John Oliver Hobbes

“ The impulse is to rush into the fray, to kill or be killed, but both or either without loss of time or hindrance. Vanity, too, and ambition, no less than a zeal of serving the Almighty and humanity, may have something to do with the fierceness of this desire, so easy is it to flatter the soul that the glorification of self is all to the glory of God. These and similar thoughts, while they restrained Warbeck from any active participation in public affairs, were silently working for good, strengthening his judgement, and giving him some insight into his own heart and human perplexities. ”

“ Men hate cynical girls."
"Why should London change her?" said Miss Caroline, wondering whether "cynical" was a new epidemic: something of an asthmatic nature.
"Well, I hardly know how to explain," said the Countess. "It is one of those things one takes for granted."
Miss Caroline looked anxiously at Jane. Everything in the nature of change alarmed her.
"Do you think," she said, at last, "that London will be good for Jane?"
"London is very healthy," said Lady Warbeck. "My doctor tells me that even the fogs are wholesome—if your lungs can stand them." ”

“ Once or twice my dear stepson lent them Grosvenor Square for a meeting. But we were all out of town at the time."
"Aunt Caroline calls everybody, folk," explained Jane, colouring in her effort not to laugh.
"Really?" said the Countess. "Of course there is no such thing as everybody—that is a newspaper vulgarism. One is either a somebody or a nobody—irrespective of rank or profession. The next best thing to a somebody, is a nobody in a good set!" ”

“ She could, if necessary, adapt herself to any scene or any society; she did not look less a countess because she sat in a kitchen. Good breeding does not require a background. She always held, however, that nervousness in her august presence showed very proper feeling, so she looked at Jane very hard for seeming so unembarrassed. Jane met her look modestly, and with the respect which instinct taught her was due to one who was so many years her senior, but with no more fear than if her great relative had been—as her ladyship wrote to Warbeck—"a tabby cat on a wall." ”

“ And now she had taken a fancy to Jane—which was the highest possible credit to both of them. For her ladyship had good taste and was not easily satisfied.
"The child is neither good form nor bad," she wrote to Warbeck. "She is no form at all, and would be called original. (I do not mean that she swears like Lady Buntynge.) She is very innocent, and has, I assume, no accomplishments. But really, dear, I cannot help thinking that is an advantage. Nowadays every one wants to perform and no one will listen, and a nice quiet girl who can merely appreciate would be much sought after. ”

“ Girls are so thoughtless."
"So much depends on one's bringing-up," murmured her ladyship. "I daresay you are looking forward with immense delight to your future life, and your first season, and your new frocks, and so on! (The Dowager was most serious when she seemed flippant.)
Jane had all a girl's love for beautiful clothes, and already she had certainly dreamt of a heavenly gown, soft-hued, with straight back seams and a train. She had also designed a black silk dolman for her Aunt Caroline. ”

“ Joe Gargery called a "master mind," like to manage men, but they like to manage other women still better: it is a greater triumph from an artistic point of view. Lady Warbeck promised herself unalloyed joy in directing the unsophisticated being Heaven had dropped in her way.
She had to endure several pangs, however, as she drove to the hotel, (where she was spending the night) , for she could not persuade herself that because Jane was unassuming she was necessarily meek. And meekness in a protégé is an essential, if one is to be a patroness with any degree of comfort or satisfaction. ”

“ But Superior Persons do not wear hair-shirts. There are good men who yet bear on their countenance the scars of many battles lost and won; their knowledge of good is ever shadowed by their knowledge of evil; they are all things to all men that they may by all means save some. But Warbeck was not of these. ”

“ When she thought of herself she was at once both eager and fearful to learn what the Future would be: as if there is not always still another Future—when one Future has become a Past—to fear and yet rush into! ”

“ No Drawnes, but the Earls of Warbeck. And now this Cattle person is to have them all—and Grosvenor Square, too!" This was her magnificent manner of referring to the town mansion, as though only one house in London could justly claim that address. "Grosvenor Square, too," she repeated; "and you with no roof over your head. Fifteen thousand a year? What is that? Far more than you need? It is not a question of need, it is a question of what you require—what is decent. And as for calling this Cattle person, Lady Jane—" Words failed her. Her grandson smiled patiently ”

“ He knew that he was considered promising by those friends whose judgement he could not choose but value, and his University career had more than fulfilled their expectations. Yet the self-distrust was there—a haunting thought lest, in the end, he would not only disappoint those who were dear to him on earth, but that possible God who had a way of asserting His authority in the form of a still, small conscience. Youth is naturally impatient, and is not content to remain blind for even three days like St. ”

“ She smiled as she spoke, for there were few pleasures she enjoyed so much as expounding the truths that be—as she understood them. Had she been born in a humbler sphere she would, no doubt, have been the principal of a ladies' college. Women who possess what Mr. ”