Charles Kingsley

“ One after another, day by day, they came rushing up out of the northern offing, each like a huge hundred-footed dragon, panting and quivering, as if with terror, at every loud pulse of its oars, hurling the wild water right and left with the mighty share of its beak, while from the bows some gorgon or chimaera, elephant or boar, stared out with brazen eyes toward the coast of Africa, as if it, too, like the human beings which it carried, was dead to every care but that of dastard flight. ”

“ And how much soever you may consider such an event a gain to yourself, yet for the sake of your son and your daughter— '
'My dear sir,' interrupted the Prefect, 'you mean kindly. But do not, do not tempt me. By the Count's side I have fought for thirty years, and by his side I will die, as I deserve.'
'Victorius! Victoria!' cried Raphael; 'help me! Your father,' he went on, as they came out from the tent, 'is still decided on losing his own head, and throwing away ours, by going to Carthage.'
'For my sake—for our sakes—father!' cried Victoria, clinging to him. ”

“ If, by any folly or baseness, such as I have seen in every human being whom I ever met as yet upon this accursed stage of fools, you shall crush my new-budding hope that there is something somewhere which will make me what I know that I ought to be, and can be—If you shall crush that, I say, by any misdoing of yours, you had better have been the murderer of my firstborn ”

“ But since I have seen you and your daughter, and, strangest of all, your gay young Alcibiades of a son, starving yourselves to feed those poor ruffians— performing for them, day and night, the offices of menial slaves— comforting them, as no man ever comforted me—blaming no one but yourselves, caring for every one but yourselves, sacrificing nothing but yourselves ”

“ I had actually deluded myself into the fancy that the Deity of the Galileans might be, after all, the God of our old Hebrew forefathers—of Adam and Eve, of Abraham and David, and of the rest who believed that children and the fruit of the womb were an heritage and gift which cometh of the Lord—and that Paul was right —actually right—in his theory that the church was the development and fulfilment of our old national polity . ”

“ At least a thoroughly converted philosopher—for poor dear Synesius is half heathen still, I often fancy, and hankers after the wisdom of the Egyptian—will be a curious sight; and to talk with so famous and so learned a man would always be a pleasure; but to argue with him, or any other human being, none whatsoever.'
'Why, then?'
'My dear sir, I am sick of syllogisms, and probabilities, and pros and contras. What do I care if, on weighing both sides, the nineteen pounds weight of questionable arguments against, are overbalanced by the twenty pounds weight of equally questionable arguments for? ”

“ If he thinks it my duty to return to Carthage, I can but do so, after all. But the soldiers!'
'Excellent sir,' said Raphael, 'Synesius and the Pentapolitan landlords—who can hardly call their lives their own, thanks to the Moors—will be glad enough to feed and pay them, or any other brave fellows with arms in their hands, at this moment. ”