Amelia E. Barr

“ There is nothing good in this life which Time does not improve. In ten days the better feelings which had led James Lorimer to seek his son in the path of moral and physical danger had grown as Divine seed does grow. This very night, in the scented breathless quiet, he was longing for David's return, and forming plans through which the future might atone for the past. Gradually the weary negroes went into the cabins, rolled themselves in their blankets and fell into that sound, dreamless sleep which is the compensation of hard labor. Only Lulu watched and thought with him. ”

“ But loving women are the greatest of philistines: knock their idol down daily, rob it of every beauty, cut off its hands and head, and they will still "set it up in its place," and fall down and worship it.
Undoubtedly Margaret was one of the blindest of these characters, but the world may pause before it scorns them too bitterly. It is faith of this sublime integrity which, brought down to personal experience, believes, endures, hopes, sacrifices and loves on to the end, winning finally what never would have been given to a more prudent and reasonable devotion. ”

“ One whose youth and hopes and marvelous beauty had been sold for houses and lands and a few thousand pounds a year. But, though her life was a living lie, the world praised her, because she "had done well unto herself." Yet, at the last end, the same seed brought forth the same fruit, and the Lady of Hawksworth Hall learned, with bitter rapidity, that riches are too poor to buy love. Scarcely had she taken possession of her splendid home before she longed for the placid happiness of her mother's cottage, and those evening walks under the beech-trees, whose very memory was now a sin. ”

“ If any sailor could keep his boat above water in them, she knew Geordie could; and if not—she durst follow that thought no further, but, putting her hands before her face, stood praying, while the two men pulled silently away in the little skiff that had brought them up the outlet connecting the lake of Stennis with the sea. Margaret would have turned away from Ronald's open grave less heart-broken.
It was midnight now, but her real terror absorbed all imaginary ones; she did not even call a pony, but with swift, even steps walked back to Stromness. ”

“ A peculiar movement among the congregation announced that the sermon was beginning, and David, looking up, saw that the officiating minister had been changed. This man was swarthy and tall, and looked like some old Jewish prophet, as he lifted his rapt face and cried, like one crying in the wilderness, "Friends! I have a question to ask you to-night: 'What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?'"
For twenty-three years David had silenced that voice, but it had found him out again—it was Willie Caird's. ”

“ Clare."
"I think she is a very lovely woman, John."
"I say nothing against her beauty, Cleve; I don't like her, and I have no mind to occupy the place that beautiful ill-used Miss Marat fills. The way Cousin Clare ignores or snubs a woman to whom she is every way inferior makes me angry enough, I assure you."
"Don't fall in love with the wrong woman, John."
"Your advice is too late, Cleve; I am in love. There is no use in us deceiving ourselves or each other. You seem to like the widow—why not marry her? ”

“ Coming out of the wet, dark night, it was pleasant to see the blazing ingle, the white-sanded floor, and the little round table holding some cold moor-cock and the pastry that he particularly liked.
"Love is but cauldrife cheer, my lad," said Janet, "an' the breast o' a bird an' a raspberry tartlet will be nane out o' the way." David was of the same opinion. He was very willing to enjoy Janet's good things and the pleasant light and warmth. Besides, Janet was his oldest confidant and friend—a friend that had never failed him in any of his boyish troubles or youthful scrapes. ”

“ I shall love her forever. She is the other half of my soul. In some lives I have missed her altogether let me be thankful that she has come so near me in this one."
"Do you know what you are saying, Franz?"
"Very clearly, Louis. I have always believed with the oldest philosophers that souls were created in pairs, and that it is permitted them in their toilsome journey back to purity and heaven sometimes to meet and comfort each other. Do you think I saw Christine for the first time in your uncle's parlor? Louis, I have fairer and grander memories of her than any linked to this life. ”

“ She mourned with a passionate sorrow her loss, and though Uncle David came at once to assist her in the necessary arrangements, she suffered no hand but her own to do the last kind offices for her dear dead. And oh! how empty and lonely was now the little cottage, while the swift return to all the ordinary duties of life seemed such a cruel effacement. Uncle David watched her silently, but on the evening of the third day after the funeral he said, kindly:
"Dry your eyes, Jean. There is naething to weep for. Your mother is far beyond tears." ”

