Susanna Moodie

“ There was an expression of pride, almost aristocratical, on her finely cut lips, which seemed to contradict the gratitude she expressed.
"I was not in my right mind, Mr. Geoffrey; no one is, I have read and been told, who makes an attempt upon his own life. I had suffered a great calamity, and wanted moral courage to bear it. I trust God will forgive me."
I told her that I deeply sympathized with her unfortunate situation, and would gladly do anything in my power to serve her.
"That is more than Theophilus would do for you. If there is a person whom he hates more than me, it is yourself. ”

“ I prize you for your own; and I hope you will allow me to consider you in the light of that son, of whom Heaven early deprived me."
"You make a rich man of me at once," I cried, respectfully kissing her hand. "How can I be poor—while I possess so many excellent friends? Robert Moncton, with all his wealth, is a beggar, when compared to the hitherto despised Geoffrey."
"Well, let us leave off complimenting each other," said Mrs. Hepburn, laughing; "and please to lie down like a good boy and compose yourself, and listen attentively to what your uncle has to say to you." ”

“ I felt that I looked grave and sad. She put her arm round my shoulder, and whispered in my ear:
"You are mine, Geoffrey, and I shall soon get well in the society of those I love; so banish that gloomy frown, and try to participate in the general joy. I have procured an excellent flute for you, as a little present. You shall play, and I will sing, and Kate Lee (of whom I am no longer jealous) and George shall dance, and papa shall smoke his cigar beneath our favourite old tree and enjoy the fun; and we shall all be so happy." ”

“ A deep blush mantled over her face—she trembled violently as she gently drew her hand from mine—and answered with a modest dignity, which was the offspring of purity and truth.
"I will not deny, Geoffrey, that I love you. What you have said gives me severe pain. We are not accountable for our affections: I am sorry that I suffered my foolish heart to betray me. Yet, I must love you still, cousin," she said, weeping. "Your very misfortunes endear you to me. Forget this momentary weakness, and only think of me as a loving friend and kinswoman." ”

“ I could not forgive my charming Kate, for having loved another, when I felt that she ought to have loved me. Had I not saved her life at the risk of my own? had I not been true to her at the sacrifice of my best interests, and slighted the pure devoted affection of Margaretta Moncton, for the love of one who loved me not—who never had loved me, though I had worshipped her image in the innermost shrine of my heart? Alas! for poor human nature: this severe trial was more than my philosophy could bear. ”

“ I do not wonder at your repugnance to his coming here; and were it not for your share in the business, I would commit that atrocious woman to take her trial at the next assizes."
"Horrible!" muttered Alice, hiding her face in the sofa pillows. "I did not think that Philip would betray me, after all I did to save his life."
"Your secret is safe with me. I would to God, that other family secrets known to you and Dinah were in my keeping."
"I wish they were, Mr. Geoffrey, for I have too much upon my conscience, overburdened as it is with the crimes of others. ”

“ It has given me, Geoffrey Moncton, power over thee and thine, and at this very moment, the key of your future fortune is in my keeping."
"And your life in mine, vain boaster! The hour is at hand which shall make even a hardened sinner like you acknowledge that there is a righteous God who judges in the earth. I ask you not for the secret which you possess, and which, after all, may be a falsehood, in unison with the deceit and treachery that has marked your whole life—a lie, invented to extort money, or to gratify the spite of your malignant heart. ”

“ I could hear you talk for ever, dear Miss Lee."
"You have grown very formal; Geoffrey—why Miss Lee? During your illness, I have been simple Kate."
"But I am getting well now," and I tried to smile; my heart was too sore. "Oh, Catherine," I cried, "forgive my waywardness, for I am very unhappy."
"You have been placed in very trying circumstances, but I feel an inward conviction that you will overcome them all."
"My grief, has nothing to do with that," said I, looking at her very earnestly.
I read in her countenance pity and surprise, but no tenderer emotion. ”

“ There is no such thing as rest. If I thought so, I would put an end to my existence to-morrow—I would; and meet death as a liberator from the vexatious turmoils of life.'
"There was something in these words which filled my mind with an indescribable horror—a perfect dread of endless duration. I had always looked upon the grave as a place of rest—a haven of peace from the cares of life. That old raven, with her dismal croaking, had banished the pleasing illusion, and made me nervously sensitive to the terrors of a living, conscious eternity. ”

