Ebenezer Cobham Brewer

“ A New York girl of great beauty and tender conscience, who is beguiled into marrying a country lawyer because she thinks he is dying for love of her. Having left out of sight the possibility that a loveless union leaves room for the entrance of a real passion, she is appalled at finding that she has slipped into an attachment to A Perfect Adonis, who has principle enough to leave her when he discovers the state of his own affections. Finding her a widow on his return to America, he presses his suit, and finds a rival in her only child, a spoiled baby of five or six years. ”

“ Duchômar begged the maiden to pluck the sword from his breast that he might die; and when she approached him for the purpose, "he seized the sword from her, and slew her."
"Duchômar, most gloomy of men; dark are thy brows and terrible; red are thy rolling eyes ... I love thee not," said Morna; "hard is thy heart of rock, and dark is thy terrible brow."—Ossian, Fingal, i.
Duchran (The laird of) , a friend of Baron Bradwardine.—Sir W. Scott, Waverley (time, George II.) . ”

“ He was enslaved to the witch Syc'orax, mother of Caliban, who overtasked the little thing, and in punishment for not doing what was beyond his strength, imprisoned him for twelve years in the rift of a pine tree, where Caliban delighted to torture him with impish cruelty. Prospero, duke of Milan and father of Miranda, liberated Ariel from the pine-rift, and the grateful spirit served the duke for sixteen years, when he was set free.
And like Ariel in the cloven pine tree,
For its freedom groans and sighs. ”

“ She is madly in love with Beaton, whose attentions have raised expectations he concluded not to fulfill. At their last meeting she felt him more than life to her, and knew him lost, and the frenzy that makes a woman kill the man she loves or fling vitriol to destroy the beauty she cannot have for all hers possessed her lawless soul.... ”

“ The chevalier Raoul is a merciless tyrant, with a blue beard. His young wife is entrusted with all the keys of the castle, with strict injunctions on pain of death not to open one special room. During the absence of her lord the "forbidden fruit" is too tempting to be resisted, the door is opened, and the young wife finds the floor covered with the dead bodies of her husband's former wives. She drops the key in her terror, and can by no means obliterate from it the stain of blood. ”

“ He said he hated everything—the heaven, the earth, fire, air, and sea, the day, the night; he hated to speak, to hear, to taste food, to see objects, to smell, to feel; he hated man and woman too, for his Daphne lived no longer. What became of this doleful shepherd the poet could never ween. Alcyon is sir Arthur Gorges.—Spencer, Daphnaida (in seven fyttes, 1590) .
And there is that Alcyon bent to mourn,
Though fit to frame an everlasting ditty.
Whose gentle sprite for Daphne's death doth turn
Sweet lays of love to endless plaints of pity. ”

“ God pardon me! CHARLOTTE (The Princess) . You make me drink. Pray, leave me quiet. I find it affects my head.
CHESTERFIELD. Give Day Rolles a chair.
COLUMBUS. Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit!
CROME (John) , O Hobbima, Hobbima, how I do love thee!
CROMWELL. My desire is to make what haste I may to be gone.
[**] DEMONAX (the philosopher) . You may go home, the show is over.—Lucian.
ELDEN (Lord) . It matters not where I am going, whether the weather be cold or hot.
FONTENELLE. I suffer nothing, but feel a sort of difficulty in living longer.
FRANKLIN. A dying man can do nothing easy. ”

“ A young Nantucket giant married to a dainty waif rescued in infancy from the sea. He marries her because she is homeless and seems to be in love with him. When too late, he knows that his affections are another's, and sees his wife fascinated by a handsome French adventurer. In an attempt to elope, the wife and her lover are wrecked, and clinging to a spar, are overtaken by the "terrible South Breaker—plunging and rearing and swelling, a monstrous billow, sweeping and swooping and rocking in." ”

“ He refuses to be fattened: he balks; he has colic and spasms; he lies down in harness; he impales himself upon a broken rail; he keels over upon the grass, whizzing like a capsized engine; he bites himself—and has driven the family to the verge of insanity when Dobbs returns and upon beholding the "noble old fellow," shouts that they have the wrong horse! ”

