Charles Reade

“ Lady Bar. “Then perhaps Miss Vere, whose singing is famous, will have the complaisance to sing to us.”
Miss Vere. “I should be happy, Lady Barbara, but I have not brought my music.”
Lady Bar. “Oh, we are not critical; the simplest air, or even a fragment of melody; the sea and the sky will be a better accompaniment than Broadwood ever made.”
Miss V. “I can't sing a note without book.”
Sir H. Talbot. “Your music is in your soul—not at your fingers' ends.”
Lord Ipsden, to Lady Bar. “It is in her book, and not in her soul.” ”

“ He was desperate; and the weak, driven to desperation, are more furious than the strong.
It was by Heaven's mercy that neither mother nor son had time to speak again.
As they faced each other, with flaming eyes and faces, all self-command gone, about to utter hasty words, and lay up regret, perhaps for all their lives to come, in a moment, as if she had started from the earth, Christie Johnstone stood between them!
Gatty's words, and, still more, his hesitation, had made her quick intelligence suspect. She had resolved to know the truth ”

“ I love her, mother,” added he, with a tearful tenderness that ought to have reached a woman's heart; then flushing, trembling, and inspired, he burst out, “And I wish I was a sculptor and a poet too, that Christie might live in stone and verse, as well as colors, and all who love an art might say, 'This woman cannot die, Charles Gatty loved her.'”
He looked in her face; he could not believe any creature could be insensible to his love, and persist to rob him of it. ”

“ Here lay on a sofa Ipsden, one of the most distinguished young gentlemen in Europe; a creature incapable, by nature, of a rugged tone or a coarse gesture; a being without the slightest apparent pretension, but refined beyond the wildest dream of dandies. To him, enter Aberford, perspiring and shouting. He was one of those globules of human quicksilver one sees now and then for two seconds; they are, in fact, two globules; their head is one, invariably bald, round, and glittering; the body is another in activity and shape, totus teres atque rotundus; and in fifty years they live five centuries. ”

“ Do nothing! nobody does anything now—things don't come in your way to be done as they used centuries ago, or we should do them just the same; it is their fault, not ours,” argued his lordship, somewhat confusedly; then, leaning his brow upon the sofa, he wished to die. For, at that dark moment life seemed to this fortunate man an aching void; a weary, stale, flat, unprofitable tale; a faded flower; a ball-room after daylight has crept in, and music, motion and beauty are fled away.
“Dr. Aberford, my lord.”
This announcement, made by Mr. Saunders, checked his lordship's reverie. ”

“ The viscount, finding himself expected to say something on a topic he had not attended much to, answered dryly: “We must ask the republicans, they are the people that give their minds to such subjects.”
“And yon man,” asked Jean Carnie, “is he a lord, too?”
“I am his lordship's servant,” replied Saunders, gravely, not without a secret misgiving whether fate had been just.
“Na!” replied she, not to be imposed upon, “ye are statelier and prooder than this ane.”
“I will explain,” said his master. “Saunders knows his value; a servant like Saunders is rarer than an idle viscount.” ”

“ Pictures are yet to be painted that shall refresh men's inner souls, and help their hearts against the artificial world; and charm the fiend away, like David's harp!! The world, after centuries of lies, will give nature and truth a trial. What a paradise art will be, when truths, instead of lies, shall be told on paper, on marble, on canvas, and on the boards!!!”
“Dinner's on the boarrd,” murmured Christie, alluding to Lord Ipsden's breakfast; “and I hae the charge o' ye,” pulling his sleeve hard enough to destroy the equilibrium of a flea. ”

“ It is hard to keep out of a groove in which all the town is running; and the Johnstone had possessed, as mere property—a lad!
She was so wealthy that few of them could pretend to aspire to her, so she selected for her chattel a young man called Willy Liston; a youth of an unhappy turn—he contributed nothing to hilarity, his face was a kill-joy—nobody liked him; for this female reason Christie distinguished him.
He found a divine supper every Saturday night in her house; he ate, and sighed! Christie fed him, and laughed at him.
Flucker ditto. ”

