Frederick Marryat

“ Five o’clock in the morning,—the sun has not yet appeared above the hills, but the mist is rising gradually. The bell of the church in front of my window is tolling;—it ceases; and the pealing of the organ, with the chanting of the priests, comes distinct and clear upon my ear, as the notes of the bugle over the still water, from some dashing frigate in the Sound, beating off at sunset. How solemn and how beautiful is this early prayer! The sun is rising, the mists of the night are rolling off, and the voices and music resound at the same time to heaven. ”

“ It is impossible to contemplate any steam-engine, without feeling wonder and admiration at the ingenuity of man; but this feeling is raised to a degree of awe when you look at a locomotive engine—there is such enormous power compressed into so small a space—I never can divest myself of the idea that it is possessed of vitality—that it is a living as well as a moving being—and that idea, joined with its immense power, conjures up in my mind that it is some spitting, fizzing, terrific demon, who, if he could escape control, would be ready and happy to drag us by thousands to destruction. ”

“ Never, I hope: women are my game; and I live but on the chase. Sighs, oaths, and amorous ditties are my ammunition; my guitar is my fowling-piece, and you must acknowledge that I seldom miss my aim.
Felix. I grant it, Perez, but it's cruel sport, and quite unworthy of a cavalier. How many wounded birds have hid themselves to die!
Perez. Poor things—why did they not keep out of shot range? It's useless to preach, Felix, I must have my amusement.
Felix. Be careful, Perez, that it prove not dangerous; there is no honour gained by broken vows, false oaths, and tampering with maidens' hearts. ”

“ At this awful moment, which is for ever to terminate her fashionable existence, the Honourable Augustus Bouverie, who sits next to her, gently touches her séduisante sleeve—blandly smiling, he whispers to her that the other is the sauce macedoine. She perceives her mistake, trembles at her danger, rewards him with a smile, which penetrates into the deepest recesses of his heart, helps herself to the right sauce, darts a look of contemptuous triumph upon Sir Antinous Antibes, and, while she is dipping her sole into the sauce, her soul expands with gratitude and love. ”

“ To make you miserable, my dear Lucy? I should, indeed, be a wretch, when my own happiness depends upon you. (Lucy starts.) (Aside.) It is out at last. Now there's no retreat in honour, and I thank heaven for it. (Aloud.) Did you hear me, Lucy? (Lucy appears fainting, Etheridge supports her.) Are you angry with me, Lucy? (She weeps.) I will confess to you honestly, that I have long struggled with my passion, but pride, ridiculous pride, has severely punished me for listening to its selfish dictates. Believe me, when I assert, that never was man more attached than I am to you. ”

“ The Honourable Augustus Bouverie no sooner perceived himself alone, than he felt the dark shades of melancholy ascending and brooding over his mind, and enveloping his throbbing heart in their—their adamantine chains. Yielding to the overwhelming force, he thus exclaimed, ‘Such is life—we require but one flower, and we are offered noisome thousands—refused that we wish, we live in loathing of that not worthy to be received—mourners from our cradle to our grave, we utter the shrill cry at our birth, and we sink in oblivion with the faint, wail of terror. ”

“ How much more of the true spirit of chivalry is required in the warfare of the present day, in which every man must stand for hours to be shot at like a target, witnessing the mowing down of his comrades, and silently filling up the intervals in the ranks made by their deaths, exposed to the same leaden messengers; a system of warfare in which every individual is a part of a grand whole, acting upon one concerted and extended plan, and forced a hundred times to exhibit the passive and more perfect bravery of constancy, for once that he may forget his danger in the ardour of the charge! ”

“ And there was a boiling surge, and a dark night, and roaring seas, and their masts were floating far away; and M'Clise stood at the helm, keeping her broadside to the sea: his heart was full of bitterness, and his guilty conscience bore him down, and he looked for death, and he dreaded it; for was he not a sacrilegious murderer, and was there not an avenging God above?
Once more Katerina appeared on deck, clinging for support to Andrew.
"I cannot stay below. Tell me, will it soon be over?"
"Yes," replied M'Clise, gloomily; "it will soon be over with all of us." ”

“ More, sir. Yes, sir, plenty more. I ask you whether even the seasons have not changed in our unhappy country; have we not summer with unusual, unexampled heat, and winters without cold; when shall we ever see the mercury down below sixty degrees again? never, sir. What is summer but a season of alarm and dread? Does not the cholera come in as regularly as green peas—terrifying us to death, whether we die of it or not? Of what advantage are the fruits of the earth so bountifully bestowed—have they not all been converted into poisons? ”

