Charles James Lever

“ In somewhat less than a fortnight’s time I had made a bowing acquaintance with some half-dozen good subjects of Hesse, and formed a chatting intimacy with some three or four frequenters of the table d’hôte, with whom I occasionally strolled out of an afternoon into the Park, to drink coffee, and listen to the military band that played there every evening. The quiet uniformity of the life pleased and never wearied me; for happily—or unhappily, as some would deem it—mine is one of those tame and commonplace natures which need not costly amusements nor expensive tastes to occupy it. ”

“ My delight has been thus, for many a year back, to ramble through the world, and look on its game, like one who sits before the curtain, and has no concern with the actors, save, in so far as they amuse him.
“There is no cynicism in this. No one enjoys life more than I do. Music is a passion with me—in painting, I take the greatest delight, and beauty, has still her charm for me. Society, never was a greater pleasure. Scenery, can give me a sense of happiness, which none but solitary men ever feel—yet, it is less as one identified with these, than as a mere spectator. ”

“ It is true that I sit in the rumble of the carriage, while monseigneur, or my lord, reclines within; but would I exchange his ennui and depression for my own light-heartedness and jollity? Would I give up the happy independence of all the intrigue and plotting of the world I enjoy, for all his rank and station? Does not Mont Blanc look as grand in his hoary panoply to me as to him; are not the Danube and the Rhine as fair? If I wander through the gallery of Dresden, have I not the sweet smile of the great Raphael’s Madonna bent on me, as blandly as it is on him? ”

“ I have no intention of winding up these few remarks by any moral episode of a gambler’s life, though my memory could supply me with more than one such—when the baneful passion became the ruin, not of a thoughtless, giddy youth, inexperienced and untried, but of one who had already won golden opinions from the world, and stood high in the ranks which lead to honour and distinction. These stories have, unhappily, a sameness which mars the force of their lesson; they are listened to like the refrain of an old song, and from their frequency are disregarded. ”

“ The dream of home, the ever-present thought to the exile’s mind, suffers the rude shock when comes the hour of testing its reality; happy for him if he die in the delusion! Early remembrances are hallowed by a light that age and experience dissipate for ever, and as the highland tarn we used to think grand in its wild desolation in the hours of our boyhood becomes to our manhoods eye but a mere pond among the mountains, so do we look with changed feelings on all about us, and feel disappointment where we expected pleasure. ”

“ We did not dare to move; when Laura touched my hand gently, and whispered, ‘Hark! there it is again! And at the same instant the voices broke forth, but into a more joyous measure. It was one of those sweet peasant-carollings which breathe of the light heart and the simple life of the cottage. The words came nearer and nearer as we listened, and at length I could trace the refrain which closed each verse—
‘Puisque l’herbe et la fleur parlent mieux que les mots, Puisque un aveu d’amour s’exhale de la rose, Que le “ne m’oublie pas” de souvenir s’arrose, Que le laurier dit Gloire! ”

“ O’Leary!’ I turned my head, and there was Laura, scarce a length behind, her thoroughbred straining every sinew to come up. No one else was in sight, and there we were, galloping like mad, with the wood all to ourselves.
I can very well conceive why the second horse in a race does his best to get foremost, if it were only the indulgence of a very natural piece of curiosity to see what the other has been running for; but why the first one only goes the faster because there are others behind him, that is a dead puzzle to me. ”

“ I do not mean to say that the German has no respect for rank; on the contrary, none more than he looks up to aristocracy, and reveres its privileges; but he does so from its association with the greatness of the Fatherland. The great names of his nobles recall those of the heroes and sages of whom the traditions of the country bear record; they are the watchwords of German liberty or German glory; they are the monuments of which he feels proudest. His reverence for their descendants is not tinged with any vulgar desire to be thought their equal or their associate ”

“ Well, it’s a fine thing, to be sure, when your carriage breaks down in a chaussée, with holes large enough to bury a dog—it’s a great satisfaction to know, that some ten thousand years previous, this place, that seems for all the world like a mountain torrent, was a Roman way. If the inn you sleep in, be infested with every annoyance to which inns are liable—all that long catalogue of evils, from boors to bugs—never mind, there’s sure to be some delightful story of a bloody murder connected with its annals, which will amply repay you for all your suffering. ”

“ Every one knows how rapidly acquaintance ripens into intimacy when mere accident throws two persons together in situations where they have no other occupation than each other’s society; days do the work of years, confidences spring up where mere ceremonies would have been interchanged before, and in fact a freedom of thought and speech as great as we enjoy in our oldest friendships. Such in less than a fortnight was the relation between the baron and myself. ”

“ All the animation of French character, all the bluntness of German, all the impetuosity of the Italian or the violent rashness of the Russian, were calmed down and subdued beneath the influence of the great passion; and it seemed as though the Devil would not accept the homage of his votaries if not rendered with the well-bred manners of true gentlemen. It was not enough that men should be ruined—they should be ruined with easy propriety and thorough good-breeding. Whatever their hearts might feel, their faces should express no discomfiture ”

