Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton

“ Yet no law in England forbids me my cigar, Nero! What is law at half-past eight was not crime at six and a half! Britannia says, 'Man, thou art free, and she lies like a commonplace woman. O Nero, Nero! you enviable dog! you serve but from liking. No thought of the world costs you one wag of the tail. Your big heart and true instinct suffice you for reason and law. You would want nothing to your felicity, if in these moments of ennui you would but smoke a cigar. Try it, Nero! ”

“ The passenger moved uneasily. "Well," said he, with a sort of snort, "air is air, and right is right: but here goes—" and he hastily drew up the window.
Helen turned her face full towards the passenger with a grateful expression, visible even in the dim light.
"You are very kind, sir," said poor Mr. Digby; "I am ashamed to—" his cough choked the rest of the sentence. The passenger, who was a plethoric, sanguineous man, felt as if he were stifling. But he took off his wrappers, and resigned the oxygen like a hero. ”

“ By Apollo and his nine spinsters! there is no human being who has so little imagination as a distinguished member of parliament. Answer me this, thou solemn Right Honourable,—Hast thou climbed to the heights of august contemplation? Hast thou gazed on the stars with the rapt eye of song? Hast thou dreamed of a love known to the angels, or sought to seize in the Infinite the mystery of life?"
"Not I indeed, my poor Harley."
"Then no wonder, poor Audley, that you cannot conjecture why he who makes his bed in an attic, disturbed by base catterwauls, shies his slippers at cats. ”

“ Digby wrapped up in the child; return home; mysterious life for two years; child patient, thoughtful, loving; has learned to work; manages for father; often supports him; constitution rapidly breaking; thought of what will become of his child,—worst disease of all. Poor Digby! never did a base, cruel, unkind thing in his life; and here he is, walking down the lane from Colonel Pompley's house! Now, if Digby had but learned a little of the world's cunning, I think he would have succeeded even with Colonel Pompley. ”

“ And if any man gives an entertainment, and hears afar a general, ill-suppressed, derisive titter, and sees all his guests hurrying towards one spot, I defy him to remain unmoved and uninquisitive. I defy him still more to take that precise occasion (however much he may have before designed it) to drop gracefully on his right knee before the handsomest Mrs. M'Catchley in the universe, and—pop the question! Richard Avenel blurted out something very like an oath ”

“ Pompley, ''T is a mercy we have no children. We could never live in this style if we had children,—never make both ends meet.' Child—the most expensive, ravenous, ruinous thing in the world— a child."
"She has been accustomed to starve," said Mr. Digby, plaintively. "Oh,
Colonel, let me see your wife. Her heart I can touch,—she is a woman."
Unlucky father! A more untoward, unseasonable request the Fates could not have put into his lips.
Mrs. Pompley see the Digbies! Mrs. Pompley learn the condition of the colonel's grand connections! The colonel would never have been his own man again. ”

“ Pompley should come in! And the man, too, had been announced by name. Mrs. Pompley might have learned already that a Digby was with her husband,—she might be actually dressing to receive him worthily; there was not a moment to lose.
The colonel exploded. "Sir, I wonder at your impudence. See Mrs. Pompley! Hush, sir, hush!—hold your tongue. I have disowned your connection. I will not have my wife—a woman, sir, of the first family —disgraced by it. Yes; you need not fire up. John Pompley is not a man to be bullied in his own house. ”

“ Nero, delighted to escape the cigar, had taken to some unwieldy curvets and gambols, to vent the excitement into which he had been thrown; and now returning, approached the bench with a low growl of surprise, and sniffed at the intruders of his master's privacy.
"Come here, sir," said the master. "You need not fear him," he added, addressing himself to the girl.
But the girl, without turning round to him, cried in a voice rather of anguish than alarm, "He has fainted! Father! Father!"
The stranger kicked aside his dog, which was in the way, and loosened the poor man's stiff military stock. ”

“ Leonard was more hurt by the jeer at his old patron's gift than pleased by his uncle's. But Richard Avenel had no conception of sentiment. It was not for many days that Leonard could reconcile himself to his uncle's manner. Not that the peasant could pretend to judge of its mere conventional defects; but there is an ill breeding to which, whatever our rank and nurture, we are almost equally sensitive,—the ill breeding that comes from want of consideration for others. Now, the squire was as homely in his way as Richard Avenel, but the squire's bluntness rarely hurt the feelings ”

“ He had learned that she was a widow, and honourable by birth, and honourable by marriage, living on her handsome jointure, and refusing offers every day that she so lived. Somehow or other, whenever Richard Avenel thought of a wife, he thought of the Honourable Mrs. M'Catchley. Perhaps that romantic attachment to the fair invisible preserved him heart-whole amongst the temptations of Screwstown. Suddenly, to the astonishment of the Abbey Gardens, Mrs. M'Catchley proved her identity, and arrived at Colonel Pompley's in a handsome travelling-carriage, attended by her maid and footman. ”

“ Your papa is of fair complexion,—a timid character, I should say;—a horror of work, perhaps. Eh, child?"
"Sir!" faltered Helen, astonished and alarmed. Was the man a conjuror?
"A case for phosphor!" cried the passenger: "that fool Browne would have said arsenic. Don't be persuaded to take arsenic!"
"Arsenic, sir!" echoed the mild Digby. "No: however unfortunate a man may be, I think, sir, that suicide is—tempting, perhaps, but highly criminal."
"Suicide," said the passenger, tranquilly,—"suicide is my hobby! You have no symptom of that kind, you say?" ”