“ David Scott, master shepherd for MacAllister, of Allister, thought of his ewes and lambs, pulled his Scotch bonnet over his brows, and taking his staff in his hand, turned his face to the hills.
David Scott was a mystic in his own way; the mountains were to him "temples not made with hands," and in them he had seen and heard wonderful things. Years of silent communion with nature had made him love her in all her moods, and he passionately believed in God. ”

“ In Davie's loving, simple nature there was doubtless a strong vein of romance. He was really in hopes that he might come across his long-lost brother. He had no very clear idea as to localities and distances, and he had read so many marvelous war stories that all things seemed possible in its atmosphere. But reality and romance are wide enough apart.
Davie's military experience was a very dull and weary one. He grew poorer and poorer, lost heart and hope, and could only find comfort for all his sacrifices in the thought that "at least he had spared poor Sandy." ”

“ Such a dream of love is given only to the few whom the gods favor. Franz must have stood high in their grace, for it lasted through many sweet weeks and months for him. He followed the Strombergs to Newport, and laid his whole life down at Christine's feet. There was no definite engagement between them, but every one understood that would come as surely as the end of the season.
Money matters and housekeeping must eventually intrude themselves, but the romance and charm of this one summer of life should be untouched. And Franz was not anxious at all on this score. ”

“ I'll buy so many acres of old Scotland and call them by the Lockerby's name; and I'll have nobles and great men come bowing and becking to David Lockerby as they do to Alexander Gordon. Love is refused, and wisdom is scorned, but everybody is glad to take money; then money is best of all things. ”

“ Ronald Sinclair had all the fair, stately beauty and noble presence of his sister, but yet there was some lack about him easier to feel than to define. Perhaps no one was unconscious of this lack except Margaret; but women have a grand invention where their idols are concerned, and create readily for them every excellency that they lack. Her own two years' study in an Edinburgh boarding-school had been very superficial, and she knew it; but this wonderful Ronald could read Homer and Horace, could play and sketch, and recite Shakespeare and write poetry. ”

“ Grave, fierce men, they were far from being cruel; they had no pleasure in the act which they believed to be their duty.
Lorimer went from one to the other and made known his son's request. He pleaded, "That as David had shot Whaley, justice would be fully satisfied in meting out the same death to the murderer as the victim."
But one man, a ranchero of great influence and wealth, answered that he must oppose such a request. It was the rope, he thought, made the punishment. He hoped no Texan feared a bullet. A clean, honorable death like that was for a man who had never wronged his manhood. ”

“ What cowards sin makes of us! Margaret had seen this very lad face death often, among the sunken rocks and cruel surfs, that he might save the life of a ship-wrecked sailor, and now, rather than meet the creditors whom he had wronged, he had committed a robbery and was flying from the gallows. ”

“ One sinned through an intense and self-sacrificing love, and in obedience to the strongest calls of want. Her sin, though it was beyond the pale of the world's toleration, was yet one according to Nature. The other, in a cold spirit of barter, voluntarily and deliberately exchanged her youth and beauty, the hopes of her own and another's life, for carriages, jewels, fine clothing and a luxurious table. She loathed the price she had to pay, and her sin was an unnatural one. For this kind of prostitution, which religion blesses and society praises, there seems to be no redress ”

“ Kitty's importance gave her back a great deal of her old dictatorial way. In the matter of toilettes she would not suffer even Max to interfere. "Results were all men had to do with," she said; "everything was inartistic to them but a few yards of linen and a straight petticoat."
Max sighed over the flounces and flutings and lace and ribbons, and talked about "unadorned beauty;" and then, when Kitty exhibited results, went into rhapsodies of wonder and admiration. Kitty was very triumphant in those days, but a little drop of mortification was in store for her. ”

