Jane Loudon

“ Let Rosabella take the crown, and think no more about it.
"Your Grace wrongs me," said Edmund, his fine countenance glowing with the exalted feelings of his soul. "However I may suffer from the violence of my feelings, I can never permit them to interfere with my sense of duty. Elvira has a right to ascend the throne, and if my exertions can ensure her success, she shall be Queen."
"Thou art a brave lad!" cried the duke. "And will you really try to secure the election of Elvira, when you know, by so doing, you will deprive yourself of her for ever?" ”

“ Believe me you shall be free, and still as much a Queen as at this moment."
"Edmund!" said Elvira seriously, "you deserve more than I can give you; for I will not insult you by supposing you would be satisfied with the possession of my crown without my heart;and that it is not in my power to bestow."
"My dearest Elvira, you but fancy this. I know your feelings are warm, your sensibility acute, and your generosity unbounded—can you then want a heart?" ”

“ The mind of Edmund is too noble to be lightly moved."
"Oh! talk not of the nobleness of my mind, father; I feel I am but a poor weak worm. Nobleness belongs to God alone; 'tis blasphemy to apply the term to man."
"Tell me your grievances. They must, I am sure, be great, or they would not thus affect you. It is my holy office to console affliction. Speak then, my son; for, remember, that though joy is doubled by being partaken, grief is lessened by being shared—and woe robbed of half its bitterness." ”

“ Sir Ambrose smiled inwardly at the mistaken confidence of his friend in his own judgment. Thinking it useless, however, to irritate him by farther opposition, he endeavoured to turn the conversation upon another subject. "It is strange," said he, "how frequently I have been thinking of that Mummy. If there be no deception in the business, it is a perfect miracle!"
"And what deception can there be?" returned the duke, peevishly: "you think yourself so very wise, and that you know so much better than other people, only because you are always suspecting something wrong. ”

“ Believe me, if you consult Elvira's real happiness, you will not impose upon her the troublesome duties of a crown: she will make a better wife than a queen; for her gentle nature is less fitted to command than to obey. Rosabella has more firmness."
"I do not agree with you, Father," said Sir Ambrose; "in my opinion Elvira is infinitely better fitted to be a queen than Rosabella, for her passions are more under the control of reason." ”

“ She dismissed her attendants, retaining only Emma; and long her eyes were fixed on vacancy, and her mind absorbed in mournful contemplations; when suddenly she was startled by the entrance of a page, and the appearance of Lord Edmund Montagu, who followed almost at the moment of the page's repeating his name: his countenance beaming joy, and hope dancing in his eyes.
"Oh, Elvira!" he cried, "you are now mine—mine for ever! The people permit you to marry. The lords in council have signed the law; the people have proclaimed it with acclamations. You are free! ”

“ Moderation is not by any means a characteristic of Rosabella. She is ever in extremes; and when she appears otherwise, depend upon it she is only acting a part, and she has some end in view that she hopes to gain by it."
"Well, let her be as sly as she will, she cannot deceive me! I'll watch her! I'll defy her to think, walk, look, or speak, without my knowing of it; and if I find she nourishes even the thought of rivalling Elvira, she shall quit my house immediately. I will encourage no vipers." ”

“ The energies of Elvira's mind had also been awakened by the struggle for the crown, and the passion awakened in her breast by the youthful stranger; and she now felt that she could not quietly return again to the commonplace stillness of every-day life. The passions when once roused from their dormant state, must have something to occupy them, or they will prey upon themselves. ”

“ Let me see, to whom shall I apply?"
"The Lords Noodle and Doodle (both of ancient families) were both devoted to your father, and were under great obligations to him when they were young," observed Marianne.
"But they are such fools!" said Rosabella.
"They are well connected," returned her confidant; "and power does not always attend upon talent."
"True, and, as they are so weak, I may guide them as I will."
"Do not rely upon that: folly is generally obstinate; and though there may be hopes of convincing a man of sense, fools will always have their own way." ”

“ The gloominess of the scene, however, harmonized well with Edmund's feelings; he felt soothed insensibly; and though he still stalked moodily backwards and forwards, he became gradually more calm.
"Ungrateful woman," thought he, "to treat me thus! Does she not owe every thing to me? I could bear her coldness; I could resign her to a throne; but the idea of her loving another drives me to distraction!—Curses on that fiend! It must be by his infernal arts that Ferdinand has triumphed. ”

“ Hardman, for he has many friends, and some talents," said Rosabella; "and I own I do not feel satisfied to trust myself entirely in the hands of any of the others."
"Talk of liberty and public spirit," replied Marianne; "promise a redress of grievances, and a radical reform of all evils, and you may secure Dr. Hardman. Yet he is not a fool; nay, he is even shrewd, penetrating, and persevering; but as lunatics are generally mad only upon one subject, so even men of sense have generally some prevailing folly, and his is, that of being thought of importance in the state. ”

“ I would rather see you spurn me—hear you declare you hated me, or know that you doomed me to destruction, than hear you speak of our marriage in that calm, unvaried tone."
"How unreasonable you are!" said Elvira, smiling. "Hear him, Emma; is he not a singular being? And if I find it so difficult to please him now, what must I expect when I become his wife?"
"Tormenting girl!" exclaimed Edmund, "you know your power but too well."
"What ridiculous creatures these lords of the creation are!" said Elvira, playfully holding out her hand to Edmund, though she still affected to address Emma ”

“ Emma again smiled, for she saw, in spite of this admiration, that in a week poor Lord Edmund would be forgotten.
In the mean time, poor Rosabella's mind was a prey to the most violent passions. A billet from Father Morris had informed her of the death of her cousin, and of the designs brooding against her interests. "I will be revenged," said she; "I will show them mine is not a soul to dwell upon impotent grief. I will assemble my friends; my father's party was strong in the state; it cannot be quite extinct. ”

