Mary Griffith

“ I want you to let Archy Campbell have the goods and the shop, and your good will—and—poor Jenny Hart in the bargain. Archy Campbell has saved money too; will you give your consent?”
“No,” thundered out Martin Barton, wide awake, “that I won’t. The goods he may have for nothing, the shop he may have for nothing, and our best good will he may have; but as to your leaving us—no, never. Oh, Jenny Hart, Jenny Hart, can you bear to leave us? You may well cry and take on so, Letty; why it is impossible, Jenny Hart—we could not stand it.” ”

“ A man never feels his power and responsibility so strongly as when a lovely woman leans on him for support, and relies on his courage and his ability to protect her. What a delightful sensation comes over a man when he knows that there is one being in the world who trusts to him entirely, and looks up to him as the first and the best—none but a husband can have this feeling—he enjoys it as long as life continues ”

“ Anglesea would not have been so great—perhaps if I had never known you, I should have found less difficulty in obeying my uncle. You perceive that I trust in you entirely.”
It was not till I had read this dear letter over and over again that I could comprehend the full measure of my felicity; then came a rush of joy, then came an exquisite calm over my troubled heart. My aspiring eye shot a quick glance over days of happiness, of thankfulness, of usefulness, till my beloved and I had finished our duties on earth, and were safely and securely and for ever seated among angels in Heaven. ”

“ Martin Barton, wide awake now, falling on the afflicted little maiden’s neck, and trembling like a leaf—“don’t leave us, we shall both die if you think of leaving us. Martin Barton, don’t let us go to Camperdown—that is, to live there, I mean. If she will stay, let us remain and keep shop for her as she has done for us.”
“Good heaven,” thought Jenny Hart, almost fainting with emotion, “could I have believed that under this untiring money-making spirit there was so much of deep feeling?—and for me too! But I cannot give up Archy Campbell; he has wrought hard for me. ”

“ Instead of going directly to New York, as they at first contemplated, they visited every part of Pennsylvania. Railroads intersected one another in every direction; every thing was a source of amazement and amusement to Hastings. The fields were no longer cultivated by the horse or the ox, nor by small steam engines, as was projected in the nineteenth century, but by a self-moving plough, having the same machinery to propel it as that of the travelling cars. ”

“ I do not wonder she has the name of dirty Rachel; for how can a poor creature keep a husband and five children clean, when she has not money to buy soap even. But they are a quiet, well behaved set, and disturb no one. Larry keeps the children around him, and by his eternal good humour and pleasant ways he has contrived to make us all like him; so one throws him this thing and the other that; and your little bounties have come in a very good time. He only wishes, he says, that such gentlemen as you would sprain their ankle every day. ”

“ He wanted to make an opening through a noble piece of woods that bounded the north side, that he might catch a view of the village steeple—so he fell to musing about that. A beautiful winding river lay in front of his estate, the bank of which sloped down to the water’s edge; this tranquillizing scene likewise operated on his feelings, so that politics faded away, and his mind became calm and serene. Thus it was, that at thirty years of age he had these fits of abstraction, and he became a muser.
Men of his age—sensible men—are not so easily pleased as those who are younger. ”

“ You can see nothing at all to laugh at in me; for I am made like most people—and—besides—I allow no man to laugh at me. This reminds me, Mr. Webb, of the golden rule—I beg your pardon for my mirth; but, really, the hat and coat, to say nothing of the boots, were too much for me. But, my little man—hem—Mr. Webb, I mean, why do you not go into the country and gather a little colour and flesh? You would look more like a—hem—you would look as well again. ”

“ There is now, but one tax, and each man is made to pay according to the value of his property, or his business, or his labour. A land-holder, a stock-holder and the one who has houses and bonds and mortgages, pays so much per cent, on the advance of his property, and for his annual receipts—the merchant, with a fluctuating capital, pays so much on his book account of sales—the mechanic and labourer, so much on their yearly receipts, for we have no sales on credit now—that demoralizing practice has been abolished for upwards of a century. ”

“ You have neither the satisfaction of living where you like best, nor the pleasure of having a decent name for your child.”
“But I have the pleasure of knowing that my little girl will have a handsome independence—and do you think, my dear Hassy, that it is no gratification to me to see that our going to the country is an event of great importance to your health and happiness?”
“My dearest Winny,” said her tender-hearted, conscience-stricken husband, “I do not deserve this goodness. I cannot enjoy the thought of going into the country, unless I tell you how it has been brought about. ”

“ I bless the good Irishman’s memory for having so early and so constantly spoken of my parents; particularly of my mother.
A man finds he cannot make his way in the world without honesty and industry, so that, although his father’s example may do much, he has to depend upon his own exertions; he must work, he must be honest, or he cannot attain to any enviable rank. But the tender soothings of a mother, her sympathy, her devotedness, her forgiving temper—all this sinks deep in a child’s heart ”

“ It was easy to build a cellar, she thought, and so the cellars were made. “It seems to me,” she continued to say, “that men have no idea of comfort themselves, or they would not grudge it to their poor tenants; women understand these matters better, and as God has endowed them with greater sensibilities than the other sex, why it is incumbent on them to show their grateful sense of this partiality in their favour; and how can we show it but by attending to those little things which make up, by their great number, all the happiness of life? ”

