Augustus William Dubourg

“ Why should she suffer? She has done no wrong. We are bound to silence in mercy to her. Mark these words, Pauline—the evil and sorrow rest on your head, if you ever break that pledge of silence.”
She made him no answer.
“You forgave me once,” she murmured.
“God forbid I should retract those words! It is possible to forgive, but it is impossible to absolve you from the consequences of your guilt.”
Markham went back to India. ”

“ Markham saw that clearly, and yet even to surprise, he had never in his life known his mind more perfectly composed and capable of exact thought. He was constitutionally brave, and his mental powers were never fully developed until he stood face to face with difficulty. Far different her condition. Her husband had just fallen in his brave attempt to appeal to the men, but in the terror of the present there was no room for that sorrow in her mind. Life or death? Life, was to fall alive into the rebels’ hands; Death, was to die unforgiven by those she had wronged most. ”

“ But the diamond in itself is without a history—it is never old in the common decay of ordinary matter—its lustre represents an eternal youth without one reminiscence of the past, a perpetual newness though it has been in wear for hundreds of years. ”

“ Markham, I know you will not misunderstand me, but when you talk of leaving us and not coming again—I feel there is something I ought to say—I know I should never forgive myself if I were silent. There is one person who will be very sorry when you go away. Now mind, it’s not from any conversation between us, I give you my honour—but I can see better than words can tell—my sister loves you! ”

“ The feeling which wrestled with her was love,—first love,—with all its intensity, first love, to be met with shuddering and endured with sorrow. It was her sister’s name which stole from his unconscious lips as she smoothed his pillow with trembling hands, and drew aside the ruffled hair from his burning brow. ”

“ She would sit for hours and watch him in his fitful sleep. She knew he must always hate her, yet she liked to feel that he rested in her power as a helpless child. The vital energy was wasted from his face; the strong arm she had clung to in that terrible flight was very weak and purposeless; the hands were nerveless which had freed her from the ruffian’s grasp;—and yet he looked so noble in his weakness. ”

“ Yet surely there remained to her the sorrowful recollection of that brave husband, who died a noble death, which might deliver her from this fatal fascination. She strove to love him dead as she had never dreamt of loving him when living. ”

“ Life to me is more frightful than death. When they come”—she pointed significantly to the revolver. “I never fired a pistol in my life; my own hand might fail me at the last.”
He was silent.
“As you hope for salvation hereafter.”
“What, take vengeance with my own hand?”
“No, Markham, the act would be the token of your forgiveness. Swear!” she cried, in an agony of supplication, “and then I can pray in peace.”
“I swear!” said Markham. ”

“ The fame of a great man out-distances all accumulations of compound interest on the original price of his early and perhaps finest works—for one grudging buyer of the work of an unknown genius, there are hundreds who, at the end of a decade, will gladly buy, at almost any price, the works of the great artist of the age ”

“ In this matter the poor onyx-stone holds its own triumphantly against the diamond; it is elevated to such a value by the hand of man, that it has been deemed worthy of the choicest setting—a setting in which diamonds are only used as auxiliaries to its beauty—its beauty, the genius of fine workers in past times. ”

“ At last she did find a letter there—”
“My letter?”
“No—a letter from you which said the engagement must cease.”
He let her fall from his grasp. The calm of his soul was gone. “My God! to die now, and for Clara never to know the truth.”
Terror at the approaching danger overcame all her other feelings. Fascinated, she crawled up to the window of the hovel, and gazed out. She saw, even at the distance, the expression on that countenance which had caused her such horror the night before. In a minute or two more their refuge would be discovered. ”

“ So by the law of perspective, as we look up, we behold ridge below ridge of jewel- work resting on the golden columns, and glowing with transmitted light. The background, shutting in the court, is a screen of delicate metal work, the details standing out against the bright glare of day. ”

“ He did not appear to heed her words. “You must let me say, Pauline, that I am bound to you in gratitude, and I would do all I could to help you in this sorrow; but I know we can only forgive ourselves when God, in his mercy, allows us the opportunity of repairing the past.”
“Markham, I am very rich; set me to any task of doing good.”
“I shall only demand one act from you. You will tell your sister.” ”

“ There is the mother’s tender love in the Virgin’s countenance, troubled with amazement—amazement too, and deep feeling, in the father’s countenance: but there is the absence of that responsive sympathy which arises from comprehension and appreciation. He stands isolated even in his mother’s arms. Alone, as regards human sympathy, in this great era of His childhood, though in the midst of the busy life of the Temple, as He was so often to stand alone, without the solace of human sympathy and love, in his after life. ”

“ If this be the case, that ‘glitter and pure water’ must stand by themselves for what they are worth—cost is not necessarily united with those qualities—those qualities, for all purposes of ordinary display, may be represented by bits of glass at a few pounds value for workmanship; consequently, that halo of fabulous cost, which is felt to lend such splendour to the diamonds, rests upon a mere assertion. That glistening of refracted light may be equally the result of an expenditure of sixteen pounds or sixty thousand. ”

“ The occurrence, which a few days will efface from their recollection, is sacred to us—merely the wondering eyes of an intelligent child, as they beheld his earnest gaze,—unfathomable depth of divine spirit to us. ”

“ And further than this, there is that great extrinsic element of value which essentially belongs to all works of genius, limitation in supply in opposition to increased demand,—for the weakness of old age must come, and the spontaneity of thought will be dulled, and the right hand will lose its cunning—the possibility of the best work is at an end, and presently the possibility of all work is ended; for brain and hand are resting for ever in the rest of death. ”