“ Lady Etheridge, you spurned me! you chased me from your doors! what! shall humanity in any shape be worried by your pampered dogs? when youth was fresh upon our brows, our steps light upon the green, and our hearts still more light with innocence, had then the Lady Etheridge more admirers than the poor outcast gipsy, Nelly Armstrong? ”

“ You read the works of an author—you are pleased with them, and you wish to become acquainted with the man. You anticipate great pleasure—you expect from his lips, in impromptu, the same racy remarks, the same chain of reasoning, the same life and vigour which have cost him so many hours of labour and reflection, or which have been elicited in his happiest moods, and this from a person who comes, perhaps, almost a total stranger into a large company. Is this fair or just to him? Did you find any of your other friends, at first meeting, play the fiddle to a whole company of strangers? ”

“ We have thousands who write well, and the public are nauseated with what is called good writing.
Barnstaple. And so they want something bad, eh? Well, Ansard, you certainly can supply them.
Ansard. My dear Barnstaple, you must not disparage this style of writing—it is not bad—there is a great art in it. It may be termed writing intellectual and ethereal. You observe, that it never allows probabilities or even possibilities to stand in its way. The dross of humanity is rejected: all the common wants and grosser feelings of our natures are disallowed. It is a novel which is all mind and passion. ”

“ I am no grumbler, sir, I hate and abhor anything like complaining, but this I will say, that the world has been turned upside down—that everything has gone wrong—that peace has come to us unattended by plenty—that every body is miserable; and that vaccination and steam, which have been lauded as blessings, have proved the greatest of all possible curses, and that there is no chance of a return to our former prosperity, unless we can set fire to our coal mines, and re-introduce the small-pox. But, sir, the will of Heaven be done, I shall say no more; I don’t wish to make other people unhappy ”

“ I do know your heart, Clementina, as it is,—nor do I think it possible that you could change;—still, sometimes—that is for a moment when I call to mind that, by your uncle’s death, as his favourite niece, living with him for so many years, you may soon find yourself in possession of thousands,—and that titled men may lay their coronets at your feet,—then, Clementina—
Clem. Ungenerous and unkind!—Edward, I almost hate you. Is a little money, then, to sway my affections? Shame, Edward, shame on you! Is such your opinion of my constancy? (Weeps.) You must judge me by your own heart. ”

“ I question whether the Bridge of Boats at Cologne don’t pay better than any other in the whole world, although by no means the handsomest; the stream of passengers on it all day is as strong and as wide as the Rhine itself. As for Cologne, the best thing that could happen to it is to be burnt down. Narrow streets, badly ventilated, badly drained; your nose is visited with a thousand varieties of smell as you pass along; and the Eau de Cologne in the gutters is very different in savour from that which you buy in the bottles. ”

“ The little stars which stud th' unclouded heav'n;
The wind but scarcely moves the trembling aspen,
And not a sound breaks through the still of night.
All Nature's hush'd; and every passion lull'd,
Save love, or fierce revenge. Is this a night
To stay away, false, yet loved Don Gaspar?
Nina. Be patient, lady, he will soon be here.
Isid. He cannot sure be false.
Perchance some danger hangs upon his steps;
Men are so envious of the fair and good.
Nina (looking) . Señora, look; I see him in the distance.
Isid. He comes! Where, Nina? O yes! that is he. ”

“ Lucy. I'm a little frightened.
Nelly. So much to prove that I am no impostor. Now, let me see your hand. (Lucy holds out her hand trembling.) You have lost your fortune, and your rank in society—but you will soon regain them. The cloud is dispersing from before the sun of your happiness. Sweet girl, I wish thee joy!
Lucy. What mean you?
Nelly. Others will tell you soon. There are two in the secret, Nelly Armstrong and Martha Bargrove. ”

“ If we only would come down a peg or two in our notions, in accordance with our waning fortunes, happiness would be always within our reach. It is not what we have, or what we have not, which adds or subtracts from our felicity. It is the longing for more than we have, the envying of those who possess that more, and the wish to appear in the world of more consequence than we really are, which destroy our peace of mind, and eventually lead to ruin.
I never witnessed a man submitting to circumstances with good humour and good sense, so remarkably as in my friend Alexander Willemott. ”

“ There is an old adage, that when poverty comes in at the door, love flies out of the window. Shall I then make you miserable! No, no! Hear me, Clementina. I will be generous. I now absolve you from all your vows. You are free. Should the time ever come that prosperity shine upon me, and I find that [Pg 177] I have sufficient for both of us of that dross which I despise, then will I return, and, should my Clementina not have entered into any other engagement, throw my fortune and my person at her feet. Till then, dearest Clementina, farewell!
Clem. (sinking into a chair sobbing.) Cruel Edward! ”

