Laura Valentine

“ After all, my dear, if the busy young ladies of this part of the century don’t do much real good to others, they do something for themselves in keeping their minds employed. It is astonishing how much foolish love imaginations are thus kept in check. As for me, I gave way to the vainest regrets and the most profitless day-dreaming. I cast from me God’s great gift of time sinfully, recklessly—my sole occupation being that of writing long letters to Kate, which she rarely answered. But one cannot be idle and discontented with impunity. ”

“ The earth has always been the hiding-place for treasure during periods of long and successful invasion, and it is in countries which have suffered most from foreign foes that we find the belief in “hid treasures” most prevalent.
In Hungary, the invasion of the Huns (those Ogres of the nursery) produced an amount of treasure-hiding which to this day is not forgotten; and a set of men who pass their lives in the mountains in a vain but fascinating pursuit of buried gold are still called “treasure-seekers.” ”

“ In this war,” said the Colonel, in a whisper, “everything serves as a signal. The wild beasts even are our assistants. Your eyes are excellent, Edward; you have a cat-like perception of the mysteries of the night. Look earnestly at those ruins; what do you behold there?”
Sir Edward, with the nonchalance of his character, declares that he sees fine ruins in the style of a Japanese temple, and starts off into a disquisition on Oriental architecture, which would be signally out of place, if it did not prove how utterly indifferent the brave Englishman is to Thugs and tigers. ”

“ Tower, a clerk in the Foreign Office, is of course compelled to yield to the orders of his Government, but obliges Colonel Douglas to place the forfeited dowry in a banker’s hands for the benefit of his ward. The only person who objects to his departure is a certain young French widow, a Comtesse Octavie de Verzon, who being herself in love with Count Elona, the Pole, is anxious to see a formidable rival removed by the marriage of Amalia. But she tries anger and cajoleries alternately in vain, and sees the gentlemen depart, vowing an eternal hatred to Sir Edward Klerbbs. ”

“ TREASURE TROVE, AT HOME AND ABROAD.
“To search as for hid treasures” is an expression which loses much of its strong significance when it falls on English ears. It is so long since invasion or oppression rendered hiding in the earth necessary, that the idea of such concealed wealth or of earnest search for it has died out amongst us. ”

“ We have said the three heroes, but the hero par excellence is undoubtedly Sir Edward Klerbbs, who is evidently the beau ideal of an Englishman in a French imagination. Although he is a “dandy of Kensington Gardens,” he is possessed by a mania for travelling amongst savage nations and exploring unknown lands, so he abandons his noble mansion in Bond Street—which to English ears does not appear so great a sacrifice—to wander in India, and engage in amateur warfare in company with his friend Douglas. He is imperturbably cool, brave, and careless of peril ”

“ But the chief beauty of this remarkable crown is the fringe of jewelled letters, which, as we have already said, records the offering it by the king. Four golden chains attached to the upper margin (united by an elegant foliated ornament enriched with pendent pearls and emeralds, and surmounted by a knob of rock crystal elaborately carved and polished) served doubtless to hang it up in the church.
Within the crown, suspended by a long slender chain, is a Latin cross, which hangs a little lower than the letter-fringe. It is set with six fine sapphires and eight pearls in very high relief ”

“ James’s, a handsome girl burst through the line of attendants, caught the Danish sovereign in her arms, as he alighted from his carriage, and kissed him heartily, exclaiming, as she released the astonished stranger: “Now kill me, if you please! I have kissed the prettiest fellow in the world, and I shall die contented.” The King laughed heartily, assured the girl he quite forgave her, shook her hand, into which he slipped a golden keepsake, and sprang up-stairs, intensely amused by the adventure. ”

“ In Denmark, a wise and liberal policy with regard to treasure trove is securing to Copenhagen a museum of national relics such as no other nation possesses.
A peasant finding any antiquities on his land, receives the full value for his prize. ”

“ Flotilla—army—emperor, vanished like the pageant of a dream; the long peace set in—and martial ardour became as dormant as music amongst us, till they suddenly woke up together the other day, and Robin Hood’s descendants, seizing the rifle, found it come as handy to them as the long bow, and beat the whole military world at hitting the mark they aimed at.
And altogether a very different race are these Volunteers from those we remember. They have the culture of half a century on them, united to the old “pluck.” ”

“ Very recently, however, a treasure trove has occurred even in our long-tilled, tunnel-burrowed England. A month or two ago, a labourer, ploughing at Mountfield, in Sussex, raised to the surface a chain of golden links a yard long, attached to each end of which was a horn or “trumpet,” as he called it, of the same precious metal. The peasant showed it to his master, who gave no directions about it, only observing that he did not know what it was ”

“ My heart ceased beating for the moment as I remembered how I had seen Deloraine take the book from his own bosom; but I was quite silent. Between horror and fear I could not speak.
My father continued:
“I have promised, of course, to appear for him; and probably you may be called on—”
“Oh! don’t let them call me! I can’t—I can’t,” said I, in an agony.
“Well, of course, it is unpleasant for a young lady to appear in a court of justice, and if I can prevent it you shall not; but we must not let proprieties peril a fellow-creature’s life.” ”

