Robert Henry Vickers

“ Formerly the representative of the exaltation of womanhood in Bohemia, I now simply represent the claims of woman in her depression, her solitude and her bereavement. Nay more, highness, I represent the ordinary claims of humanity on behalf of one not the least among his fellows. In life he vindicated the respect due to every human being of his nation as typified by himself the prince, and in death he demands the reverence of all men for his still unburied remains. ”

“ Assuredly a new school of honor, of policy, and of integrity has usurped the place of the chivalry of the past. Dark deceit, double-meaning casuistry, mental reservation, cowardly prevarication, and shameless falsehood have banished the candor, the ingenuousness, the unswerving courage, and perhaps the rash combativeness of the past. Never has the palace of the Premysls sunk in the abyss of infamy by the deliberate prostitution of sacred hospitality to the malignant purposes of studied treachery, until a new race and an alien philosophy has perverted the soul of the prince of Bohemia. ”

“ Pietro regarded his companion with a feeling akin to apprehension. “Oh, be comforted, my brother,” exclaimed Solomon; “I told you a little presence of mind was better than a sword and buckler. Ah, my brother, the ceaseless energy that pervades all nature is especially active in the soul advancing towards perfection. The more uninterrupted this vital action in any being, the more potent will its manifestations be. We cannot ourselves resist that universal vitality of which we are manifested elements. Much less can these wretches resist it.” ”

“ Never yet have the Bohemians failed in exhibiting their dislike of one-man government; and never, accordingly, have they adhered to any one leader, even when that one combined in himself all that human excellence could present. They have had such on many occasions; and never did they disavow their own individualism in presence of the best leader in the best cause. Only two men have succeeded in combining the enthusiasm and the self-forgetfulness of the Bohemians; and those two had not arisen when the fate of the Lord Zawis’ castles depended on unanimity. ”

“ In the dreadful alternative before them every soldier received a welcome to express his thoughts; every retainer enjoyed the right to elicit the best counsel by interposing his own sentiment. The fatal absence of the one mind whom all would have obeyed to the death, the disposition to look to that source alone, both from confidence and from habit, at length turned the course of debate to the question: “What would Zawis himself have done in such a conjuncture?”
“I know,” said Witek, “my brother’s face has never turned from his foe, and his hand has never failed when an enemy came before him. ”

“ Such is the dire result of the truculent sentimentalism that I denounce. Such a spirit is not Bohemian; it never was Bohemian; and Bohemians will repudiate such sentimentalism to their latest breath.
“Permit me now,” resumed Lord Zawis, “to present to my wife a most fitting emblem of the practical, artistic genius that especially distinguishes Bohemia. It is, my dear love, the same casket intended by the lamented King Otakar as the expression of his parting affection for his queen. ”

“ After Don Abraham’s retirement Solomon and Pietro walked freely among this rabble. In the babel of tongues the names “Rudolph” and “Otakar” continually recurred. Towards Otakar a fierce resentment had been created, and in alluding to him the wildest excitement arose. In speaking, men stood up and brandished their knives and daggers, plunging them into unseen enemies, and then indicating with fierce gestures the licking of blood from the reeking blades. ”

“ I fear some evil purpose lurks beneath it.”
“Beware, highness, of the beauty that bewilders,” said Tertius. “The powers of Satan are guileful; and he knows howto add splendor to material, and adornment to handicraft in order the better to entice the faithful. He endows the hand with unnatural skill, and guides the fingers to exquisite manipulation. He adorns his gifts with beauty to charm the eye, and costliness to win appreciation. He emblazons art upon the walls of the unbelievers; and decorates the chambers of the infidel with the wonders that entice the taste. ”

“ Lord Drda and Lady Ludmila sat together at table and smiled and chatted with perfect composure and undisguised affection. Nicolas Jaroslav and Agaphia entertained each other, and were happy in each other’s confidence; and again Sambor and Milada enjoyed each other’s looks, and seemed better contented to hear the cheerful communings of the other guests than propose their own. Prokop devoted himself to the new arrivals, who again entertained the Lady Judith with many details and rough adventures with goats’ flesh and kumyss; and the nomad life of the steppes. ”

“ Perhaps I may be permitted to say that I, in some measure, embody the military element, and the tone and sentiment that characterized it. Like myself, I fear the old knighthood of Bohemia is passing away. In its place we seem to have introduced a deceitful imitation of soldierhood that adopts the nomenclature of military rank, and incites others to perform acts of cold vengeance unmingled with any of the chivalry or forbearance of a soldier, or any of the admiration for the valor of an adversary that a soldier is always proud to acknowledge. ”

“ Then taking Solomon’s hand, the old man, shading his own tearful eyes, presented him in silence to the congregation. A hush of surprise spread through the company. “Brethren in the same Lord,” said Solomon, with that confidence in himself and that aspect of practiced address, tempered by the solemnity of the occasion, that propriety dictated, “our common humanity revolts against such cruel violence. Not the spirit of love inculcates these evil deeds. Yet in presence of the dignified fortitude, the majestic constancy we have witnessed, our human character is invested with a new nobility. ”

“ For centuries Bohemia has resisted our development. Now that power is effectually broken. They confronted us indeed recently, with the old spirit, notwithstanding the loss of their great prince; but the unity and resources of the kingdom have been shattered. Bohemia must blend with the empire. Poland, Silesia, Brandenburg, Austria, and the Adriatic provinces have been disposed of. Bohemia no longer possesses a coast or a harbor. Look to it, Albert, that your favorite policy of an Austrian empire to the East and South, shall include control of the Adriatic. ”