“ Dreading alike to trust, or enrage this mysterious being, and cursing the evil chance that had led him to that spot, Father Morris, who, like all the English in those days, was an universal linguist, found himself obliged partially to obey this injunction, and inform the Mummy of his design. Cheops burst into one of his terrific laughs of derision. "And so," he said, "you would make yonder feeble girl who fled screaming at my approach, a Queen. A fit monarch for a warlike people. Can a woman's arm resist an invasion of the Palli, or a woman's hands direct the reins of Mizraim's government? ”

“ Indeed, in my opinion, there are very few human beings that we may not make subservient to our views, if we have but penetration enough to discover their weak sides, and art enough to avail ourselves of the discovery."
"The world is very much obliged to you for the high opinion you have of it," returned Rosabella; "however, I like your advice, and will pursue it. But do you think Father Morris will approve?"
"Oh, I will answer for him," interrupted Marianne.
"I will then write to each of the three lords," continued Rosabella; "and appoint a time and place for an interview with each. ”

“ She sighed as she surveyed the gorgeous refinement around her, and felt forcibly the insufficiency of greatness. Listlessly she turned her eyes upon the figures painted upon the walls: they represented the loves of Mars and Venus: they were exquisitely painted: the artist had given to the life the tender modesty of the goddess, and the ardent passion of her lover. Elvira gazed upon his glowing countenance and sparkling eyes ”

“ With the greatest care he endeavoured to make Elvira popular. For this purpose he persuaded her to remit those burthens that weighed most heavily upon the people, replacing them by taxes levied in a more indirect way; for the mass of a population seldom grumbles at taxation, unless it see the trifles for which it pays: men do not regard the giving double the real value of a commodity, a tenth part so much, as paying even a small direct sum for the use of any of the common necessaries of life.
By judiciously acting upon this principle, Edmund made himself adored ”

“ The active mind of Elvira caught eagerly at the idea, and she vainly fancied her name would be handed down to posterity as one of the greatest of Queens, who, though in the bloom of youth and pride of beauty, did not hesitate to sacrifice herself for the good of her people, and to devote that time to their welfare and the improvement of her kingdom, which others of her age and rank wasted in mere amusements. ”

“ For trifling inconveniences, like a host of flies buzzing round a nervous man on a sultry day, are often more irritating to the temper, than serious grievances; and the noble mind of Edmund was wearied by subduing such paltry enemies.
"They want employment," said he one day to the Queen, after reading a dispatch containing an account of one of the most vexatious of these tumults; "you must build bridges and cut canals to amuse them." ”

“ From a mistaken motive of generosity, she had retained in her council those lords who had most vehemently opposed her, though, in compliance with the wishes of Edmund, they were shorn of their beams. This was a fatal error; half measures are always dangerous: the lords in question should have been discarded altogether, or retained in their former seats; as it was, Elvira had made them enemies, and yet left them the power to sting her. ”

“ Men do not cast their eyes upon the earth, and murmur forth their accents as though they trembled at the sound of their own voices, when their purposes are such as will bear avowal. Make me your confidant, and by the aid of my serpent deity, my guardian Cneph, I may assist you: but force me to become your enemy, and Typhon himself never pursued Isis and the infant Horus with more unrelenting vengeance than I will follow you and destroy your plans. ”

“ You see every thing with a jaundiced eye. Elvira's nature is gentle and yielding; she feared to hurt his feelings by her harshness. 'Tis but the natural consequence of that very softness you so often have admired. Why should you quarrel with it now? 'tis still the same that charmed you, save that now it is extended to another, and will be soon, no doubt, to all the world. Elvira has been educated in retirement, and, seeing only yourself and Edric, you thought her conduct was the effect of partiality for you, when it was in fact but her natural manner. ”

“ Your grave, serious feelings, disciplined by the restraint of a cloister, mortified by your renunciation of all earthly pleasures, can form no idea of the depth and fierceness of mine. Your passions, father, are dead within you ”

“ They say the duke has many enemies, from his obstinate and conceited disposition; they said also that my father had had many friends."
"And do they exist no longer then, that you lay such emphasis on the word had?" asked Father Morris bitterly.
"They exist, but it seems my father has been so unfortunate as to lose their friendship," returned Rosabella; "Lord Gustavus even alluded to some crime, which he said he had committed." ”

“ Thus we generally see great warriors, or statesmen, or in fact any class of men who have passed their lives in activity, wither away when forced to the dullness of an obscure retirement: their minds and bodies decay alike from want of stimulants to call them into action.
The improvement of her people supplied this stimulus to the mind of Elvira,—but alas! she entered upon it rather with passion than judgment, and had not patience to wait to see her plans gradually carried into effect:—No—no—she could not endure any thing slow: with her every thing must be done by a coup de main ”

“ Besides this, the choice of Elvira having been rather a matter of feeling than of judgment, men felt dissatisfied at having suffered themselves to be hurried away by their passions, and, as is usual in such cases, they were disposed to vent the ill-humour they felt at their own conduct upon every thing which chanced to fall in their way. ”

“ Think you that any good can be done by endeavouring to procure the return of those who are disposed to be favourable to us?"
"Very little," returned Father Morris, to whom this observation was addressed; "for the lower classes, from their conceit and pedantry, are extremely difficult to manage. Their deputies, however, notwithstanding the ordinance of the Queen, will probably be more polished, and less learned, as the lower classes will be ill able to spare the time necessary to become deputies, whilst the country gentlemen will be delighted to obtain something to do." ”