Charles James Lever

“ From such sorrowing thoughts he made his escape to rush into society—anywhere, anyhow; and, by the revulsion of his mind, came that rattling and boisterous gayety that made him seem the most light-hearted fellow in existence. Such men are always making bonfires of their household gods, and have nothing to greet them when they are at home.
What a fascination must Lizzy Davis have exercised over such a mind! Her beauty and her gracefulness would not have been enough without her splendid dressing, and that indescribable elegance of manner which was native to her. ”

“ He was one of those men to whom the epithet “dangerous” completely applies; he was dangerous alike to the young fellow entering life, unsuspectful of its wiles and ignorant of its rascalities; dangerous in the easy facility with which he would make foolish wagers, and lend even large sums on the very slightest acquaintance. He seemed so impressed with his theory that everybody ought to have all the enjoyment he liked, there was such a careless good-nature about him, such an uncalculating generosity, an air of such general kindliness, that very young men felt at once at ease in his company ”

“ They are of every land and of every age; ay, and of every station! Country, time, birth have no prerogative. At one moment the great light of the earth has been the noblest born in his nation, at another a peasant,—miles apart in all the accidents of fortune, brothers by the stamp which makes genius a tie of family. To-morrow you shall hear of one, the noblest-hearted man in all England, and yet whose daily toil was the vulgar life of an exciseman. ”

“ When he was at Lord Glengariff's, I think, he fell in love with one of the daughters, or she with him,—I never knew it rightly,—but it ended in his being sent away; and they say he never got over it. Just as if Davenport Dunn was a likely man either to fall in love or cherish the memory of a first passion! I wish you saw him, Bella,” said he, laughing, “and the notion would certainly amuse you.”
“But still men of his stamp have felt—ay, and inspired—the strongest passions. I remember reading once—” “Reading, my darling,—reading is one thing, seeing or knowing is another. ”

“ Kellett was rather flattered by the recognition of him who recalled the brighter hours of his life, while he entertained a kind of admiration for the worldly wit and cleverness of one who, in talk at least, was a match for the “shrewdest fellow going.” Beecher liked the society of a man who thus looked up to him, and who could listen unweariedly to his innumerable plans for amassing wealth and fortune, all of which only needed some little preliminary aid—some miserable thousand or two to start with—to make them as “rich as Rothschild.” ”

“ The Lake of Como, on a fine day of summer or early autumn, and with a heart moderately free from the anxieties and sorrows of life, is a very enjoyable locality, and essentially so to a man of the world like the noble Viscount, who liked to have the more romantic features of the scene blended with associations of ease and pleasure, and be able to turn from the contemplation of Alpine ruggedness to the sight of some terraced garden, glowing in the luxuriance of its vegetation. Never, perhaps, was there ever a spot so calculated to appeal successfully to the feelings of men of his stamp. ”

“ Beside a little arm of the sea, and surrounded by lofty mountains, stood the cottage of Lord Glengariff. It was originally built as a mere fishing-lodge, a resting-place in the bathing-season, or a spot to visit when it was the pleasure of its owners to affect retirement and seclusion. Then would the Earl and his Countess and the Ladies Julia and Jemima come down to the Hermitage with a sort of self-approving humility that seemed to say, “Even we know how to chastise pride, and vanity, and the sinful lusts of the flesh.” ”

“ There was that in her easy, lounging attitude, and the splendour of her dress, which seemed to intimate that Lady Lackington would still be graceful, and even extravagant, though there were none to admire the grace or be dazzled by the costliness. Her companion, though several years younger, looked, from the effects of delicate health and a suffering disposition, almost of her own age. She, too, was handsome; but it was a beauty which so much depended on tint and colour, that her days of indisposition left her almost bereft of good looks. ”

