“ One day, when the unfortunate Laurent was digging a trench alone, and the sweat was running in streams from his brow, and his limbs were aching with fatigue, he lamented his hard lot, and, clutching his hair, cried out:
“Yes, I would, I’d give myself to the Devil for a mere nothing.”
“Here I am, at your service,” said Satan, who was immediately at hand.
“No, no, by no means, thank you,” said Laurent, “I prefer working alone.”
“Well, but I’ll work for you, and without wages.”
“Oh, no! you never give anything for nothing,” said the peasant. ”

“ HEFFIE’S TROUBLE.
I remember how late we all sat round the fire that night, Aunt Rachel, Cousin Lucy, and I. It was such a cold wild night, and such a tumult was going on out of doors, as made the pleasant cheerful warmth within seem doubly pleasant and cheerful.
My aunt had been left a widow some years since, with two children, a son and a daughter; my cousin Lucy, and Arthur, who was now in a government office in London. I had lived my childish years away, knowing no other home than my aunt’s pretty cottage at Ashwood, no mother’s face but hers. ”

“ Loring shone most brilliantly on that memorable evening. Graceful and dignified, handsome and talented, he sent a thrill to every heart alive to grandeur of thought, or beauty of language, when vivified with the fervour and purity of an actor of genius. During this scene of triumph, I watched the countenance of my friend with the keenest interest, and I felt that never before had I seen a human face through which the soul beamed with such intensity. Genius, and pride, and joy, and love were there! ”

“ The beauty, graceful motion, and majesty of this bird, when it is sailing along on the clear transparent surface of some lake or river must attract the admiration of every one. It is curious that on the river Trent they are found without any owner at all, also on an inlet of the sea in Dorsetshire, and on some other rivers. No one claims them, they are unmarked, and so they go on from year to year, no one heeding them in any way whatever. ”

“ I did not see their meeting at Castle Fitz-Arden, but I observed afterwards that his manner towards her was uniformly kind, though frequently absent and constrained. An infant daughter formed a new bond of union, and seemed to be the herald of happier days. The young man watched over the little object with the most intense delight, and Electra’s half-subdued character seemed softened into womanhood in the doating fondness of a mother and the calm resignation of a wife. Loving, “but not beloved,” none would have recognised the proud, ambitious, learned, and sarcastic Electra Fitz-Arden. ”

“ Power! power! and above all intellectual power was the constant dream of her wild ambition. To have been sure of a Madame de Staël’s reputation, a Queen Christina’s reputed powers, the intellectual fame of an Olympia Morata, she would have renounced human sympathy for ever, and lived unloving and unloved by the world,—there was a daring desire to send her genius abroad like an electric force to become eternally active,—and this desire might have been attained under more favouring circumstances, but she had no certain foundation for her antagonism and her pride. ”

“ The balloon, like a bright and beautiful denizen of the air, disdaining the base material earth, tried to soar again into the heavens. Too late, my pretty bird, you are caught! Two or three sturdy labourers have hold of the line that hangs from the car—a few ineffectual struggles and she is a hopeless captive, the valve is opened, and all power of resistance is soon over. I step from the car, and in a few short minutes the beautiful life-like creature lies an inanimate shapeless mass on the earth. ”

“ It is not wonderful her very smile had a mingled look of bitter pride and resignation. Their regrets were, however, kept carefully concealed: whatever might have been their feelings, both seemed resolved on a system of silent endurance. There was something in this course a thousand times more affecting than the most pathetic complaints. I shall never forget the anguish I felt when I saw Electra bid farewell to Castle Fitz-Arden, the home of her childhood, where she had ever been an idol and an oracle. ”

“ Thus Electra Fitz-Arden reasoned superior to the De Staëls, the Christinas and the Olympias, and thus she actually thought, but I knew her better than she knew herself. Her affections were as rich and overflowing as her mental energies; and her craving for human sympathy was in direct proportion to that intense love of beauty which, in her, amounted to an intellectual passion. ”

“ My human tears may dew your verdant graves;
But there are buried hopes—uncofhned trusts —
Where no grass waves.
There will be resurrection of the dead
Parted humanity expects to meet
All smiles and love — where never tears are shed—
In bliss complete.
Some hopes died early, others in their prime,
And the heart shrouds them in a viewless pall;
But they will rise not in the after-time
At any call.
I measure life by gravestones, not by years;
And these, intangible, count with the seen;
The dead hopes buried in a rain of tears—
The “should have been.” ”

