John Pendleton Kennedy

“ To hear your faith, which though I never dwelt upon it but with a confidence that I have held it most profane to doubt, still, to hear it avowed from your own lips, now again and again, repeating what you have often breathed before, and in letter after letter, written down, it falls upon my heart, Mildred, like some good gift from heaven, specially sent to revive and quicken my resolution in all the toils and labors that yet await me. There must be good in store for such a heart as thine; and, trusting to this faith, I will look to the future with a buoyant temper. ”

“ The Skipper is a free blade, of good metal, and of a figure, too, which, methinks, might please a damsel in a dance, and spare us all this coil; his leg has not its fellow in the province. You take me to task roundly, when all the while I was so foolish as to believe I was doing you regardful service."
"He hath a wicked look, father," was Blanche's reply; "and a saucy freedom which I like not. He is ever too bold in his greeting, and lacks gentle breeding. He must come to me, forsooth, with his mantle, as an especial token, and set upon me with so much constancy to take it! ”

“ Sir, the Bank of the United States, in any other relation than to the currency and property of the country, is as little to me as to any man under heaven; but after the prime and vigor of life are passed, and the power of accumulation is gone, to see the children stripped, by the monstrous imposture of a paper currency, of all that the father's industry had provided for them—this, sir, may well excuse the warmth that denounces this plan, as the precursor of universal dismay and ruin. ”

“ He first met Mildred, under the safe-conduct of her parents, at Annapolis in Maryland, at that time the seat of opulence and fashion. There the wise and the gay, the beautiful and the rarely-gifted united in a splendid little constellation, in which wealth threw its sun-beam glitter over the wings of love, and learning and eloquence were warmed by the smiles of fair women: there gallant men gave the fascinations of wit to a festive circle unsurpassed in the new world, or the old, for its proportion of the graces that embellish, and the endowments that enrich life. ”

“ You come with a surly sky and a gay brow;—you shall trip it hence with a bright heaven above you, and deftly, boy—but with a heavy heart and a new crime upon thy soul."
"Peace, woman! I will hear none of thy croakings—it is an old trick of thine; the device is too stale," said Cocklescraft, half playfully and half vexed. "You are no conjuror, Kate, as you would make the world believe by these owl-hootings: if you had but a needle's-eyeful of the true witch in you, you would have foretold what bounty my luck has brought you.—Rob, we have packages to land to-night. ”

“ Grant—true friends to the people. How careful are they of our great mercantile and trading classes! Sir, the government cannot do too much for such people as we are—that's the true Democratic motto—we expect a great deal—but they outrun our expectations. No more low prices for grain, Mr. Grant—no more scarcity of money:—accommodation is the word—better currency is the word—high prices, good wages and plenty of work is the word now-a-days. We shall have a city here before you can cleverly turn yourself round. Depend upon it, sir, we are destined to become a great, glorious, and immortal people. ”

“ Such ill omens are about us! My father's inexorable will, so headstrong, so unconscious of the pain it gives me; his rooted, yes, his fatal aversion to you; my thraldom here, where, like a poor bird checked by a cord, I chafe myself by fluttering on the verge of my prison bounds; and then, the awful perils that continually impend over your head—all these are more than weak imaginings; they are the realities of my daily life, and give me, what I am almost ashamed to confess, a sad and boding spirit."
"Nay, nay, dearest Mildred! ”

“ And a brave story it is of hardy adventure, and manly love of freedom! The scattered bricks, all moulded in the mother-land, remind us of the launching of the bark, the struggle with the unfamiliar wave, the array of the wonder-stricken savage, and the rude fellowship of the first meeting. They recall the hearths whose early fires gleamed upon the visage of the bold cavalier, while the deep, unconquerable faith of religion, and the impassioned instincts of the Anglo-Saxon devotion to liberty, were breathed by household groups, in customary household terms. ”

“ This unstudied orator, with all the freshness impressed upon his mind by the mint of nature herself, contemning the aid of tinsel show, and presenting himself in the homely habiliments of an unvarnished, and, as our adversaries scoffingly add, of an unwashed New Light, poured forth a resistless flood of native oratory, remarkable for that massive vigor of thought, and that felicity of expression, which are the rare endowments only of genius, trained among the people, and whose soul is with the people. ”