“ The proud Neapolitan is disgusted, and flings off Evadnê as a viper. Her brother is indignant, challenges the troth-plight lover to a duel, and Vicentio falls. Ludovico now irritates Colonna by talking of the king's amour, and induces him to invite the king to a banquet and then murder him. The king goes to the banquet, and Evadnê shows him the statues of the Colonna family, and amongst them one of her own father, who at the battle of Milan had saved the king's life by his own. The king is struck with remorse, but at this moment Ludovico enters and the king conceals himself behind the statue. ”

“ After awhile. Offerus discovered that the devil was afraid of the cross, whereupon he enlisted under Christ, employing himself in carrying pilgrims across a deep stream. One day, a very small child was carried across by him, but proved so heavy that Offerus, though a huge giant, was well-nigh borne down by the weight. This child was Jesus, who changed the giant's name to Christoferus, "bearer of Christ." He died three days afterwards, and was canonized.
Like the great giant Christopher, it stands
Upon the brink of the tempestuous wave. ”

“ Sir Charles Raymond says to him:
"Thy life is a disgrace to humanity. A foolish prodigality makes thee needy; need makes thee vicious; and both make thee contemptible. Thy wit is prostituted to slander and buffoonery; and thy judgment, if thou hast any, to meanness and villainy. Thy betters, that laugh with thee, laugh at thee; and all the varieties of thy life are but pitiful rewards and painful abuses."—Ed. Moore, The Foundling, iv. 2 (1748) .
Fa'dha (Ah) , Mahomet's silver cuirass. ”

“ The angel replied, "Till the heaven above thee and the earth beneath thee are of iron." Alexander now went forth and found a stone almost of the weight required, and in order to complete the balance, added a little earth; falling from his horse at Ghur he was laid in his armor on the ground, and his shield was set up over him to ward off the sun. Then understood he that he would gain immortality when, like the stone, he was buried in the earth, and that his hour was come, for the earth beneath him was iron, and his iron buckler was his vault of heaven above. ”

“ Sir Francis Gripe (guardian of Miranda, an heiress, and father of Charles) , a man sixty-five years old, wishes to marry his ward for the sake of her money, but Miranda loves and is beloved by sir George Airy, a man of twenty-four. She pretends to love "Gardy," and dupes him into yielding up her money, and giving his consent to her marriage with "the man of her choice," believing himself to be the person. ”

“ Adriana, the wife of the Ephesian, mistakes the Syracusan for her husband; but he behaves so strangely that her jealousy is aroused, and when her true husband arrives he is arrested as a mad man. Soon after, the Syracusan brother being seen, the wife, supposing it to be her mad husband broken loose, sends to capture him; but he flees into a convent. Adriana now lays her complaint before the duke, and the lady abbess comes into court. So both brothers face each other, the mistakes are explained, and the abbess turns out to be Aemilia, the mother of the twin brothers. ”

“ His argument against the suicide Hugo contemplates as an open door out of the world, surprises the listener profoundly.
"You see, you can never destroy anything. You can only seem to. The life in us—it doesn't ask us if we want to be born,—it doesn't ask us if we want to die. ”

“ On hearing this the young man declared he'd live an exile in some foreign land. "Stay, oh stay, thou goodly youth," the maiden cried, "she is not really dead, for I am she." "Then farewell grief and welcome joy, for I have found my true love, whom I feared I should never see again."—Percy, Relics of English Poetry, ii. ”

“ But she is a gentlewoman, with generations of gentlewomen back of her, and lives for Doro, her orphan ward, whom she has taught music. She loved his father, and for his sake—and his own—loves the boy. She works for him, hoards for him, and is ambitious for him only. When he grows up and marries a lowborn girl,—"a Minorcan"—and fills the old home with rude children, who break the piano-wires, the old aunt slaves for them. ”

“ Witness in a murder case in Edward Eggleston's novel The Graysons. He is put upon the stand and tells a plausible story of "the shooting," which he claims to have seen. The prosecutor then hands him over to the prisoner's counsel, Abraham Lincoln, whose cross-examination of the wretched man concludes thus:
"Why does David Sovine go to all this trouble to perjure himself? Why does he wish to swear away the life of that young man who never did him any harm? Because that witness shot and killed George Lockwood himself. I move your honor that David Sovine be arrested at once for murder!" ”

“ Distaffi'na, the troth-plight wife of General Bombastês; but Artaxaminous, king of Utopia, promised her "half a crown" if she would forsake the general for himself—a temptation too great to be resisted. When the general found himself jilted, he retired from the world, hung up his boots on the branch of a tree, and dared any one to remove them. The king cut the boots down, and the general cut the king down. Fusbos, coming up at this crisis, laid the general prostrate. ”