“ I shall never be a painter if I do; what is to keep my heart warm when the sun is hid, when the birds are silent, when difficulty looks a mountain and success a molehill? What is an artist without love? ”

“ The fortunate man is he who, born poor, or nobody, works gradually up to wealth and consideration, and, having got them, dies before he finds they were not worth so much trouble.
Lord Ipsden started with nothing to win; and naturally lived for amusement. Now nothing is so sure to cease to please as pleasure—to amuse, as amusement. Unfortunately for himself he could not at this period of his life warm to politics; so, having exhausted his London clique, he rolled through the cities of Europe in his carriage, and cruised its shores in his yacht. ”

“ What terrors has old age for this happy pair? it cannot make them ugly, for, though the purple light of youth recedes, a new kind of tranquil beauty, the aloe-blossom of many years of innocence, comes to, and sits like a dove upon, the aged faces, where goodness, sympathy and intelligence have harbored together so long ”

“ The million subtleties of light and color; learn them by heart, and say them off on canvas! the highest angel in the sky must have his eye upon them, and look devilish sharp, too, or he shan't paint them. I give him Charles Gatty's word for that.”
“That's very eloquent, I call it,” said Jones.
“Yes,” said poor old Groove, “the lad will never make a painter.” ”

“ At the foot of the stairs, she said to her brother:
“Puir lad! I'll sune draw auchty punds fra' the sea for him, with my feyther's nets.”
As she disappeared, Mrs. Gatty appeared. “And this is the woman whose mind was not in her dirty business,” cried she. “Does not that open your eyes, Charles?”
“Ah! Charles,” added she, tenderly, “there's no friend like a mother.”
And off she carried the prize—his vanity had been mortified.
And so that happened to Christie Johnstone which has befallen many a woman—the greatness of her love made that love appear small to her lover. ”

“ Swear the spiders in special constables next time,” cried Gatty. “We shall win the day;” and light shone into his hazel eye.
“The world will not always put up with the humbugs of the brush, who, to imitate Nature, turn their back on her. Paint an out o' door scene indoors! I swear by the sun it's a lie! the one stupid, impudent lie that glitters among the lies of vulgar art, like Satan among Belial, Mammon and all those beggars. ”

“ The wise dowager lodges hard by, having resisted an invitation to be in the same house; she comes to that house to assist the young wife with her experience, and to be welcome—not to interfere every minute, and tease her; she loves her daughter-in-law almost as much as she does her son, and she is happy because he bids fair to be an immortal painter, and, above all, a gentleman; and she, a wifely wife, a motherly mother, and, above all, a lady. ”

“ Alexander Liston,” said a clear, smart voice, whose owner had mingled unobserved with the throng; “there are always men to answer such occasions; now, my lads, your boats have plenty of beam, and, well handled, should live in any sea; who volunteers with Alexander Liston and me?”
The speaker was Lord Ipsden.
The fishwives of Newhaven, more accustomed to measure men than poor little Lady Barbara Sinclair, saw in this man what in point of fact he was—a cool, daring devil, than whom none more likely to lead men into mortal danger, or pull them through it, for that matter. ”

“ Christie read, blushed, and put the verses in her bosom.
“Come awa, Custy,” said Jean.
“Hets,” said Christie, “gie the puir lads twarree oysters, what the waur will we be?”
So they opened the oysters for them; and Hyacinth the long-haired looked down on the others with sarcastico-benignant superiority. He had conducted a sister art to the aid of his brother brushes.
“The poet's empire, all our hearts allow; But doggrel's power was never known till now.” ”

“ Gatty, the artist's mother, and she had instantly started from Newcastle.
This was the old lady Christie discovered on the stairs.
Her sudden appearance took her son's breath away.
No human event was less likely than that she should be there, yet there she was.
After the first surprise and affectionate greetings, a misgiving crossed him, “she must know about the writ”—it was impossible; but our minds are so constituted—when we are guilty, we fear that others know what we know. ”

