Charlotte Smith

“ It is night.—I go to my window and look at the stars, which, in this clear atmosphere, are singularly brilliant. I seek the north star, because, Montalbert, I believe that you are in England—an idea that sometimes torments and sometimes sooths me; yet I encourage it even when I am most pained by it, for you have returned thither, perhaps, if not to seek your Rosalie, to weep with her mother for her supposed death.....That dear mother!—ah! ”

“ The idea of the splendid works of man fallen to decay, and hastening to oblivion, yet having survived for ages the beings who toiled to raise them, has always something mournful in it to a reflecting mind; and Rosalie was imagining to herself how different the appearance of this port must have been seven hundred years ago, when it was crowded with vessels, and its streets displayed all that commerce then procured for the rich and luxurious. ”

“ It is possibly to me, to my rash folly, that Montalbert owes much of his present uneasiness: his mother may have driven him from her with reproaches, with anger—he may, on my account, be loaded with a parent's curse!——Dreadful thought! I dare not dwell upon it.
"I cast my eyes round the high and gloomy room where I sit: all is silent and forlorn; cold and faint, my heart seems to sink within me, and I listen, with even a degree of eagerness, to hear the slow footsteps of Cattina, along the apartments, bringing me my evening meal. ”

“ If I were a poet, I should be tempted, were my heart ever for a moment at ease, to add one to the number of those who have celebrated, or have attempted to celebrate, the nightingale; for here the note of that bird is infinitely more mellow and delicious than in England. I have been vainly trying to recollect some of the most beautiful addresses to this songstress of the night, but trouble and anxiety have driven from my memory the few images that, in my circumscribed reading, I had once collected......Montalbert! ”

“ Now, strange reverse! a few half-naked children playing before the humble doors, where their sun-burnt mothers sat spinning coarse hemp, or a fisherman or two pushing off their barks with the evening tide, to fish during the night, on the success of which, their principal subsistence depended, were all the living beings visible in this obscure hamlet. ”

“ I saw two vessels, one of which pursued the other, but they were too distant for me to distinguish with what nations they were manned. Soon afterwards, however, they were so near that I could distinguish the form of the Turkish vessel, and see the crescent she bore as an ensign; but fighting did not seem to be her purpose at that time; for, finding the Maltese gain upon her, set up more sail, and made every effort to get away. The enemy, however, pursued, and fired upon her ”

“ I hope, (interrupted Rosalie tremulously) —I hope there will be no risk.....If you will be, at five o'clock to-morrow evening, in a small wood, which is the boundary of a sort of garden on the other side of the castle, near a place where the remains of several statues surround a ruined fountain - - - - - - - ”