“ Everybody of fashion speaks French here, and very few understand English; besides, nothing could convince them that you had not been brought up a mere peasant—a boor, you understand—if you could not speak French; but there is one expedient which has just occurred to me—you will pretend to be dumb. I know you are clever enough to act a part; it will be no loss, as you cannot understand what is spoken; but, remember, not a sound before my guests or servants—it might bring us both to be talked of, and I want to let you see society. ”

“ What a lesson that short half-hour would teach most men. Let him look on that great city—the largest and proudest in the universe—how small, how insignificant it looks! What must he feel himself, one of the smallest and most insignificant atoms animating that tiny city. Ah me! the great ones of the earth are but miserable little pigmies after all! ”

“ They’re so kind always to one of their own sex, too, that’s had a misfortune.’
“‘So they talk, do they, Ben?’
“‘Yes, they do; and it’s better, unless I’m to go to sea, or away again, that we should be married.’
“‘Ben,’ says she, ‘it isn’t every man that would make that offer to a woman like me with no good name, and a baby.’
“‘I do though, Esther.’
“‘Well, then, Ben, I will be your wife. I can’t give you the same kind of love that poor John had, but I’ll do my duty to you as a good wife, and I’m sure you’ll be a father to my boy, Ben, dear.’
(See p. 437.) ”

“ They get more set then, criticise (don’t you call it?) a man, know his faults, admit them to others, but then they do their duty almost better in one case than the other; still a man feels somehow which kind of love he’s got, and he’s never quite satisfied without the first kind—at least I think so. I remember one night, about three months after we were married, I’d been talking of Sands a good deal to somebody who’d been to supper with us, and she was quite alive I could see—made me describe him, and listened as though she’d never heard it all before. ”

“ Being desirous of exchanging her solitary mode of life, Miss Virginia Allbone took advantage of the privilege attaching to ladies in leap years, and proposed to my father that he should give up sitting at a desk all day long, writing out invoices, and casting up very long columns of figures, for the trifling consideration of eighty pounds a-year, and become the partner of her joys and sorrows. ”

“ How very beautiful is an autumn in the highlands of Scotland! The air is so light, the scenery so magnificent, the colouring of the hills so gorgeous; and then how enjoyable everything is—the pic-nic parties—the rides on the hill ponies—the boating—the fishing—where all, old and young, are determined to abandon all care, and to be thoroughly happy. But this season, I, for the first time, was admitted into that paradise of sportsmen, a Deer forest. ”

“ I knew when she once selected an object for veneration, her whole soul would be concentrated; and I could not believe that the proud aristocrat, knowing the views of his prouder family in his behalf, with all his high hopes and his love of dazzling loveliness would ever marry her. ”

“ Before I took up my appointment, the management of the English department was carried on by a Scotchman, and his name was McDiddle. Andrew, or, as he himself pronounced it, Andree McDiddle, was a most unfavourable specimen of the Caledonian; in craft, cunning, and readiness for everything that might serve his own interests I think it would be impossible to surpass him. I never saw the man smile except at somebody being overreached; and next to the furs and sables, the great business of his life was to take and keep other people down. ”

“ And at that moment the door opened, and my stepmother and the doctor came in.
I will not dwell on those days of weakness, and weeks of slow recovery, that were ended at last. I have said that that time, as I see it now, was a troubled evil dream, from which the awaking was calm and tranquil as the clear shining after rain. Yes, the shining came at last; the battle was won, because the strength that won it was not my own. Well, the day arrived—the wedding day—his and hers. I saw them kneeling side by side, and heard the words, “I, Arthur, take thee, Agnes, to be my wedded wife.” ”

“ In my own class of life there are many who are really poor, but what would be their feelings if I called on them, advised them how and where to buy their clothes, ordered their dinners, and gave them a ten-pound note? Depend upon it, the poor feel as we do, and that it often requires an effort and all the feelings of dependence they have on a landlord not to reject our money and advice with scorn; and love will never spring up if there is no better intercourse than that with the poor. ”

“ The consciousness of mental power that lighted up her eye with such a burning spark of pride, and the expression of scorn for ever dancing on her lip ready to embody itself into sarcasm, was unquestionably the true reason why this splendid creature became the pariah of the ball-room. ”

“ An English freeholder, living on the land that has come down to him from father to son, for many generations, ranks very high; his stake in the country is as valuable to him as to the country gentleman; and his politics are generally conservative; his feelings are perfectly independent; and I have seen in such a much nearer approach, both in manner and appearance, to the old British nobleman than in any other class. ”

“ Colyton Priory, once the seat of my late lamented father, is again the property of a Trussell; and I have a loving and beloved wife, and four as pretty children—three boys and a girl—as any man could wish for. ”