“ Beecher was not only a very good-looking fellow, but he had that stamp of man of fashion on him which all the contamination of low habits and low associates had not effaced. His address was easy and unaffected, his voice pleasantly toned, his smile sufficiently ready; and his whole manner was an agreeable blending of deference with a sort of not ungraceful self-esteem. Negatives best describe the class of men he belonged to, and any real excellence he possessed was in not being a great number of things which form, unhappily, the social defects of a large section of humanity. ”

“ Davenport Dunn's residence was in Merrion Square, his house of business was in Henrietta Street,—one of those roomy old mansions which, before the days of the Union, lodged the aristocracy of Ireland, but which have now fallen into utter neglect and decay. Far more spacious in extent, and more ornate in decoration, than anything modern Dublin can boast, they remain, in their massive doors of dark mahogany, their richly stuccoed ceilings, and their handsome marble chimney-pieces, the last witnesses of a period when Dublin was a real metropolis. ”

“ With his own especial quickness Dunn saw what was passing in his lieutenant's mind, and he added hastily,—
“Not that, of all men, I need care for such assaults; powerful even to tyranny as the press has become amongst us, there is one thing more powerful still, and that is—Prosperity! Ay, sir, there may be cavil and controversy as to your abilities; some may condemn your speech, or carp at your book, they may cry down your statecraft, or deny your diplomacy; but there is a test that all can appreciate, all comprehend, and that is—Success. Have only that, Hankes, and the world is with you.” ”

“ If Conway was astounded at this singular burst of paternal affection, he did not the less try to profit by it, and at once began to recount the achievements of his comrade, Jack Kellett. The old man listened half doggedly at first, but gradually, as the affection of others for his son was spoken of, he relaxed, and heard, with an emotion he could not easily repress, how Jack was beloved by the whole regiment,—that to be his companion in outpost duty, to be stationed with him in a battery, was a matter of envy. ”

“ After some hours of hard labor, Dunn opened his window to enjoy the fresh air of the night, tempered slightly as it was with a gentle sea-breeze. If our western moonlights have not the silver lustre of Greece, of which old Homer himself sings, they have, in compensation, a mellow radiance of wondrous softness and beauty. Objects are less sharply defined and picked out, it is true, but the picture gains in warmth of color, and those blended effects where light and shadow alternate. The influences of Nature—the calm, still moonlight ”

“ From your own lips have I heard more stories of generosity—more instances of self-devotion, trustfulness, and true kindness—than I have ever listened to in life.”
“Ay, amongst the poor, Bella,—amongst the poor!” said Kellett, half ashamed of his recantation.
“Be assured, then, that these traits are not peculiar to any class. The virtues of the poor, like their sufferings, are more in evidence than in any other condition,—their lives are laid bare by poverty; but I feel assured people are better than we think them,—better than they know themselves.” ”

“ It was not alone that in beauty she eclipsed them, but she possessed, besides, the thousand nameless attractions of manner and gesture, a certain blended dignity and youthful gayety that made her seem the very ideal of high-born loveliness. He had seen dukes' daughters who could not vie with her in these gifts; he had known countesses immeasurably beneath her. From these thoughts he went on to others as to her future, and the kind of fellow that might marry her; for, strangely enough, in all his homage there mingled the ever-present memory of Grog and his pursuits. ”

“ Woman-like, too, she inclined to make success the true test of greatness, and glorified to herself those bold spirits who never halted nor turned aside when on their road to victory. The splendid self-dependence of such men as Drake and Dampier struck her as the noblest attribute of mankind; that resolute trust in their own stout hearts imparted to them a degree of interest almost devotional; and over and over did she bethink her what a glorious destiny it would have been to have had a life associated and bound up with some such man as one of these. ”

“ If there be something very seductive in the prospect of growing immensely rich all at once, there is a terrible compensation in the utter indifference inflicted on us as to all our accustomed pleasures in life. The fate of Midas seems at once our own; there is nothing left to us but that one heavy and shining metal of all created blessedness! Lord Glengariff was wont to enjoy the lonely spot he lived in with an intense appreciation of its beauty. ”

