G. J. Whyte-Melville

“ Not so with the sons of toil in town—there, all enjoyment is artificial, all pleasure must be paid for—the air they breathe will support life, but its odours are far different from those of the wild flower. If their eyes are ever gladdened by beauty, it is but the pomp and splendour of their fellow-creatures, on which they gaze with sneering admiration—half envy, half contempt. If their ears are ever ravished by music, there is a tempting demon wafting sin into their hearts upon the sounds—there is a mocking voice of ribaldry and vulgar revelry accompanying the very concord of heaven. ”

“ CHAPTER XVI. THE HARBOURER.
Nature is always beautiful in her morning, evening, and noon-day dresses, her fits of rage, her languor of repose, her storms, her calms, her shadows, sunshine, tears, and smiles; but never perhaps are we so conscious of her charms, as when abroad before daybreak, in a mountainous country, we see her growing, line by line, out of darkness into day.
First, through the hush of night, there steals a cool, soft breath, like the sigh of some spirit of morning, longing for the dawn. Soon, swelling to a breeze, it stirs the cloud on the moor, the leaf in the copse. ”

“ An old oak-tree, a mossy sward soft and level as velvet, delicate fern bending and whispering in the summer breeze, fleecy clouds drifting across the blue sky, and a graceful form, in its white robes, coming shyly up the glade, with faltering step, and sidelong glance, and timid gesture, to keep her tryst with her Roman lover. She is in his arms now. The rich brown curls are scattered over his breastplate, and the blue eyes are looking up into his own, liquid with the love-light that thrills to a man’s heart but from one pair of eyes in a lifetime. ”

“ Your horse has caught his wind with that timely pull. He is going as bold as a lion, as easy as a bird, as steady as a rock. You seem to have grown together, and move like one creature to that long swinging stride, untiring and regular as clock-work. A line of grass is before you, a light east wind in your face, two years’ condition and the best blood of Newmarket in his veins render you confident of your steed’s enduring powers, while every field as he swoops over it, every fence as he throws it lightly behind him, convinces you more and more of his speed, mettle, and activity. ”

“ Amongst the many mysterious sympathies that connect natural objects so inexplicably with the mind, there is a strange affinity between human sorrow and the watery element—be it the gentle ripple of a running stream, or the dash and recoil of the mounting wave breaking on the beach, or the dark-blue line of a sea-horizon clear against the sky.
There is some morbid attraction to mortal grief in the contemplation of each of these; there is something that takes man out of himself, and though it speaks not of hope or consolation, seems to promise oblivion and repose at last. ”

“ But every man who cares for art must have experienced how the influence of the model or the marble grows on him day by day. How, time after time, fresh beauties seem to spring beneath his gaze as if his very worship called them into life, and how, when he has got the masterpiece by heart, and sees every curve of the outline, every turn of the chisel in his dreams, he no longer wonders that it was not a painter, but a sculptor, who languished to death in hopeless adoration of his handiwork. ”

“ Not a spearman in the Great King's host but, when he looks on these carven blocks of granite, walks with a prouder step and shakes his weapon in a stronger hand. He sees in that mighty frame the over-powering forces that have made his race conquerors of the world; in that majestic face, calm and indomitable, the true spirit of victory marching unmoved over the ruins of an empire as over the ashes of a peasant's hearth; in those unfurled wings, the ubiquity of a dominion that can command ships for the sea, camels for the desert, and horsemen swarming like locusts to overrun the fertile plain. ”

“ No man alive had better nerve than Bill, to ride, or fight, or swim, or face any physical danger; but his hands turned cold, and his face hot, when about to confront strange ladies, either singly or in masses; and for him, the rustling of muslin was as the shaking of a standard to the inexperienced charger, a signal of unknown danger, a flutter of terror and dismay.
Nevertheless, he mastered his weakness, following his own name resolutely upstairs, in a white heat, no doubt, yet supported by the calmness of despair. Fortunately, he found his hostess at her drawing-room door. ”

“ Have you shivered up and down the melancholy walks, and yawned through the dull, dark rooms, till you began to think the hour never would arrive that was to restore you once again to liberty and light? And then, when the hour has come at last, have you been able to take your departure without some half-reproachful feeling akin to melancholy—without some slight shade of regret to think that much as you have hated it, you look upon it all now for the last time? Perhaps the sun breaks out and shines upon the old place as you catch your last glimpse. ”