. Russia is still exhausted with her last enormous struggle; and if the war party in Austria, of which Francis Joseph is the head, should succeed in plunging the Empire once more into war, the base of their operations will indeed be a house doubly and trebly divided against itself! ”