“ Christie, who stood amidships, saw the error; she sprang aft, flung the boy from the helm and jammed it hard-a-starboard with her foot. The boat answered the helm, but too late for Flucker; the man was four yards from him as the boat drifted by.
“He's a deed mon!” cried Liston, on shore.
The boat's length gave one more little chance; the after-part must drift nearer him—thanks to Christie. Flucker flew aft; flung himself on his back, and seized his sister's petticoats.
“Fling yourself ower the gunwale,” screamed he. “Ye'll no hurt; I'se haud ye.” ”

“ Oh! perilous venture of those who love one object with the whole heart.
This great but tender heart was breaking day by day.
Well, Christie and Jean, strolling slowly into the New Town of Newhaven, found an assemblage of the natives all looking seaward; the fishermen, except Sandy Liston, were away at the herring fishery, but all the boys and women of the New Town were collected; the girls felt a momentary curiosity; it proved, however, to be only an individual swimming in toward shore from a greater distance than usual. ”

“ Ah! no! I shall never, never, never be a painter.”
These last words broke audibly from him as his head went down almost to his knees.
A hand was placed on his shoulder as a flake of snow falls on the water. It was Christie Johnstone, radiant, who had glided in unobserved.
“What's wrang wi' ye, my lad?”
“The sun is gone to the Devil, for one thing.”
“Hech! hech! ye'll no be long ahint him; div ye no think shame.” ”

“ He cooled down Charles Gatty, Esq., monopolist of nature and truth.
He quoted to him thirty painters in Germany, who paint every stroke of a landscape in the open air, and forty in various nations who had done it in times past.
“You, sir,” he went on, “appear to hang on the skirts of a certain clique, who handle the brush well, but draw ill, and look at nature through the spectacles of certain ignorant painters who spoiled canvas four hundred years ago. ”

“ In similar cases, foolish men have set to work to make, in six months, their diamond of nature, the exact cut and gloss of other men's pastes, and, nervously watching the process, have suffered torture; luckily Charles Gatty was not wise enough for this; he saw nature had distinguished her he loved beyond her fellows; here, as elsewhere, he had faith in nature—he believed that Christie would charm everybody of eye, and ear, and mind, and heart, that approached her ”

“ Poor Gatty, when the momentary excitement of argument had subsided, drank the bitter cup all must drink awhile, whose bark is alive and strong enough to stem the current down which the dead, weak things of the world are drifting, many of them into safe harbors. ”

“ What says Goldsmith of the two styles? “They swam, sprawled, frisked, and languished; but Olivia's foot was as pat to the music as its echo.”—Vicar of Wakefield.
Newhaven dancing aims also at fun; laughter mingles with agility; grotesque yet graceful gestures are flung in, and little inspiring cries flung out.
His lordship soon entered into the spirit of it. Deep in the mystery of the hornpipe, he danced one or two steps Jean and Christie had never seen, but their eyes were instantly on his feet, and they caught in a minute and executed these same steps. ”

“ Jean heard him out, and then, with the air of a lunatic-asylum keeper to a rhodomontading patient, told him “he was one fool, and his mother was another.” First she took him up on the score of prudence.
“You,” said she, “are a beggarly painter, without a rap; Christie has houses, boats, nets, and money; you are in debt; she lays by money every week. It is not prudent on her part to take up with you—the better your bargain, my lad.” ”

“ Their short petticoats revealed a neat ankle, and a leg with a noble swell; for Nature, when she is in earnest, builds beauty on the ideas of ancient sculptors and poets, not of modern poetasters, who, with their airy-like sylphs and their smoke-like verses, fight for want of flesh in woman and want of fact in poetry as parallel beauties. ”

“ The said Saunders was really an invaluable servant, and, with a world of obsequiousness, contrived to have his own way on most occasions. He had, I believe, only one great weakness, that of imagining a beau-ideal of aristocracy and then outdoing it in the person of John Saunders.
Now this Saunders was human, and could not be eight years with this young gentleman and not take some little interest in him. He was flunky, and took a great interest in him, as stepping-stone to his own greatness. ”