Wilson Armistead

“ Thus he fulfilled the remarks of the poet—
"We join in the fraud, and ourselves we deceive,
What we wish to be true, love bids us believe."
When at last the pale hue of death overspread her once-blooming cheek, when she turned her languid eye towards her lover and faltered "farewell," when she closed her faded eyes and expired in prayer, Charles stood by the bedside like a being bereft of power and motion. The deepest despair overwhelmed him—his hopes were blasted—his fond creation of future bliss was in an instant destroyed, and his mind received a shock too powerful for nature to sustain. ”

“ Is it not the channel through which improvements in art, in science, in literature, in all that adorns, dignifies, and ennobles human nature, flow as on the wings of the wind from country to country? Grant it. It is not my purpose to pronounce a wholesale anathema upon commerce. I appreciate its high importance in improving our race. It is excess I would discourage—it is the wretched deteriorating influence it will exert upon a people, when, by absorbing their whole attention, it keeps them looking constantly abroad to the neglect of the improvement of their own country. ”

“ A TALE OF GRASMERE VALE.
IF from the public way you turn your steps
Up the tumultuous brook of Green-head Ghyll,
You will suppose that with an upright path
Your feet must struggle; in such bold ascent
The pastoral mountains front you, face to face.
But, courage! for around that boisterous brook
The mountains have all opened out themselves,
And made a hidden valley of their own.
No habitation can be seen; but they
Who journey thither find themselves alone
With a few sheep, with rocks and stones, and kites
That overhead are sailing in the sky.
It is in truth an utter solitude ”

“ For Matilda, she regularly went to the Abbey to visit the spot where she last saw him; and there she would stand for hours, with her hands clasped on her breast, gazing on that heaven which alone had been witness to their mutual vows. Indeed, I think this would make a picture almost equal to the other. How fine a contrast would the light and fairy form of Matilda make with the broken fragments of the ruined Abbey; it would give a life and effect to the picture which you have no conception of. ”

“ This is the spring that regulates the movements of society—this is at once the lever and the safety-valve of human institutions. Without it society will either not move at all, or, like an unbalanced, unhelmed ship, move in a direction and at a rate that must eventually destroy it. Education corrects vice—cures disorders—abates jealousies—adorns virtue—commands the winds—triumphs over the waves—scales the heavens. In a word, education lays all nature under tribute, and forces her to administer to the comfort and happiness of man. ”

“ You, you are to give the answer, whether the African race is doomed to interminable degradation,—a hideous blot on the fair face of Creation, a libel upon the dignity of human nature,—or whether they are incapable to take an honourable rank amongst the great family of nations! The friends of the colony are trembling; the enemies of the Coloured man are hoping. Say, fellow-citizens, will you palsy the hands of your friends and sicken their hearts, and gladden the souls of your enemies, by a base refusal to enter upon the career of glory which is now opening so propitiously before you? ”

“ The stone-cutters, 'tis true, might beg their bread
If every English churchyard were like ours;
Yet your conclusion wanders from the truth:
We have no need of names and epitaphs;
We talk about the dead by our firesides.
And then for our immortal part! we want
No symbols, Sir, to tell us that plain tale:
The thought of death sits easy on the man
Who has been born and dies among the mountains.
LEONARD.
Your dalesmen, then, do in each other's thoughts
Possess a kind of second life: no doubt
You, Sir, could help me to the history
Of half these graves?
PRIEST. ”

“ Let them banish, for ever, from their minds, the hope of obtaining that freedom, reputation, and happiness, which, as men, they are entitled to. Let them forget every duty, human and divine, remember not that they have children, and beware how they call to mind the justice of the Supreme Being: let them return into Slavery, and hug their chains, and be a reproach and a by-word among all nations. ”

“ The broken and overhanging rocks—the loose fragments at their feet—the cascade itself, the finest in the country—the brook fretting and foaming down the rugged glen—the stunted trees, and matted foliage, which protrude from the fissures of this natural wall—the huge erect pillar of stone, which rears its detached mass above the adjoining rock—and one of the loveliest females I ever saw, attired in flowing white drapery, which, with the ribbons, fluttered and played upon the wind—could you find a subject equal to this for interest, one equal to it for sublimity and beauty? ”

“ What shall I say of honesty and integrity? where the lowest, basest arts, are practised for gain; where all is intrigue and circumvention—where the maxim prevails, 'all is fair in trade'—where each regards the other as lawful game—where one can gain only by the loss of the other—where, in a word, rascality is fair-play, and villainy systematic;—where, fellow-citizens, let me ask you, where, in such a community, is there room for honesty? Can the heart fail, in such circumstances, to become deadened to every feeling of humanity—steeled against every kindly, generous, and ennobling impulse? ”