“ AUGUSTUS. Vos plaudite. (After asking how he had acted his part in life.) —Cicero.
BEAUFORT (Cardinal Henry) . I pray you all, pray for me.
BERRY (Mde. de) . Is not this dying with courage and true greatness?
BRONTE (the brother of the authoresses) . While there is life there is will. (He died standing.)
BYRON. I must sleep now.
[§] CÆSAR (Julius) . Et tu, Brute! (To Brutus, when he stabbed him.)
[*] CHARLEMAGNE. Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit!
CHARLES I. (of England) . Remember! (To William Juxon, archbishop of Canterbury) .
CHARLES II. (of England) . ”

“ Vacillating between love for Mosby and respect for Arden, she repents, and goes on sinning; wishes to get disentangled, but is overmastered by Mosby's stronger will. Alicia's passions impel her to evil, but her judgment accuses her and prompts her to the right course. She halts, and parleys with sin, like Balaam, and of course is lost. —Anon., Arden of Feversham (1592) .
Alic'ia, "a laughing, toying, wheedling, whimpering she," who once held lord Hastings under her distaff, but her annoying jealousy, "vexatious days, and jarring, joyless nights," drove him away from her. ”

“ Shakespeare borrowed his "government of the bees" (Henry V. act i. sc. 2) from Lilly. Euphuês was designed to exhibit the style affected by the gallants of England in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Thomas Lodge wrote a novel in a similar style, called Euphues' Golden Legacy (1590) .
"The commonwealth of your bees," replied
Euphuês, "did so delight me that I was not a
little sorry that either their estates have not been
longer, or your leisure more; for, in my simple
judgment, there was such an orderly government
that men may not be ashamed to imitate it." ”

“ I cannot reconcile my heart to "Bertram," a man noble without generosity, and young without truth; who marries Helena as a coward, and leaves her as a profligate. When she is dead by his unkindness he sneaks home to a second marriage, is accused by a woman whom he has wronged, defends himself by falsehood, and is dismissed to happiness.—Dr. ”

“ African Magician (The) , pretended to Aladdin to be his uncle, and sent the lad to fetch the "wonderful lamp" from an underground cavern. As Aladdin refused to hand it to the magician, he shut him in the cavern and left him there. Aladdin contrived to get out by virtue of a magic ring, and learning the secret of the lamp, became immensely rich, built a superb palace, and married the sultan's daughter. Several years after, the African resolved to make himself master of the lamp, and accordingly walked up and down before the palace, crying incessantly, "Who will change old lamps for new!" ”

“ He loves Lady Dedlock, and believes in her implicity. Sir Leicester is honorable and truthful, but intensely prejudiced, immovably obstinate, and proud as "county" can make a man; but his pride has a most dreadful fall when the guilt of Lady Dedlock becomes known.
Lady Dedlock, wife of Sir Leicester, beautiful, cold, and apparently heartless; but she is weighed down with this terrible secret, that before marriage she had had a daughter by Captain Hawdon. This daughter's name is Esther [Summerson] the heroine of the novel.
Volumnia Dedlock, cousin of Sir Leicester. ”

“ A variation of the story is found in Longfellow's The Golden Legend, Henry of Hoheneck when dying was promised his life if a maiden could be found who would give up her life for his. Elsie, the daughter of Gottlieb, a tenant-farmer of the prince offered herself as a sacrifice, and followed her lord to Sorrento to give herself up to Lucifer; but Henry heard of it, and, moved by gratitude, saved Elsie and made her his wife.
Alceste, the hero of Molière's comedy Le Misanthrope. He has a pure and noble mind that has been soured and disgusted by intercourse with the world. ”

“ Weary of life, he is about to make away with himself, when a stranger accosts him, and promises to transform him into any shape he likes best. He chooses that of Achilles, and then goes to Rome, where he joins the besieging army of Bourbon. During the siege, Arnold enters St. Peter's of Rome just in time to rescue Olimpia, but the proud beauty, to prevent being taken captive by him, flings herself from the high altar on the pavement, and is taken up apparently lifeless. As the drama was never completed, the sequel is not known.—Byron, The Deformed Transformed. ”