Ebenezer Cobham Brewer

“ Versatile (Sir George) , a scholar, pleasing in manners, warm-hearted, generous, with the seeds of virtue and the soul of honor, but being deficient in stability, he takes his color, like the chameleon, from the objects at hand. Thus, with Maria Delaval, he is manly, frank, affectionate, and noble; with Lord Vibrate, hesitating, undecided, and tossed with doubts; with Lady Vibrate, boisterously gay, extravagant, and light-hearted. Sir George is betrothed to Maria Delaval, but the death of his father delays the marriage. He travels, and gives a fling to youthful indulgences. ”

“ Ossian, in Carrick-Thura, says that Loda, the god of his foes, came like a “blast from the mountain. He came in his terror and shook his dusky spear. His eyes were flames, and his voice like distant thunder. ‘Son of night,’ said Fingal, ‘retire. Do I fear thy gloomy form, spirit of dismal Loda? Weak is thy shield of cloud, feeble thy meteor sword.’” Then cleft he the gloomy shadow with his sword. It [5] fell like a column of smoke. It shrieked. Then rolling itself up, the wounded spirit rose on the wind, and the island shook to its foundation.” ”

“ A princess is beloved by a subject, and for this crime he is condemned to die by the king. Two doors open from the amphitheatre. Behind one crouches a tiger; behind the other smiles a woman whom the condemned is to marry. The princess, who loves the doomed man madly, knows which door conceals death, and which marriage, and by preconcert with her lover, gives him a secret signal which to open. He walks directly to the door on the right and opens it.
“Did the tiger come out of the door, or did the lady?”—Francis Richard Stockton, The Lady or the Tiger? ”

“ He refuses to be fattened: he balks; he has colic and spasms; he lies down in harness; he impales himself upon a broken rail; he keels over upon the grass, whizzing like a capsized engine; he bites himself—and has driven the family to the verge of insanity when Dobbs returns and upon beholding the "noble old fellow," shouts that they have the wrong horse! ”

“ The king gave the abbot three weeks' grace for his answers. A shepherd undertook to answer the three questions, so with crozier, mitre, rochet, and cope, he presented himself before the king. "What am I worth?" asked John. "Well," was the reply, "the Saviour was sold for thirty pence, and your majesty is a penny worse than He." The king laughed, and demanded what he had to say to the next question, and the man replied, "If you rise with the sun and ride with the sun, you will get round the world in a day." ”

“ The king then told his sons he would resign his throne to that son who brought home the handsomest bride. The White Cat told the prince to cut off its head and tail. On doing so, the creature resumed her human form, and was acknowledged to be the most beautiful woman on earth.
Her eyes committed theft upon all hearts, and her sweetness kept them captive. Her shape was majestic, her air noble and modest, her wit flowing, her manners engaging. In a word, she was beyond everything that was lovely.--Comtesse D’Aunoy, Fairy Tales (“The White Cat,” 1682) . ”

“ Jemlikha, the favorite Greek slave of Dakiānos of Ephesus. Nature had endowed him with every charm, “his words were sweeter than the honey of Arabia, and his wit sparkled like a diamond.” One day, Dakianos was greatly annoyed by a fly, which persisted in tormenting the king, whereupon Jemlikha said to himself, “If Dakianos cannot rule a fly, how can he be the creator of heaven and earth?” ”

“ A New York girl of great beauty and tender conscience, who is beguiled into marrying a country lawyer because she thinks he is dying for love of her. Having left out of sight the possibility that a loveless union leaves room for the entrance of a real passion, she is appalled at finding that she has slipped into an attachment to A Perfect Adonis, who has principle enough to leave her when he discovers the state of his own affections. Finding her a widow on his return to America, he presses his suit, and finds a rival in her only child, a spoiled baby of five or six years. ”

“ She was the elder daughter of the vizier of Persia. The sultan, Schahriah, exasperated at the infidelity of his wife, came to the hasty conclusion that no woman could be faithful; so he determined to marry a new wife every night, and strangle her at daybreak. Scheherazādê, wishing to free Persia of this disgrace, requested to be made the sultan’s wife, and succeeded in her wish. She was young and beautiful, of great courage and ready wit, well read, and an excellent memory, knew history, philosophy, and medicine, was besides a good poet, musician, and dancer. ”

“ She fell in love with duke Grondibert, whose wounds she assisted her father to heal. Birtha, "in love unpractised and unread," is the beau-ideal of innocence and purity of mind. Grondibert had just plighted his love to her when he was summoned to court, for king Aribert had proclaimed him his successor and future son-in-law. Gondibert assured Birtha he would remain true to her, and gave her an emerald ring which he told her would lose its lustre if he proved untrue. ”

“ I am all gaiety and good humor; you are all turmoil and lamentation. I sing, laugh, and welcome pleasure wherever I find it; you take your lantern to look for misery, which the sun itself cannot discover. ”

“ Generally speaking, "a dirty dog" is one morally filthy, and is applied to those who talk and act nastily. Mere skin dirt is quite another matter, and those who are so defiled we call dirty pigs.
A surly dog. A human being of a surly temper, like a surly dog.
Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing? (2 Kings viii. 12, 13) . Hazael means, "Am I such a brute as to set on fire the strongholds of Israel, slay the young men with the sword, and dash their children to the ground, as thou, Elijah, sayest I shall do when I am king?" ”

“ Bertha Plummer, the blind daughter of the toy-maker, who fancied her poor old father was a young fop, that the sack he threw across his shoulders was a handsome blue great-coat, and that their wooden house was a palace. She was in love with Tackleton, the toy merchant, whom she thought to be a handsome young prince; and when she heard that he was about to marry May Fielding, she drooped and was like to die. ”