“ It was one evening, when we sat somewhat later than our wont in the garden, tempted by the delicious fragrance of the flowers and the mild light of a new moon, that at last the Hofrath’s madchen made her appearance, lantern in hand, to conduct him home. She carried on her arm a mass of cloaks, shawls, and envelopes that would have clothed a procession, with which she proceeded leisurely and artistically to dress up the professor and his sister, until the impression came over the bystanders that none but she who hid them in that mountain of wearables would ever be able to discover them again. ”

“ Nothing is more distinct than the two classes of people who are to be met with in the morning and in the afternoon, sauntering along the allées of a German watering-place. The former are the invalid portion, poured forth in numbers from hotel and lodging-house; attired in every absurdity of dressing-room toilette, with woollen nightcaps and flannel jackets, old-fashioned douillettes and morocco slippers, they glide along, glass in hand, to some sulphur spring, or to repose for an hour or two in the delights of a mud bath. ”

“ A motley crew we were—frieze-coated, red-coated, and no-coated; some, ruddy-cheeked farmer’s boys, sturdy good-humoured fellows, with the bloom of country life upon their faces; some, the pale, sickly, inhabitants of towns, whose sharpened features and quick penetrating eyes, betokened how much their wits had contributed to their maintenance. A few there were, like myself, drawn from a better class, but already scarce distinguishable amid the herd. We were nearly five hundred in number, one feature of equality pervading all—none of us had any arms. ”

“ Like the gambler, who if he lose to-day, goes off consoling himself, that he may be a winner to-morrow, I had learned never to feel very acutely any misfortune, provided only that I could see some prospect of its not being permanent:—and how many are there who go through the world in this fashion, getting the credit all the while of being such true philosophers, so much elevated above the chances and changes of fortune, and who, after all, only apply to the game of life the same rule of action they practise at the ‘rouge et noir’ table. ”

“ The esprit, that delicious ingredient which has been so lamentably omitted in German character, she had imbibed from her French education; and in lieu of that plodding interchange of flat commonplaces which constitute the ordinary staple of conversation between the young of opposite sexes beyond the Rhine, she had imported the light, delicate tone of Parisian raillery—the easy and familiar gaiety of French society, so inexpressibly charming in France, and such a boon from heaven when one meets it by accident elsewhere. ”

“ As he said these words, I saw Sir Harry steal a glance at Crotty. The thing was as quick as lightning, but never did a glance reveal more; he caught my eye upon him, and looking round fully at me said, in a deep, ominous voice—
‘That’s the confounded part of it; it’s so hard to stop when you ‘re losing.’
‘Hard!—impossible!’ cried the youth, whose eyes were now riveted on the table, following every card that fell from the banker’s hands, and flushing and growing pale with every alternation of the game. ”

“ Should any Sixty-first man throw his eye over these pages he will remember that I speak of one beloved by every one who knew him. With all the heroic daring of the stoutest heart, his nature was soft and gentle as a child’s. Poor G——! some of the happiest moments of my life were spent with you; some of the saddest, in thinking over your destiny.
You must take my word for the Hofrath, then, good reader. They who read the modern novels of Germany—the wild exaggerations of Fouqué and Hoffman, Musaeus and Tieck—will comprehend that the story of himself has no extravagance whatever. ”

“ The whole duplicity of my conduct started up before me, and I saw for the first time, how the mere ardour of pursuit had led me on and on—how the daring to surmount a difficulty, had stirred my heart, at first to win, and then to worship her: and the bitterness of my self-reproach at that moment became a punishment, which, even now, I remember with a shudder. It is too true! The great misfortunes of life form more endurable subjects for memory in old age, than the instances, however trivial, where we have acted amiss, and where conscience rebukes us. ”

“ Why is not a man permitted to sit down before that great picture, “The Descent from the Cross,” and “gaze his fill” on it? Why may he not look till the whole scene becomes, as it were, acting before him, and all those faces of grief, of care, of horror, and despair, are graven in his memory, never to be erased again? Why, I say, may he not study this in tranquillity and peace, without some coarse, tobacco-reeking fellow, at his elbow, in a dirty blouse and wooden shoes, explaining, in patois French, the merits of a work, which he is as well fitted to paint, as to appreciate. ”

“ Does not the good soil, which, when cultivated with care, produce the fairest flowers and the richest fruits, rear up, when neglected and abandoned, the most noxious weeds and the rankest thistles? And yet it was love for another—that passion so humanising in its influence, so calculated to assuage the stormy and vindictive traits of even a savage nature—it was love that made them thus. To how many is the ‘light that lies in woman’s eyes’ but a beacon to lure to ruin? When we think that but one can succeed where so many strive, what sadness and misery must not result to others? ”