“ Let the vain pedant prate of his philosophy, let the soldier boast his valor, the learned scholar his scepticism, and the worldling laugh his scorn, yet do they each and all yield homage to this belief. There comes a time of honest self-confession, of secret meditation to all, and then the boding spirit rises to his proper mastery: then does instinct smother argument: then do the darkness of the midnight hour, the howling wind, the rush of the torrent, the lonesomeness of the forest and the field, shake the strong nerves; and the feeble, pigmy man, trembles at his own imaginings. ”

“ Who and what is this Master Secretary that hath set the maiden of the Rose Croft to look upon me with an evil spirit? I would fain know if he think himself a properer man than I. Doth he stand upon his fingering of a lute, and his skill to dance?—Why even in this chamber-craft I will put it to a wager he is no master of mine. Is he more personable in shape or figure?—goes he in better apparel? or is that broken English of his more natural to the province than my plain speech, that he should claim the right to chide me for my behaviour? Is it that he hath a place in the train of his Lordship? ”

“ John! John! John! my dear boy, my brave son! How good and kind he was to us all! And how glad he was to get home to see us; and how much we made of him!"
"Silence, wife," said David Ramsay, "this is no time to hold back from our duty. Andrew, listen to me: remember your brother has met his death fighting against these monsters, who hate the very earth that nurses liberty. You are young, boy, but you can handle a musket; we will not forget your brother's death."
"Nor the burning of a good house over your head, and a full barn, father; nor the frights they have given my poor mother." ”

“ Cocklescraft, with two seamen, entered the hut. The skipper was now in the prime of youthful manhood; tall, active and strong, with the free step and erect bearing that no less denoted the fearlessness of his nature than pride in the consciousness of such a quality. His face, tinged with a deep brown hue, was not unhandsome, although an expression of sensuality, to some extent, deprived it of its claim to be admired. A brilliant eye suffered the same disparagement by its over-ready defiance, which told of a temper obtrusively prone to quarrel. ”

“ It was after midnight, and the inmates of the woodman's cabin had been some hours at rest, when Mary Musgrove's sleep was disturbed by strange and unwonted alarms. She was dreaming of Arthur Butler, and a crowd of pleasant visions flitted about her pillow, when, suddenly, clouds darkened the world of her dream, and images of bloodshed caused her to shudder. Horrid shapes appeared to her, marching with stealthy pace through her apartment, and a low and smothered footfall seemed to strike her ear like the ticking of a death-watch. ”

“ I will not put you to the inventing another lie, but will wager I can tell you at one guess why you would change with me."
"Out with it, Master Derrick!" exclaimed the bystanders.
"Oh, out with it!" repeated John Alward; "I heed not thy gibes."
"You fear the cross road," said the falconer; "you will not pass the fisherman's grave."
"In troth, masters—I must needs own," replied the groom, "that I have qualms. I never was ashamed to tell the truth, and confess that I am so much of a sinner as to feel an honest fear of the devil and his doings. ”

“ Time may bear us along like a rough trotting horse; and our journey may have its dark night, its quagmires, and its jack-o'lanterns, but there will come a ruddy morning at last—a smoother road, and an easier gait; and thou, my girl, shalt again instruct me how to win a triumph over the ills of life."
"And we will be happy, Arthur, because all around us will be so," added Mildred, catching the current of Butler's thoughts, with that ready versatility which eminently showed the earnestness and devotion of her feelings—"Ah, may heaven grant this boon, and bring these dreams to life! ”

“ I will stand by thee, Captain, with a sharp eye and ready hand."
"Thy teeth will betray us, Master Vintner, even at a score rods from the enemy," said Dauntrees: "they chatter so rudely that thy nether jaw is in danger. If thou art cold, man, button up thy coat."
"Of a verity it is a cold night, and my coat is none of the thickest," replied Weasel with an increasing shudder.
"I understand you, Garret," responded the Captain with a laugh; "we must drink. So, friends, to the green grass, and fasten your horses to the trees whilst we warm up the liver of our forlorn vintner with a cup. ”

“ You lag more like a miller's boy with his bag of meal, than a young soldier setting out on his adventures."
"Ah, sister," said Henry, waking up, "this is nothing but pine—pine—and sand, without end. There is no game in the woods to keep a man on the look-out, except here and there a herd of wild hogs, that snort and run from us, like a squadron of cavalry, with their bristles set up on their backs as fierce as the back fin of a sunfish. There is not even grass to look at: you might see a black snake running half a mile amongst the trees. ”