“ He was enslaved to the witch Syc'orax, mother of Caliban, who overtasked the little thing, and in punishment for not doing what was beyond his strength, imprisoned him for twelve years in the rift of a pine tree, where Caliban delighted to torture him with impish cruelty. Prospero, duke of Milan and father of Miranda, liberated Ariel from the pine-rift, and the grateful spirit served the duke for sixteen years, when he was set free.
And like Ariel in the cloven pine tree,
For its freedom groans and sighs. ”

“ She loves Heartfree, a railer against women, and when he proposes marriage to Belinda, a rival beauty, spreads a most impudent scandal, which, however, reflects only on herself. Heartfree, who at one time was partly in love with her, says to her:
“Nature made you handsome, gave you beauty to a miracle, a shape without a fault, wit enough to make them relish ... but art has made you become the pity of our sex, and the jest of your own. ”

“ The king and his knights came to the river and they found there a stone floating, as it had been of red marble, and therein stuck a fair and rich sword, and in the pomell thereof were precious stones, wrought with subtil letters of gold. Then the barons read the letters, which said in this wise: Never shall man take me hence, but only he by whom I ought to hang, and he shall be the best knight of the world. [Sir Galahad drew the sword easily, but no other knight was able to pull it forth.] --Sir T. Malory, History of Prince Arthur, iii. ”

“ There should not be a river in the world, no matter how small, thou dost not know the name of, with the nature and habits of all fishes, all fowls of the air, all shrubs and trees, all metals, minerals, gems and precious stones. ”

“ The chevalier Raoul is a merciless tyrant, with a blue beard. His young wife is entrusted with all the keys of the castle, with strict injunctions on pain of death not to open one special room. During the absence of her lord the "forbidden fruit" is too tempting to be resisted, the door is opened, and the young wife finds the floor covered with the dead bodies of her husband's former wives. She drops the key in her terror, and can by no means obliterate from it the stain of blood. ”

“ He is the hero of a Spanish romance by Cervantes. Don Quixote feels himself called on to become a knight-errant to defend the oppressed, and succor the injured. He engages for his squire Sancho Panza, a middle-aged, ignorant rustic, selfish, but full of good sense, a gourmand, attached to his master, shrewd and credulous. The knight goes [268] forth on his adventures, thinks wind-mills to be giants, flocks of sheep to be armies, inns to be castles, and galley-slaves oppressed gentlemen; but the squire sees them in their true light. ”

“ When Sir Tristram was wounded in fighting for his uncle, Mark, he went to Ireland, and was cured by the Fair Ysolde. On his return to Cornwall he gave his uncle such a glowing account of the young princess that he was sent to propose offers of marriage, and to conduct the lady to Cornwall. The brave young knight and the fair damsel fell in love with each other on their voyage, and, although Ysolde married King Mark, she retained to the end her love for Sir Tristram. King Mark, jealous of his nephew, banished him from Cornwall, and he went to Wales, where he performed prodigies of valor. ”

“ A young Nantucket giant married to a dainty waif rescued in infancy from the sea. He marries her because she is homeless and seems to be in love with him. When too late, he knows that his affections are another's, and sees his wife fascinated by a handsome French adventurer. In an attempt to elope, the wife and her lover are wrecked, and clinging to a spar, are overtaken by the "terrible South Breaker—plunging and rearing and swelling, a monstrous billow, sweeping and swooping and rocking in." ”

“ British Traditions. King Arthur is not dead in Avillon, but is merely metamorphosed into a raven. In due time he will awake, resume his proper person, claim the throne of Britain, and make it the head and front of all the kingdoms of the globe. “Because King Arthur bears for the nonce the semblance of a raven, the people of Britain never kill a raven” (Cervantes, Don Quixote, I. ii. 5) . ”

“ Ariste’s plan:
Leur sexe aime à jouir d’un peu de liberté;
On le retient fort mal par tant d’austérité;
Et les soins défiants les verroux et les grilles,
Ne font pas la vertu des femmes ni des filles;
C’est l’honneur qui les doit tenir dans le devoir,
Non la sévérité que nous leur faisons voir ...
Je trouve que le cœur est ce qu’il faut gagner. ”

“ The duke, her father, hearing of his daughter’s love, commands Huon, on pain of death, to marry Catherine, a freed serf. He refuses; but the countess herself bids him obey. He plights his troth to Catherine, supposing it to be Catherine, the quondam serf, rushes to the wars, obtains great honors, becomes a prince, and then learns that the Catherine he has wed is the duke’s daughter.
Love, or rather affection, according to Plato, is disposed in the liver. ”

“ He said he hated everything—the heaven, the earth, fire, air, and sea, the day, the night; he hated to speak, to hear, to taste food, to see objects, to smell, to feel; he hated man and woman too, for his Daphne lived no longer. What became of this doleful shepherd the poet could never ween. Alcyon is sir Arthur Gorges.—Spencer, Daphnaida (in seven fyttes, 1590) .
And there is that Alcyon bent to mourn,
Though fit to frame an everlasting ditty.
Whose gentle sprite for Daphne's death doth turn
Sweet lays of love to endless plaints of pity. ”

“ This dog has been stolen in youth from another gentleman, and fraudulently sold to the confiding hero who, having no guile himself, has no suspicion that it lurks in others; but Toby, entertaining a grateful recollection of his old master, and scorning to attach himself to any new patron, not only refuses to smoke a pipe at the bidding of Punch but (to mark his old fidelity more strongly) seizes him by the nose, and wrings the same with violence, at which instance of canine attachment the spectators are always deeply affected.--C. Dickens. ”