“ But day and night those two terrible worms are at work; they have clean picked off every atom of profit, and with eager voracity they are gnawing at the very value of the stones. It now becomes an anxious effort with the unfortunate tradesman to preserve the sum he had originally paid for the stones, and it requires no great effort of the imagination to realise the terrible time when the market value of the diamonds becomes less than the accumulated interest lost upon their cost price. ”

“ Now, if the owner of 30,000l. per annum is debarred from becoming a buyer, just consider how excessively restricted the number of purchasers must be. We have heard, indeed, of some extraordinary passions for the acquisition of land—that men have borrowed money at five per cent. to buy land which could only pay from two to two-and-a-half per cent.—but it is impossible to suppose that anybody would borrow money at five per cent. to purchase a commodity which could not return the slightest interest, and which would confer on the purchaser neither parliamentary nor county influence. ”

“ The Colonel dabbled in speculation; the Colonel was delighted to make Markham’s acquaintance; his poor house was at Markham’s service while he remained at the station. The Colonel drew Markham out of the circle to have some special conversation on railway topics; the circle closed again to listen to Mrs. Vincent’s brilliant sallies and repartee, but she had become silent and pensive.
When she had heard of Markham last, Markham had gone to Canada. Why in the countless chances of life should he and she meet at this time in India? ”

“ Everybody must acknowledge the marvellous finish of the execution—utmost delicacy combined with power of effect—the harmony and richness of the colouring—the brightness, true to Eastern climes, though dazzling to Western eyes—the wonderful painting of the countenances. ”

“ The questions of the boy have sounded strangely in the ears of these learned men. The blind High Priest holds with nervous grasp the sacred Rolls of the Law, as the Rabbi at his side repeats in his dulled ear something that the boy has said. No wonder the old man holds the Rolls of the Law so tightly in his feeble hands, for it may well be that the words which he hears contain the germ of those questions which on another day were to put the chief priests to silence and confusion. ”

“ But we must add to all this, the enormous temptation not to spend 60,000l. in diamonds—a sum which, devoted to a noble purpose, the patronage of art, for instance, could command the genius of the greatest men of the day, and, through their handiwork, would create a reputation for magnificence of taste which a king might envy. ”

“ As it will be at the end of the world, so it was at many of those stations in India. The sun rose on the ordered strength of human system, and behold! all that men trusted in and clung to, shrunk in a moment from their grasp.
They did meet again very soon, Mrs. Vincent and Markham,—a speedy transition from the amenities of society to grim strife for life and death—dragged from her own home ”

“ But if the case of the buyer appears a bad one, the case of the tradesman, if he fails to obtain a purchaser, is still worse. We allowed that 30l. per cent. profit was necessary to render the transaction profitable to the seller; a year has passed away and the diamonds remain unsold. Diamond alone can cut diamond, it is said, but there is a worm with sharp adamantine teeth grawing at the stones; behold, it has devoured the 15l. per cent. legitimate trade profit on the year, and there only remains 15l. ”

“ There are many wishes which we habitually conceive and express, without considering what the result would be were it possible to realise them, and what enormous consequences their realisation would entail. ”

“ I had been endeavouring to point out that what men find so difficult in a religious sense, really forms the foundation of secular life. Take, for instances, our investments of money, our whole system of commercial credit, nay, higher than that, our dearest domestic relations, our best social affections. ”

“ The veneration for relics exhibits this feeling in its debased form, but in its noblest condition it associates us with the efforts and thoughts and affections of great men long passed away—supplementing the history of any given period, and showing us the application and result of the feelings and sentiments which history records. ”

“ And after all, with regard to this question of idealisation, it is evident, in a system of treatment which is based upon the principle of embodying the greatest possible amount of truth, that in the highest parts of this picture the very power of realising necessitates the fullest powers of idealising—and so, in painting the head of Christ, the terms realise and idealise become almost synonymous. ”

“ It is curious to observe how this adherence to truth of detail has led the pre-Raphaelites to create a principle in religious painting opposed to previous methods. Great religious painters hitherto have striven to attain their aim through idealisation—the countenance was idealised until it had almost lost its human interest—to mark the divineness of the subject the surrounding accessories were generally of a purely conventional character—the heavenly host introduced;—by making the picture unearthly it was sought to make it divine. ”

“ I had written, “the world would come to a dead-lock; there would be an end of concerted action; men would be perfectly isolated. Faith was the cohesive principle which bound together the human atoms.” I little thought that that very night would afford me a terrible illustration of what I had written in a spirit of speculative contemplativeness.
Just as I had finished my discourse, I heard a low, single rap at the street-door. The servant had gone to bed, so I undid the bolts, and looked out ”

“ One picture, and that not very large, is the fruit of more than five years of a painter’s labour! This is worth thinking about, not as affording curious data for calculating the number of pictures a man might produce at such a consumption of time, during the comparatively short period wherein he possesses his greatest powers, because if we desire great pictures, or any other thing which is really great, we must not be over-anxious for speed of production. ”

“ We may appreciate either principle of religious painting, without depreciating the other. We may admire the examples of both methods. It is especially an error in art-criticism to become a vehement partisan. ”

“ There is no danger that the technical merit of the picture will be overlooked, but the high position that it holds stands on other grounds than manipulative skill. We must bear this in mind, that the picture, to be judged fairly, must be judged by the principle of realisation—not hastily condemned because it does not follow the commonly adopted method of idealisation. ”

“ We will quote the case of a very rich man; we will suppose that he possesses a fine house in Belgravia, and a magnificent historical mansion, surrounded by a fine park, in the country,—that he possesses chariots and horses and companies of footmen, and stalwart tenants, and great parliamentary influence, and first-rate shooting, with a large staff of keepers, &c.—in a word, that he is the greatest man in all that country side. But even this man could not afford to buy those diamonds, for he enjoys all this magnificence on 30,000l. ”