“ Nay, the old Recorder says that there have been rich men who ordered the very house in which they lived, and which had been built for their wives’ comfort, during their life time, to be sold, and who thus compelled their wives to live in mean, pitiful houses, or go to lodgings.”
“Yes,” said Hastings,—quite ashamed of his own times,—“but then you know the husband was fearful that his wife would marry again, and all their property would go to strangers.”
“Well, why should not women have the same privileges as men? Do you not think that a woman had the same fears? ”

“ In that service, a man binds himself by a solemn oath ‘to endow his wife with all his worldly goods.’ If he swears to endow her with all, how can he in safety to his soul, will these worldly goods away from her. We consider the practice of depriving a woman of the right to the whole of her husband’s property after his death, as a monstrous act of injustice, and the laws are now peremptory on this subject. ”

“ Hang a man because he has forged our name for a few dollars! No: go to our prisons, there you will see the murderer’s fate—solitary confinement, at hard labour, for life! that is his punishment; but murders are very rare now in this country. A man stands in greater dread of solitary confinement at hard labour than he does of hanging. In fact, according to our way of thinking, now, we have no right, by the Divine law, to take that away from a human being for which we can give no equivalent. It is right to prevent a murderer from committing still farther crime ”

“ Sammy Oram, after that, had no heart to work next to Bonny Betty. ‘And I knew what he comed next to me for at the time,’ said she, ‘but I said I’ll fit him when he’s ready to spake—he a fader to my childer—he’s not a fader to his own. There’s Lizzy Conolly, she’s a good enough body for him, and he’ll find her a better mammy to his childer than I would be.’ Sammy’s a man, your honour, that soon tires of a wife. ”

“ So eternally busy were they all from morning till ten at night, that Robina, a pretty, delicate girl, with a good understanding, and very excitable, had never found time to cultivate the acquaintance of any of the young girls of her own age, although in the abstract there was no unwillingness to it. Neither her father nor mother would have hindered her, but sisters and companions came so fast at home, and that home was made so happy by her active, well-principled mother, that there was no craving for out-door society. ”

“ Clearing up as this passed through her mind, she then turned to give her husband what comfort she could; for little refinement as she had in general, she still could comprehend the morbid sensibilities of those she loved. How few men there are who know how to appreciate the sympathy of a prudent, tender wife! Mr. Webb understood the excellence of the woman who now stood with affectionate earnestness before him, and before she had talked the matter over the third time—in her vague yet decisive way—he had recovered his equanimity. ”

“ I used to smile when I saw the amazing liberality of the trustees of this immense fund; they would, in the most freezing and pompous manner, dole out a thousand dollars to this church, and a thousand to that, making them all understand that nothing more could be done, as they were fearful, even in doing this, that they had gone beyond their charter.”
“Just as if they did not know,” said Edgar, “that any set of men, in any legislature, would give them full powers to expend the whole income in the cause of their own peculiar religion. ”

“ You cannot think what a really useful woman Bonny Betty is; it is a pity that the children are so sickly.”
“Has she a doctor?—does she ever consult a doctor?”
“A doctor! why they are all more or less deformed. Ben, the eldest, has a great wen over his left eye which has nearly destroyed his sight; Kate, the next, has a broken back, and is lame; Jemmy is one sore from head to foot, and has been in that way for four years; Bob is a thin, sickly boy, that has fainty turns, and is beginning to lose his hearing; Susy is deaf and dumb; and little Christie, only four years old, has the dropsy.” ”

“ We educate our women now, and they are as capable of taking care of property as we are ourselves. They are our trustees, far better than the trustees you had amongst you in your day—they seldom could find it in their hearts to allow a widow even her poor income. I suppose they thought that a creature so pitifully used by her husband was not worth bestowing their honesty upon. ”

“ You were an irreverent, exacting race in your day; you expected more from a preacher than from any other person to whom they gave salaries—they were screwed down to the last thread of the screw; people would have their pennyworth out of them. It is no 65wonder that you had such poor preachers in your day; why few men of liberal education, aware of all the exactions and disabilities under which the sacred cloth laboured, would ever encounter them. But, now, every village has its own pastor; and some of them are highly gifted men, commanding the attention of the most intelligent people. ”

“ Why should all the people of a great nation be compelled to pass over an unsafe road, in miserably constructed cars, which made such a noise that for six hours a man had to be mute, and where there was perpetual fear of explosion from the steam engine—why should this be, when another company could give them a better road, more commodious cars, and a safer propelling power? ”

“ In almost every case, an orphan was said to be a child deprived of one or both parents; and, what is very singular, the term orphan occurs but once throughout the Old and New Testaments. In Lamentations it says, ‘We are orphans, and fatherless, and our mothers are as widows.’ Now, in the opinion of many, the orphan and fatherless, and those whose mothers are as widows, here mentioned, are three distinct sets of children—that is, as the lament says, some of us are orphans, meaning children without father and mother, some of us are fatherless ”

“ Oh, Robina, dear, what a delightful walk we had. I just went up to the laboratory with Gabriella, to say how do you do to my dear husband, when, there he stood, ready for a walk, (here Mr. Floss laid down his book to listen too) so up the road we went; and the warm sunshine, and the brisk winds seemed to be playing with each other, and gambolling, as it were, before us. We both felt grateful that we did not meet a single beggar or a discontented face. So we walked around our own division and inquired of the widows how they were getting on ”