Arthur Colton

“ We used to sit in front of the shed sometimes, looking down on the sea that was blue and shining like rumpled silk, Craney smoking cigars and I with my pipe.
“Tommy,” he'd say, “the world lies open before us. Everywhere is chances for a soaring ambition, everywhere is harvests for the man that's got talents. There's diamonds in rocks, and there's pearls in oysters. Richness grows out of the ground, and glory drops out of the clouds. Me, I'm a man of ideals. Give me room to spread. Let me strike my gait and I'll make the continents sizzle, and governments have fits. Expand, Tommy! ”

“ An oil painting of a lady hung over the mantel, and near it some mediæval Madonna, not unresembling the portrait in its pale cheeks, unworldly eyes, and that faint monastic air of vigil and vision and strenuous yearning of the soul to throw its dust aside. Nevertheless the face of the lady was a sweet face, quiet and pure, such as from many a Madonna of the Old World in tawdry regalia looks pityingly down over altar and winking tapers, seeming to say with her tender eyes, “Is it very hard, my dear, the living? Come apart then and rest awhile.” Mignon turned to Mrs. Cullom. ”

“ Just such a shawl my maiden aunts wore in Connecticut, just such doilies were on their rocking chairs, just such flowered carpets were in their parlours. They dressed like Mrs. Mink too, but, to the best of my recollection, were not so agreeable to look at.
That weird glistening sea garden of coral and purple feathers and improbable fish was fresh in my mind, with Dr. Ulswater's talk, both undomestic, paradoxical, and showing coloured objects slumberously afloat in a transparent and deluding element. ”

“ The Afghan fled,
The king across Ben Ali's shoulders passed
His heavy arm and to the gardens led,
Where fluttered groups of dancing girls, aghast,
Huddled aside, and through the night at last
Came to the river, and Ben Ali said:
BEN ALI. "Hearken, O King, thy counsellor's report:
Thou keepest a young vizier in thy court
Unfit to be a counsellor to power,
Fit only to jest with an idle hour,
Who holds the scales of justice not in awe,
And lightly quibbles with the holy law,
And takes the lives of trembling men to be
The butt and plaything of his casuistry." ”

“ The postmaster was stout now, with grizzled hair cut Quakerly, ponderously grave, except that his left eyelid drooped and twitched. It was the one place on his wide face where the old spirit of demonry hinted of itself, and spoke of the days of the consulship of Tad and Pete. Without doubt the world was degenerate, and had lost its breed of noble bloods. Alas, Tad and Pete, once sworn and faithful, of one ideal together; now each in the eyes of the other was an exquisite absurdity, and all the young were degenerate, except Nellie. "Pete, she's doing well, poor little ghost, on my word." ”

“ On the morning after Aidee's visit Miss Eunice sat at the parlour window knitting. Beyond the lawn ran Lower Bank Street; beyond the street and underneath the bluff were the freight-yards, with piles of black coal and brown iron dust, and a travelling crane rattling to and fro, from ship to car. Beyond the yards were the river and the P. and N. railroad bridge; beyond the river the dark chimneys of factories, with long roofs, and black smoke streaming in the sky, and the brick and wood tenements of East Argent. ”

“ A thousand spectres go whirling across Edom Hill such winter nights and come with importunate messages, but if the door is close and the fire courageous, it matters little. They are but wind and drift and out in the dark, and if one is in the light, it is a great point to keep the door fast against them and all forebodings, and let the coming days be what they will.
Men are not born in a night, or a year.
But if David Sebastian were a spectre there at the door, and thought differently on any question, or had more to say, he was not articulate. ”

“ I listened to the creak and thump of the loose spar, the murmur of the rain, the splash of waves against the Violetta's sides. I reflected that our situation was perhaps more unusual than perilous; that we were likely to be seen by somebody if the weather cleared; that after all the sea is in reality a less eventful element than the land; that a philosophic mind is better than a feather bed; that with reasonable good luck and a philosophic mind I might have the credit of a nightlong watch over Mrs. Mink's slumbers, along with the benefit of a night's rest. ”

“ The road winds around hillocks and down hollows in an aimless fashion; and for that reason it is not possible to see much of it at a time. When the villagers of Hagar reached the top of the first hill, Joppa was nearly a mile away, his stubby legs rather tired, his spirit more tranquil, and himself out of sight of the villagers of Hagar. He saw no point in turning back. Hagar gave him but a dull and unideal life, plodding between shafts before the austere and silent deacon, unaccountably smacked with a whip, and in constant contrast with Borneo's good looks. ”

“ We thank Thee, Lord, for the years we've had,
For the years that yet shall be.
These are our brothers, the winds of the airs,
These are our sisters, the flowers;
Be near us at evening and hear our prayers,
O God, in the late, grey hours.
THE HOUSE Such an house I'll build and own,
When into old contentment grown
With reaping what my youth has sown.
The drooping roof be low and wide,
Curved like a seashell's inner side;
Let vines the patient pillars hide
Of that deep porch and ample shade ”