“ I have tried change of scene—posted to watering places; but the deep, deep sea will not drown politics. Even the ocean in its roaring and commotion reminded me of a political union.
I have buried myself in the country, but it has been all in vain. I cannot look at the cattle peacefully grazing without thinking of O’Connell’s tail, Stanley’s tail, and a short-docked pony reminded me of the boasted little tail of Colonel Peel. ”

“ There is not a more beautiful, or more true portrait of human nature, than the scene between the Archbishop of Grenada and Gil Blas, in the admirable novel of Le Sage. Often and often has it been brought to my recollection since I have taken up the pen, and often have I said to myself, “Is this homily as good as the last?” (perhaps homily is not exactly the right term my writings.) The great art in this world, not only in writing, but in everything else, is to know when to leave off. The mind as well as the body must wear out. ”

“ So I rose, and opening the window, lighted my cigar, and smoked myself into a reverie, as I watched the smoke ascending from the chimneys of the good town of Liege.
And this is the city which travellers pass through, describing it as a mere manufacturing town, thought I. A city which has, in its time, produced a greater moral influence upon society than any other in existence—a city that has led the van in the cause of religion and liberty. Liege presents a curious anomaly among the states of Europe. ”

“ But he was soon undeceived; for M'Clise frankly stated his attachment, and demanded the hand of Katerina; and, at the demand, Vandermaclin's face was flushed with anger.
"Mynheer M'Clise," said he, after a pause, as if to control his feelings; "when a man marries, he is bound to show that he has wherewithal to support his wife; to support her in that rank, and to afford her those luxuries to which she has been accustomed in her father's house. Show me that you can do so, and I will not refuse you the hand of Katerina." ”

“ Take London when you land from a steam-boat, or Dover, or Calais, or Ostend. It is nothing but a system of extortion or over-reaching. And why so? because in the hurry, the confusion, the sickness, and the ignorance of what is right, everything that is wrong can be practised with impunity. These preyers upon mankind at the confines, remind you of the sharks in India, who always ply in the surf, where their motions cannot be seen, and the unwary are invariably their prey. ”

“ Enshrouding myself in the sky-blue domino, I went down the stairs, threw myself into the carriage, and directed Carlo to drive to the Palazzo of the Marquesa.
In half an hour we arrived at the entrance gates of the Marquesa's superb country seat. From these gates to the palazzo, a sweep of several hundred yards, the avenue through which the driver passed was loaded with variegated lamps, hanging in graceful festoons from branch to branch; and the notes of music from the vast entrance-hall of the palazzo floated through the still air. ”

“ Chapter Thirty One.
I am grave to-day; it is the birth-day of one of my children—a day so joyful in youth, in more advanced life so teeming with thought and serious reflections. How happy the child is—and it is its happiness which has made me grave.
How changed are our feelings as we advance in life!—Our responsibility is increased with each fleeting year. In youth we live but for ourselves—self predominates in every thing. In mature age, if we have fulfilled the conditions of our tenure, we feel that we must live for our children. ”

“ And when all is smooth and calm, when at the ebbing tide, the wave but gently kisses the rock, then by the light of the silver moon, the occupants of the vessels which sail from the Firth of Tay, have often beheld the form of the beautiful Katerina, waving her white scarf as a signal that they should approach, and take her off from the rock on which she is seated. ”

“ But imagine an animal of the lizard species, one hundred and twenty feet long—imagine such a monster—the existence of which is now proved beyond a cavil, by the remains, deeply imbedded in the hard blue lias rocks, and which remains are now in our possession. What a terrific monster it must have been! We look with horror at an alligator of twenty or thirty feet, but imagine an animal of that species extending his huge bulk to one hundred and twenty feet. ”

“ Thus was his guilty love turned to hate, now that death was staring him in the face.
Katerina made no reply. She threw herself on the deck, and abandoned herself to her feeling of bitter anguish. And as she lay there, and M'Clise stood at the helm, the wind abated; the vessel was no longer borne down as before, although the waves were still mountains high. The seamen on board rallied; some fragments of sail were set on the remnants of the masts, and there was a chance of safety. M'Clise spoke not, but watched the helm. The wind shifted in their favour; and hope rose in every heart. ”

“ The true merit of fiction, and that which is essential to its success, is the power of the author at the time that he is writing to divest himself, as it were, of himself, and be for the time the essence of the character which he is delineating. It is therefore a great injustice to an author to accuse him of being an infidel because his infidel character is well portrayed, particularly as, if he is equally fortunate in describing a character which is perfect, the public do not ever give him the credit for similar perfection. ”