“ As the chemist is able by the minutest drop, an almost imperceptible atom of some subtle ingredient, to change the properties of some vast mass, altering color and odor and taste at once, so did the great artist Grog Davis know how to deal with the complicated nature of Beecher, that he could at any moment hurl him down into the blackest depths of despair, or elevate him to the highest pinnacle of hope and enjoyment. ”

“ Davenport Dunn had not exaggerated when he spoke of a busy day for the morrow. As early as eight o'clock was he at breakfast, and before nine the long back parlor, with its deep bay-window, was crowded like the waiting-room of a fashionable physician. Indeed, in the faces of anxiety, eagerness, and impatience of those assembled there, there was a resemblance. With a tact which natural shrewdness and long habit could alone confer, Mr. Clowes, the butler, knew exactly where each arrival should be introduced ”

“ Dunn's pale face flushed up as he muttered some broken words of depreciating meaning.
“The circumstances, I am aware, are different. You have not to revolutionize a country, but you have undertaken just as hard a task: to remodel its social state,—to construct out of the ruined materials of a bankrupt people the elements of national wealth and greatness. Let no man tell me, sir, that this is not a bolder effort than the other. Horse, foot, and dragoons, as poor Grattan used to say, won't aid you here. To your own clear head and your own keen intellect must you trust.” ”

“ Cheap divorce will be as unfashionable as cheap pine-apple when a coal-heaver can have it,” said Lady Lackington.
“You mistake, it seems to me, what constitutes the luxury,” interposed Lady Grace. “Every day of the year sees men liberated from prison, yet no one will pretend that the sense of freedom is less dear to every creature thus delivered.”
“Your figure is but too like,” said Dunn. “The divorced wife will be to the world only too much a resemblance of the liberated prisoner. ”

“ And to judge from the carriage of his head as he spoke, and the air with which he earned the pinch of snuff to his nose, he had not yet despaired of seeing the world come back to the traditions which once had made it worth living in.
“I am willing to give him every credit for his propriety of conduct, Augusta,” added he, in a still more lofty tone; “for we live in times when really wealth and worldly prosperity have more than their rightful supremacy, and such men as Dunn are made the marks of an adulation that is actually an outrage,—an outrage upon us!” ”

“ No Pasha was ever more absolute than my Lord in the little village beside him; his will was a sort of firman that none dreamed of disputing; and, indeed, the place men occupied in the esteem of their fellows there, was little else than a reflex of how they were regarded at the Hermitage. We never scruple to bestow a sort of derisive pity upon the savage who, having carved his deity out of a piece of wood, sits down to worship him; and yet, what an unconscious imitation of the red man is all our adulation of great folks! ”

“ The man who has no taste for horsemanship consoles himself for the unenjoyed pleasure by reading of the fractured ribs and smashed collar-bones of the hunting-field. Was it in something of this spirit that Lady Augusta took an especial delight in dwelling in her mind and in her letters on all the disagreeables of her sisters' wedded life? The extravagance of men, their selfishness, their uncomplying habits, the odious tyranny of their tempers, were favorite themes with her, dashed with allusions to every connubial contingency, from alimony to the measles in the nursery! ”

“ She caught up with an instinctive quickness the meaning of those secret springs which move society, and where, though genius and wealth are suffered to exercise their influence, the real power is alone centred in those who are great by station and hereditary claims. She saw that the great Brahmins of fashion maintained a certain exclusiveness which no pretensions ever breached, and that to this consciousness of an unassailable position was greatly owing all the dignified repose and serenity of their manner. ”

“ Like most persons who seek the small consolation of falling back on their own foresight, he called to mind how often he had said to himself that nothing but ill could come of journeying with Grog Davis,—he knew it, he was sure of it. A fellow to conspire with about a “plant”—a man to concert with on a race or a “safe thing with the cards”—was not exactly a meet travelling-companion, and he fretted over the fatal weakness that had induced his acceptance of him. ”