Horace Walpole

“ Sir Robert Walpole, the more you knew him: you would have loved the Duke, if you had not feared him. Pitt liked the dignity of despotism; Lord Mansfield the reality: yet the latter would have served the cause of power, without sharing it: Pitt would have set the world free, if he might not command it. Lord Granville would have preferred doing right, if he had not thought it more convenient to do wrong: Sir Robert Walpole meant to serve mankind, though he knew how little they deserved it; and this principle is at once the most meritorious in oneself and to the world. ”

“ Father! Jerome! will you not join our hands?” cried he to the Friar, who, with the Marquis, had accompanied the surgeons.
“What means thy distracted rashness?” said Jerome. “Is this an hour for marriage?”
“It is, it is,” cried Theodore. “Alas! there is no other!”
“Young man, thou art too unadvised,” said Frederic. “Dost thou think we are to listen to thy fond transports in this hour of fate? What pretensions hast thou to the Princess?”
“Those of a Prince,” said Theodore; “of the sovereign of Otranto. This reverend man, my father, has informed me who I am.” ”

“ But with the loss of sixteen hundred men, we had destroyed the navies of France and Spain. Glorious consideration! could it be unmixed with the remembrance of the other hundred and twenty-eight thousand! But Glory must shed more tears of anguish than of joy, whenever she turns accomptant. What if returns were made of all the other lives lost in that war all over the face of the globe! What did the peasants in Germany suffer? even heroism had its pangs. Did not the King of Prussia see every general with whom he commenced that short war perish before his eyes? ”

“ I have been here ever since Tuesday, enjoying my tranquillity, as much as an honest man can do who sees his country ruined. It is just such a period as makes philosophy wisdom. There are great moments when every man is called on to exert himself-but when folly, infatuation, delusion, incapacity, and profligacy fling a nation away, and it concurs itself, and applauds its destroyers, a man who has lent no hand to the mischief, and can neither prevent nor remedy the mass of evils, is fully justified in sitting aloof and beholding the tempest rage, with silent scorn and indignant compassion. ”

“ There the Duke of Newcastle was absolute. He had all the advice from wise heads that could make him get the better of rivals, and all the childishness in himself that could make them ashamed of his having got the better. If his fickleness could have been tied down to any stability, his power had been endless. Yet, as it often happens, the puny can shake, where the mighty have been foiled—nor Pitt, nor Fox, were the engines that made the Duke of Newcastle’s power totter. I have mentioned how early his petulant humour had humbled Legge—never was revenge more swiftly gratified. ”

“ My dear lord, I cannot quit a country where I leave any thing that I honour so much as your lordship and Lady Strafford, without taking a sort of leave of you. I shall set out for Paris on Monday next the 9th, and shall be happy if I can execute any commission for you there.
A journey to Paris Sounds youthful and healthy. I have certainly mended much this last week, though with no pretensions to a recovery of youth. Half the view of my journey is to re-establish my health—the other half, to wash my hands of politics, which I have long determined to do whenever a change should happen. ”

“ I accuse nobody; but if my young Lord came honestly by his death—”
“Dare not on thy duty,” said Matilda, “to breathe a suspicion on the purity of my dear Isabella’s fame.”
“Purity, or not purity,” said Bianca, “gone she is—a stranger is found that nobody knows; you question him yourself; he tells you he is in love, or unhappy, it is the same thing—nay, he owned he was unhappy about others; and is anybody unhappy about another, unless they are in love with them? and at the very next word, he asks innocently, pour soul! if my Lady Isabella is missing.” ”

“ When we see men who call themselves patriots and friends of liberty attacking the House of Commons, to what, Sir, can you and I, who are really friends of liberty, impute such pursuits, but to interest and disappointed ambition! When we see, on one hand, the prerogative of the Crown excited against Parliament, and on the other, the King and Royal Family traduced and insulted in the most shameless manner, can we believe such a faction is animated by honesty or love of the constitution? ”

“ We shall neither of us ever be grave: dowagers roost all round us and you could never want cards or mirth. Will you end like a fat farmer, repeating annually the price of oats, and discussing stale newspapers? There have you got, I hear into an old gallery that has not been glazed since Queen Elizabeth, and under the nose of an infant Duke and Duchess, that will understand you no more than if you wore a ruff and a coif, and talked to them of a call of serjeants the year of the Spanish armada! Your wit and humour will be as much lost upon them, as if you talked the dialect of Chaucer ”

“ Thou art surely one of those angels! said the enraptured Theodore: None but a blessed saint could speak, could act—could lock like thee!—may I not know the name of my divine protectress! methought thou namedst thy father: Is it possible! can Manfred's blood feel holy pity!—lovely Lady, thou answerest not—but how art thou here thyself? why dost thou neglect thy own safety, and waste a thought on a wretch like Theodore? let us fly together: The life thou bestowest shall be dedicated to thy defence. Alas! thou mistakest; said Matilda sighing: I am Manfred's daughter, but no dangers await me. ”

“ I do love my nieces, nay like them; but people above forty years younger are certainly not the society I should seek. They can only think and talk of what is, or is to come; I certainly am more disposed to think and talk of what is past: and the obligation of passing the end of a long life in sets of totally new company is more irksome to me than passing a great deal of my time, as I do, quite alone. Family love and pride make me interest myself about the young people of my own family-for the whole rest of the Young world, they are as indifferent to me as puppets or black children. ”

“ Shall you bear to hear me tell you a thousand times over, that Madame Geoffrin is the most rational woman in the world, and Madame d'Aiguillon the most animated and most obliging? I think you will. Your ladyship can endure the panegyric of your friends. If you should grow impatient to hear them commended, you have nothing to do but to come over. The best air in the world is that where one is pleased: Sunning waters are nothing to it. The frost is so hard, it is impossible to have the gout; and though the fountain of youth is not here, the fountain of age is, which comes to just the same thing. ”

“ Alfonso, ye all know, died in the holy land—ye would interrupt me; ye would say he came not fairly to his end—it is most true—why else this bitter cup which Manfred must drink to the dregs? Ricardo, my grandfather, was his chamberlain—I would draw a veil over my ancestor's crimes—but it is in vain! Alfonso died by poison. A fictitious will declared Ricardo his heir. His crimes pursued him—yet he lost no Conrad, no Matilda! I pay the price of usurpation for all! A storm overtook him. Haunted by his guilt, he vowed to St. Nicholas to found a church and two convents, if he lived to reach Otranto. ”

“ I am totally ignorant of most of the branches of business that are fallen to my lot, and not young enough to learn any new business well. All I can hope is to clear the worst part of the way; for, in undertaking to retrieve an estate, the beginning is certainly the most difficult of the work—it is fathoming a chaos. But I will not unfold a confusion to your lordship which your good sense will always keep You from experiencing —very unfashionably; for the first geniuses of the age hold, that the best method of governing the world is to throw it into disorder. ”

“ Or is it fit Prince Ferdinand should know you have a friend that is as great a coward about you as your wife? The only reason for my silence that can not be true, is, that I forget you. When I am prudent or cautious, it is no symptom of my being indifferent. Indifference does not happen in friendships, as it does in passions; and if I was young enough, or feeble enough to cease to love you, I would not for my own sake let it be known. Your virtues are my greatest pride; I have done myself so much honour by them, that I will not let it be known you have been peevish with me unreasonably. ”