“ Her heart was cold, and no human power could warm it. The noisy mirth of the hall she could hear unmoved; the mazy intricacies of the festive dance could not reanimate her; the glowing beauties of the summer landscape were gloomy and dull as December. She resolved to seclude herself from the giddy world, and brood over her own sorrows in a nunnery. She therefore retired to the Benedictine Convent of Maiden Castle—the ruins of which are still visible behind higher end of Soulby Fell; where she passed her few remaining days in piety and silent solitude. ”

“ Mournful reverses of fortune have passed over that illustrious people. The star that rose in such matchless splendour above the eastern horizon has had its setting. But Egypt, Africa's dark-browed queen, still lives. Her pyramid tombs—her sculptured columns, dug from the sands to adorn modern architecture—the remnants of her once impregnable walls—the remains of her hundred-gated city, rising over the wide-spread ruins, as if to guard the fame of the race that gave them existence,—all proclaim what she once was. ”

“ Will had roused Sir Ferdinand's vengeance, without giving the least hint that he suspected such a thing.
"Shall I!" exclaimed Sir Ferdinand, as soon as Will had retired, "Shall I be made a fool of by a carpenter's son? Shall such a wretch as that presume to be my rival in the affections of the loveliest maid in Cumberland? Curse the idea! He shall be taught to know his duty better. No, I scorn to apply to Sir Allan. I will be my own avenger. Were he removed I should be at peace. That will do. He dies!" ”

“ It is envy of place and emolument—it is ambition of power, that array public men in a hostile attitude, and range their infatuated followers under their opposing banners. In the infancy of our political existence, let those amongst us who have credit with the people and influence over them, beware of so great infatuation. Let us recollect, that all cannot govern: that from the division and order into which society naturally resolves itself, all even of those who are worthy, cannot stand in the foremost ranks. ”

“ ASSOCIATIONS OF CARLISLE.
NO one versed in ballad lore—no reader of old poetry and romance, can approach Carlisle for the first time without pleasurable emotion. Carlisle is the border city—the city of King Arthur and his knights. It has been the scene of many a stout siege and bloody feud; of many a fierce foray, and mournful execution, and of many a just punishment upon traitors and reivers. It is, consequently, not to be pictured to the imagination without unusual interest. ”

“ To suppose that at this time, when all things above and around them seemed to combine their influences against them, to suppose they did not perceive the full danger and magnitude of the enterprise they had embarked in, would be to suppose, not that they were heroes, but that they had lost the sensibility of men. True courage is equally remote from blind recklessness and unmanning timidity; and true heroism does not consist in insensibility to danger. He is a hero who calmly meets, and fearlessly grapples the dangers which duty and honour forbid him to decline. ”

“ The sides of the hoary mountains were clad with spectators, and the glassy surface of the lake was variegated with numbers of pleasure barges, which, trimmed out in all the gayest colours, and glittering in the rays of the meridian sun, gave a new appearance to the celebrated beauties of this matchless vale. The contending boats passed Pocklington's Island, and rounding St. Herbert's Isle and Rampsholme, edged down by the outside of Lord's Island, describing, in the race, almost a perfect circle, and, during the greatest part of it, in full view of the company. ”

“ In commemorating events thus powerful in forming the manners and sentiments of mankind, and in rousing them to strenuous exertion and to high and sustained emulation, it is obvious that such, and such only, should be selected as virtue and humanity would approve; and that, if any of an opposite character be held up, they should be displayed only as beacons, or as a towering Pharos throwing a strong but lurid light to mark the melancholy grave of mad ambition, and to warn the inexperienced voyager of the existing danger. ”

“ It was midsummer: the fashionable part of the community had left London for their seats in the country, and Edward, tired of its suffocating heat, its forsaken squares, and desolate streets, resolved also to leave it, and revisit, for the first time since his boyhood, the beautiful scenery of his native Westmorland.
He took the coach to Kendal, and there left it; preferring to proceed on foot, as allowing him greater liberty in choosing his route, and in diverging from the high roads when interest or curiosity might prompt him to wander. ”

“ It is the false notion of honour which has unhappily possessed the minds of men, placing all dignity in the pageantry of state and the tinsel of office, which produces those collisions, jostlings, and acrimony of contending factions which sometimes shake the fabric of society to its very foundations: it is by the maddening influence of this false notion that men, whose claim to respectful notoriety is inversely as their desire to be conspicuous, are sometimes urged to abandon their obscure but appropriate position in the line, and to rush into the foremost ranks. ”