“ Richard returned the salutation with a nod,—a nod less gracious than condescending. The chaise turned rapidly to the left, and stopped before a small lodge, very new, very white, adorned with two Doric columns in stucco, and flanked by a large pair of gates. "Hollo!" cried the post- boy, and cracked his whip.
Two children were playing before the lodge, and some clothes were hanging out to dry on the shrubs and pales round the neat little building.
"Hang those brats! they are actually playing," growled Dick. "As I live, the jade has been washing again! Stop, boy!" ”

“ What the book says about the ignorance of country magistrates is very good; but the man writes pretty considerable trash when he wants to regulate the number of hours a free-born boy should work at a factory,—only ten hours a day— pooh! and so lose two hours to the nation! Labour is wealth; and if we could get men to work twenty-four hours a day, we should be just twice as rich. If the march of civilization is to proceed," continued Richard, loftily, "men, and boys too, must not lie a bed doing nothing, all night, sir." ”

“ The poor woman's voice was so raised and so shrill, that any other and more remorseful feeling which Richard might have conceived was drowned in his apprehensions that she would be overheard by his servants or his guests,—a masculine apprehension, with which females rarely sympathize; which, on the contrary, they are inclined to consider a mean and cowardly terror on the part of their male oppressors. ”

“ But to live with peace, to live with dignity, to live with freedom, to live in harmony with your thoughts, your habits, your aspirations—and this in the perpetual companionship of a person to whom you have given the power to wound your peace, to assail your dignity, to cripple your freedom, to jar on each thought and each habit, and bring you down to the meanest details of earth, when you invite her, poor soul, to soar to the spheres—that makes the To Be or Not To Be, which is the question. ”

“ And, with his light, firm, well-shaped figure, his clear complexion, his keen, bright eye, and features that bespoke the courage, precision, and alertness of his character,—that is to say, features bold, not large, well-defined, and regular,—you might walk long through town or country before you would see a handsomer specimen of humanity than our friend Richard Avenel. ”

“ For Colonel Pompley did not leave that domestic care to his lady,—perhaps she was too grand for it. Colonel Pompley with his own sonorous voice ordered the joints, and with his own heroic hands dispensed the stores. In justice to the colonel, I must add—at whatever risk of offence to the fair sex—that there was not a house at Screwstown so well managed as the Pompleys'; none which so successfully achieved the difficult art of uniting economy with show. I should despair of conveying to you an idea of the extent to which Colonel Pompley made his income go. ”

“ On his bed, and on his chairs, and on his sofa, and on his drawers, lay trousers and vests and cravats enough to distract the choice of a Stoic. And first one pair of trousers was tried on, and then another—and one waistcoat, and then a second, and then a third. Gradually that chef-d'oeuvre of civilization—a man dressed—grew into development and form; and, finally, Mr. Richard Avenel emerged into the light of day. ”

“ He was still in the prime of life, at the age when man is usually the most social,—when the acquaintances of youth have ripened into friendships, and a personage of some rank and fortune has become a well-known feature in the mobile face of society. But though, when his contemporaries were boys scarce at college, this gentleman had blazed foremost amongst the princes of fashion, and though he had all the qualities of nature and circumstance which either retain fashion to the last, or exchange its false celebrity for a graver repute, he stood as a stranger in that throng of his countrymen. ”

“ Then Richard showed him the library, with mahogany book- cases, and plate glass, and the fashionable authors handsomely bound. Your new men are much better friends to living authors than your old families who live in the country, and at most subscribe to a book-club. Then Richard took him up-stairs, and led him through the bedrooms,—all very clean and comfortable, and with every modern convenience; and pausing in a very pretty single gentleman's chamber, said, "This is your den. And now, can you guess who I am?"
"No one but my uncle Richard could be so kind," answered Leonard. ”

“ Handsome, and feeling that he was handsome; rich, and feeling that he was rich; lord of the fete, and feeling that he was lord of the fete, Richard Avenel stepped out upon his lawn.
And now the dust began to rise along the road, and carriages and gigs and chaises and flies might be seen at near intervals and in quick procession. People came pretty much about the same time-as they do in the country—Heaven reward them for it! ”

“ She hears so much of her affairs, that she may well boast of her constitution: it must be of iron."
"The House is still sitting," answered Audley, seriously, and with small heed of his friend's witticism. "But it is not a Government motion, and the division will be late, so I came home; and if I had not found you here, I should have gone into the Park to look for you."
"Yes; one always knows where to find me at this hour, nine o'clock P.M., cigar, Hyde Park. There is not a man in England so regular in his habits." ”

“ The season is still at its height; but the short day of fashionable London life, which commences two hours after noon, is in its decline.
The crowd in Rotten Row begins to thin. Near the statue of Achilles, and apart from all other loungers, a gentleman, with one hand thrust into his waistcoat, and the other resting on his cane, gazed listlessly on the horsemen and carriages in the brilliant ring. ”

“ A few, indeed, are so infantine that one is ashamed to be their toy; but most are so knowing that one is afraid to be their dupe. The first, if they condescend to love you, love you as the biggest doll they have yet dandled, and for a doll's good qualities,—your pretty blue eyes and your exquisite millinery. ”

“ The colonel looked as a man only looks upon a poor relation, and buttoned up first one trouser pocket and then the other.
"I thought you were in Canada," said the colonel, at last. Mr. Digby had now got breath to speak, and he said meekly, "The climate would have killed my child, and it is two years since I returned."
"You ought to have found a very good place in England to make it worth your while to leave Canada."
"She could not have lived through another winter in Canada,—the doctor said so." ”