“ I defied destiny, turned a deaf ear to the whisperings of my good genius, and continued the one-sided friendship—for I never even pretended to myself that I had any genuine liking for the man.
"One day, when we had become very familiar, he ran up to see me about something, I forget what, and not finding me in the outer apartments, penetrated to my private room. There, upon that easel, Will Lennox first saw the woman you saw with him to-night—the picture which you are now looking at—and he fell as desperately in love with it, in his way, as I had done in the Guadalupe woods with the reality. ”

“ Geordie Twatt went sullenly out, but Peter was rather pleased with himself; he believed that he had done his duty in a satisfactory manner. And if a man was in a good temper with himself, it was just the kind of even to increase his satisfaction. The gray old town of Kirkwall lay in supernatural glory, the wondrous beauty of the mellow gloaming blending with soft green and rosy-red spears of light that shot from east to west, or charged upward to the zenith. ”

“ A passionate burst of tears, an utter abandonment of distress, and the infatuated husband was willing to promise anything—everything—that his charmer demanded—that is, for the time; for Athel Kurston's influence was really stronger than her step-mother's, and the promises extorted from his lower passions were indefinitely postponed by his nobler feelings.
A divided household is always a miserable one; but the chief sufferer here was Mr. Kurston, and Athel, who loved him with a sincere and profound affection, determined to submit to circumstances for his sake. ”

“ Barr has the rare gift of writing from heart to heart. She unconsciously infuses into her readers a liberal share of the enthusiasm that moves the people of her creative imagination. One cannot read any of her books without feeling more than a spectator's interest; we are, for the moment, actual sharers in the joys and the sorrows, the misfortunes and the triumphs of the men and women to whom she introduces us. Our sympathy, our love, our admiration, are kindled by their noble and attractive qualities ”

“ The next day old Andrew was welcomed on the City Exchange as "Lockerby of Ellenmount, gentleman." "I hae lived lang enough to hae seen this day," he said, with happy tears; and David felt a joy in his father's joy that he did not know again for many years. For while a man works for another there is an ennobling element in his labor, but when he works simply for himself he has become the greatest of all slaves. This slavery David now willingly assumed; the accumulation of money became his business, his pleasure, the sum of his daily life. ”

“ It is not pleasant, mainly, because in such a struggle many a lonely claim is pitilessly set aside. In the daily shifts of bare life, the tender words that bring tender acts are forgotten. Gaunt looks, threadbare clothes, hard day-labor, sharp endurance of their children's wants, made Sandy and Sallie Morrison often very hard to those to whom they once were very tender. ”

“ I want silk dresses and decent dinners and matinees, and I'm fond of having things regular; it's a habit of mine to like them all the time. Now I know literary people have spasms of riches, and then spasms of poverty. Artists are just the same. I have tried poverty occasionally, and found its uses less desirable than some people tell us they are."
"Have you decided yet whom and what you will marry, Kitty?"
"No sarcasm, Jack. I shall marry the first good honest fellow that loves me and has a steady business, and who will not take me every summer to see views." ”

“ This alternative David could not bear to think of; and yet all through the summer the fear had constantly been before him. He knew how Sallie's plans always ended; Sandy was sure to give into them sooner or later, and he wondered if into their minds had ever come the terrible thought which haunted his own—would they commit him, then, to the care of public charities?
"We have no time to love each other," he muttered, sadly, "and my bite and sup is hard to spare when there is not enough to go round. I'll speak to Sandy myself about it—poor lad! It will come hard on him to say the first word." ”

“ There are set awful hours between every soul and heaven. Who knows what passed between Lettice Todd and her God in that dim forsaken temple of a buried faith? Death closes tenderly even the eyes full of tears, and her face was beautiful with a strange peace, though its loveliness was marred and its youth "seared with the autumn of strange suffering." ”

“ One morning, two years after Jessy's marriage, I received a note from Petralto, asking me to call upon him immediately. To my amazement, his rooms were dismantled, his effects packed up, and he was on the point of leaving New York.
"Whither bound?" I asked. "To Rome?"
"No; to the Guadalupe. I want to try what nature can do for me. Art, society, even friendship, fail at times to comfort me for my lost love. I will go back to nature, the great, sweet mother and lover of men."
So Petralto went out of New York ”