“ They visit us, trade with us, fight beside us, and yet prove by their writings that they see England and the English through a thick veil of misconception. The writers most friendly to us blunder about our “ways” as amusingly as those who bear the strongest prejudice against us.
We have just finished a tale by Monsieur Mery, the hero of which, a perfect preux chevalier, is an Englishman and there is scarce anything more entertainingly unlike and unreal, than himself, and the events which display his character. ”

“ If a liberal reward were given—nearly the metal value of the trouvaille—it is quite possible that we might have become possessed of many precious relics which now are broken up and consigned to the melting-pot. ”

“ He thought her manner theatrical and studied; but she managed, nevertheless, to please him, and the acquaintance, thus commenced, progressed into intimacy.
We rode together frequently, accompanied by my father and William Deloraine. I am quite sure that dear father never dreamed of anything like love between William and me; he still thought me a mere child; he was too much occupied by his own affairs to observe my gradual advance towards womanhood.
But I was gradually becoming attached to William Deloraine. He was just the sort of man to please an imaginative young lady like myself. ”

“ Certainly, Colonel Douglas and Sir Edward are deficient in that high sense of truthfulness which an English soldier would be dishonoured if he were not believed to possess, both in their conduct towards Amalia and in their singular denials of the existence of Thugs, but they are evidently intended by the friendly Monsieur Mery as the ideal of chivalrous gentlemen, and the exceedingly high opinion of the English thus incidentally betrayed is most flattering to our national vanity. ”

“ In the days of the Eastern emperors the children “born in the purple” were permitted to wear the royal insignia, and the fashion of Constantinople appears to have been followed by the Visigoth monarchs; who were the more likely to imitate the Byzantine mode at this time, from the fact that they had only worn crowns for sixty years when Reccesvinthus succeeded to the kingdom—Lewvigildus being the first Gothic king of Spain who possessed a royal diadem, and he reigned in 586 ”

“ I declare to you, Miss Morton, we never, either of us, knew what goodness was till we became acquainted with you.”
I looked, doubtless, as I was, astonished.
“No! our parents educated us without any principle,” she continued, “and though poor William so generously acquitted his family of all complicity in his guilt, they did not deserve it.”
At this minute the ill-looking man-servant opened the door and said Mrs. Deloraine would be glad to see me alone in the north parlour, an upper sitting-room in the gable end of the house. ”

“ Sir Edward meantime places the Countess Octavie in a secure corner, and stands beside her to defend her, “for her sake” refraining from mingling in the fight. This grand act of self-denial wins her, and the volume closes with the approaching marriages of Col. Douglas and Miss Arinda, Count Elona and Amalia, Sir Edward and Octavie. ”

“ A man came to him, and with much secresy offered him a splendid armlet, a massive serpent coil of great value, which he said he had found in his own field, and which he wished to sell privately, as otherwise it would be taken from him. ”

“ The Thugs who escaped the first shock of this attack rushed desperately on their enemies to stifle them in a close embrace; to crunch their skulls with their serpents’ teeth, and to drink a little of their blood before dying; for the Thugs have not degenerated from the primitive races of India. ”

“ In one of his City rambles he saw a poor tradesman being carried off to prison, followed by his weeping family. Touched by this scene of domestic misery, he ordered Count Holckte to follow them, pay the debt and costs, and give the poor debtor five hundred dollars to begin business again.
Whenever he appeared as the King of Denmark, he was followed by immense crowds, for his character was one which, with all its faults, could not fail to be popular, and his good nature delighted in giving the simple folks pleasure. ”

“ We choose always the most lofty.” . . . .
The old pagoda of Miessour exhibits its honours on the borders of this lake. It is a hill of ruins, the stones of which are veiled with moss, broom, and aloes; at intervals gigantic heads of Indian gods rise from the herbage . . . . preserving still beneath the stars the hideous stillness given them by the Mahratta architect of Aurengzebe . . . This awful spot is often enlivened by black tigers, who seek a pedestal of their own colour and extend themselves on it like a sphynx . ”

“ The arrival of Garibaldi in England has been hailed with an enthusiasm which has astonished even those who were most inclined to welcome the peerless hero of Italy. The universality of the feeling is singular, unless we consider a little the slow and silent causes which have been preparing the national mind to sympathise so fully with the country of which he is the representative and the life, We think one of these has been the Italian Master. ”

“ Viewing the great conqueror now from a better point of observation, it is extraordinary to remember what a popular “bogey” he was.
Of course the volunteers were ready everywhere. At first they appeared in London and in the seaports. In our little village they caused a wonderful sensation. It was a very small place, and each volunteer was well-known to us personally. A quaint, simple set they were, but brave and active fellows, a worthy portion of the home and hearth defence, which doubtless did its part in keeping the “bogey” on the other side of the Channel. ”

“ A similar force has always been ready for defence whenever the “cloud, as big as a man’s hand,” has loomed across the sea.
A recollection of the last misgiving and dread which called forth England’s Volunteers has been forcibly recalled to the minds of the aged by the Volunteer movement of the present; and we were amused to hear, from the lips of an old lady of very warlike ancestry, an account of what Volunteers were in her youth. ”

“ I felt convinced that her rapacity would defeat its object, for the banker would make inquiries before he cashed such a cheque. But the same thought had evidently occurred also to the man.
“It is too much!” he said, slowly, “fifty will be enough for our immediate wants. We dare not present a larger cheque.”
With a murmur, Mrs. Deloraine put the first cheque in her pocket, and desired me to write another—perhaps she kept the five hundred for some future opportunity. ”