“ Of the generous and devoted sister who sacrificed herself in the very flames to perform a work of love, my knowledge is that even the affliction of leprosy could not extinguish from her soul that abnegation of self in discharge of the duty she felt prompted to perform that marks the highest advance in divine things. An outcast among men, a wanderer and an object of loathing, she performed an act of sublime charity that ought to put to eternal shame the real instigators of these barbarities. ”

“ Persons who cannot compute the simplest problems of calculation, or of ratios, or of proportions, discuss vast millions with the flippancy of vanity and fatuity. Men who can scarcely command intelligence enough to earn a subsistence with the best opportunities, discourse volubly of legislating for the masses.”
“The king will, on his restoration,” said Kunigunde, “assuredly rally round him the respect and power of the nation.”
“The respect is of small importance without strength. A man, like a nation, is respected in proportion as he is feared,” answered Zawis. ”

“ But why the presence of that menacing symbol here? Securing a lodgment in a large but decayed dwelling now occupied by many separate families, Boppo determined to observe the place and the people. A quiet distrust showed itself in every face. Men and women moved almost stealthily. Yet not the furtive glance of the self-conscious coward, not the searching look of the suspicious criminal who attempts to read an enemy in the eyes, but the averted look of the man who simply avoids others and desires to go his way unmolested, revealed itself to Boppo. ”

“ Had I not discerned a manly heart under the hauberk of a good knight, and learned the generous zeal of a proud and loyal baron, as respectful to his own honor as faithful in his chivalrous service to his country and his prince, I trust I know my duty too well ever to have given you my heart, as I have done, and here I do again, in all wifely duty and cheerfulness. ”

“ He decks the heads of heretics with jewels, and replenishes the coffers of the Jew with wealth. He fills the unholy souls of scoffers with the knowledge of stars, and lays open the mysteries of planets to their research. He unlocks the complications of disease to their inquiries, and even fills their lips with the words that utter charity and wisdom. He makes them prosperous, and renowned, and honored by kings and cities, in order that he may the more effectually entice souls into his satanic kingdom by their means, and extend the dominion of hades. ”

“ A countenance broad, rugged, and open, seamed with conflicts more from within than from any impression of awe the outer world could infuse, an affability that won affection, and a gravity that inspired confidence, a combination of reserve and geniality, and an appropriateness of diction that expressed the full subject without redundancy, enabled Lord Boppo to guide the diversified society around him with a smoothness, and impressiveness that at once attracted and guided the community. ”

“ He purifies and exalts every spirit that communes with him, and no part of his works is deprived of the tenderness of his love.”
“The perfection of a rational soul,” replied the Jew, “is reached when it becomes a mirror of the universe; when the unity of tendency that prevails in the universe is reflected in it. All activity in natural forces is towards the divine tendencies which alone can sustain the marvelous manifestations of good that are everywhere. Our nature is thus purified and perfected and prepared for complete reunion with the divine essence. ”

“ No other men in Europe could command more courtly demeanor, more royal self-carriage, and more diplomatic learning and address. Abraham, himself a member of one of the most cultivated and exalted reigning families, who had augmented the splendor of Cordova; Solomon, a rabbi of the rabbis, of the school that had shed infinite luster on the science of Spain; and Witek, a knight unstained in honor, and not surpassed in grave discourse even by his brother, formed an embassy by whose presence Ladislaus felt himself abashed. ”

“ Profoundly shall I grieve if the sudden imprisonment of the good Lord Zawis is due to imperial purpose enforced by the methods adopted to deceive and ensnare him. Is the statement true that a knight still unconvicted of offense has been enticed, by a false pretense of hospitality, and in the name of his prince, into the palace where that hospitality was proffered, and was then seized violently and immured in a felon’s dungeon, when he trusted to the sacred word of his king according to the confidence of a brave knight and true? ”

“ This he does by the secret intrigues of the zealous minions who traverse our land to betray us to Rudolph’s master. But be of good cheer, lady; if there be warmth in Bohemian hearts, and devotion in Bohemian loyalty, that warmth and that loyalty would commend themselves to your acceptance.”
“Good Lord Zawis,” answered the queen, moved to tears by the earnest sympathy of her companion, “where do you think they will dispose of my boy, this day torn from me by a mock marriage, sanctioned by those called the priests of God? Surely such acts are neither religion nor humanity.” ”

“ He has long nobly and with miarked success ruled a nation requiring allthe dignity of self-possession, all the skill of statesmanship, and all the patience of true courage to control. He has evoked order out of extreme confusion; he has created prosperity where he found only poverty and ruin; and he has placed his country on an elevation to be respected and trusted, after it had been prostrated by enemies of whom your highness is by no means the least in power and courage. ”

“ Not in ascetic annihilation of the graces God had given, not in absorbed abstraction that abandons all human sympathies, not in immured exile from the love and sympathy that exalts humanity by partaking of its daily sorrows, and imparting its sanctified discipline in the love and care of conjugal life, the patience of parental endurance, and the calm forbearance among provocations in our chequered life, did our revered friends exhibit their love for their human kindred, their devotion to divine progress in grace, and nearness to the essence of the pure source of all good. ”

“ The brightest colors of human aspiration after the good and best are there displayed undimmed by the dark shades of calculating demon-craft in the west, which struggle by every undivine and unhallowed stimulus of the baser passions to crush out the gentle research into the works of the omnipotent which brings the divine in the human soul into such sweet harmony with the equally divine things around it. ”

“ And yet the essential constituent of enlightenment necessarily enters into the being of every human soul. Men who dwell ‘on the face of the whole earth’ are not only of one blood, but of an identical mental constitution. From that boundless and eternal unity of power diffused through all the range of being all things are. All the modes of this activity are itself in various manifestations and degrees. The unity of its elements, if there be such, is absolute, and there can be no dependence or coercive force. Power cannot exist without instrumentalities ”