Marie Blaze de Bury

“ While midnight reigns, we break the fatal spell;
And like good seamen still our watch are keeping
On the blue sea, where we so gladly fell.
“You know that England always hath expected
That every man his duty should fulfil;
In hearts, alas! so lowly now dejected—
Ye will scarce fight as brave men always will!
“Oh, have ye lost the sailor’s soul of daring,
That none will venture now the deck to tread?
Oh, were ye born in England? Thus self-caring,—
Is that old England’s banner overhead?” ”

“ Whether Government or the “youth of the schools” gain the victory, is a matter of small moment. Public opinion has not its own way upon every occasion, even in the freest country in the world; but the important thing for us is, to know where “public opinion” resides—where the “corrective” for despotism is to be sought for. The corrective for despotism is to be sought for in Germany in the youth of the schools.
The analogous force in France must be looked for in the salons of Paris. What the German students do by dint of smoke, the salon-haunters of Paris do by dint of talk. ”

“ Bright does upon these occasions, is done in France by great ladies and members of the Académie Française. And far be it from me to seem, in word or tone, disparaging to either. If France at the present hour has still retained any notion of social dignity, or any tradition of what would appear to us the commonest honesty or conviction, she owes it entirely to the steadfastness of opposition of the salons of Paris. ”

“ Scandal therefore is terrible in two provincial cities, and soon in Paris, and “everybody” who is “anybody” knows the whole story in a week, and this creates fierce anger in high quarters.
Well then, here are our salon-full of people occupied about this anecdote, when a lady, addressing an elderly man of singularly intelligent countenance, but whose whole attitude is one of the bitterest contempt that can be incarnate in a human form, says: “But you, M. V——,” (and she names such an illustrious name!) ”

“ Now, in truth, I know of no other name to give them; for they seem to me to be somewhere about the only force that is persistent and self-subsistent, and that, springing from what I can only call the moral soil of the country, has grown with the growth of the nation, identified itself with its habits and manners, and resisted governmental oppression under all its several forms. Every country has its particular agent of opposition to the executive power that rules it. ”

“ Quiet is the presiding deity of the scene; the lamp-light is subdued and quiet; the dresses of the ladies and the manners of the men are eminently quiet—all is quiet except the voices of the talkers; these are harsh in the male, shrill in the female occupants of the salon. ”

“ No palm of glory waves above the tomb.
“Oh, call ye combat, dark extermination
Where foes smite foemen whom they cannot see!
A man was born for nobler aspiration,
And as a victim will not daring be. ”

“ White sails, in thronging multitude, are borne.
And lo! the squadron’s now in order going,
Line after line, as though for deadly fight;
And on each mast, from slender spar down flowing,
Waves England’s flag in all its wonted might.
“Thou art the ‘Warrior’!” a voice speaks loudly
“The giant now by every nation fear’d—
I know thee well ”

“ Bright does at Birmingham or elsewhere, when the spirit moves him to wage war upon the aristocracy of these realms, and declare the existence of dukes and marquises incompatible with the freedom of “the artisans whose labour fills all our shops and all our ships”—what Mr. ”