“ I do not deserve it, Geoffrey. I dared to mistrust his honour, to base listen to calumnies propagated by Theophilus and his father, purposely, I now believe, to injure him in my estimation. But what young girl, ignorant of the world and the ways of designing men, could suspect such a grave, plausible man as Robert Moncton, who outwardly always manifested the most affectionate interest in my happiness? I much fear that my coldness had a very bad effect upon Philip's character, and was the means of leading him into excesses, which ultimately led to his ruin. ”

“ I was no longer a lover—or at least the lover of Catherine Lee. My thoughts had returned to Moncton Park, and in dreams the fairy figure of Margaret had flitted beside me, through its green arcades. My heart was free to love her who so loved me, and by the light of the lamp I eagerly opened up the letters, which I had grasped during my slumbers tightly in my hand.
But before I could decipher a line, my worthy friend Dan came to the rescue. "I cannot permit that, Master Geoffrey," said he; "your eyes are too weak to read such fine penmanship." ”

“ What a fearful termination of my gloomy presentiments, thought I, as I looked down at the livid face and prostrate form of Robert Moncton.
"Where will this frightful scene end?" I exclaimed.
The gleam of a light flashed across the broken casement; the next moment Dinah North stood before me.
"Geoffrey Moncton, is this you?" There was another voice that spoke to me—a voice from the grave. "Where is your companion?"
"I am alone with the dead," said I, pointing to the body. "Look there!" ”

“ Let this comfort you in your affliction, that I have anticipated this for years; that our dear patient has carried about her the seeds of this fatal malady from infancy; that it is better that she should thus fall in the budding season of youth, than leave hereafter a family of children to bewail their irreparable loss. I sorrow for her father and you, Mr. Geoffrey, more than for her. Death has few terrors to a sincere Christian, and such from childhood Margaret Moncton has been. A friend to the friendless, a sister of mercy to the poor and destitute. ”

“ As we gained the wood-crowned height, we perceived a horseman slowly riding down the steep before us. His figure was so blended with the dark shadows of the descending road, that the clicking of his horse's hoofs, and the moving mass of deeper shade alone proclaimed his proximity.
"This is a gloomy spot, George. I wish we were fairly out of it."
"Afraid, Geoffrey—and two to one?"
"No, not exactly afraid; but this spot would be lonely at noonday. Look—look! George, what makes that man so suddenly check his horse as he gains the centre of the pit and emerges into the moonlight?" ”

“ The society and presence of Margaretta had become necessary to my happiness. Yet inconsistently enough, I fancied myself desperately in love with Catherine Lee: I never suspected that my passion for the one was ideal—the first love of a boy; while that for the latter, was real and tangible.
How we suffer youth and imagination to deceive us in affairs of the heart! We love a name, and invest the person who bears it with a thousand perfections, which have no existence in reality. ”

“ The clergyman, finding that he would not be listened to, mounted his horse and rode away. George and I gladly availed ourselves of the opportunity of leaving for a while the gloomy chamber of death, and taking a turn in the fresh air. We wandered forth into the clear night; the blessed and benignant aspect of nature, forming, as it ever does, a solemn, holy contrast with the turbulent, restless spirit of man. Nature has her storms and awful convulsions, but the fruits are fertility, abundance, rest. The fruits of our malignant passions—sin, disease, mental and physical death. ”

“ The friendship of the wicked brings no comfort in the hour of death or in the day of judgment."
"Avaunt witch! The sight of your hideous face is worse than the pangs of death. Death," he repeated slowly—"I am not near death—I will not die—I cannot die."
"You dare not!" said Dinah, in a low, malignant whisper. "Is this cowardly dastard, the proud, wealthy Robert Moncton, who thought to build up his house by murder and treachery? Methinks this is a noble apartment and a fitting couch for the body of Sir Robert Moncton to lie in state." ”

“ My daughter, Rachel, by some strange fatality had won the regard of her delicate rival, Lady Moncton, who seemed to feel a perverse pleasure in loading her with favours. Whether she knew of the attachment which had existed between her and Sir Alexander is a secret. Perhaps she did not, and was only struck with the beauty and elegance of the huntsman's wife, which was certainly very unusual in a person of her humble parentage. Be that as it may, she deemed her worthy of the highest trust which one woman, can repose in another—the charge of her infant son, and that son the heir of a vast estate. ”

“ This, my dear cousin, you will say is the natural result of watching the decay of one so young and beautiful as Alice Mornington—one, who, a few brief months ago, was full of life, and health, and hope; that her death has brought more forcibly before me the prospect of my own mortality. Perhaps it is so. I do not wish to die, Geoffrey; life, for me, has many charms. ”

“ For this end your life has been spared, and the heavier will be your amount of guilt, if you neglect so great salvation. God has permitted you to assert your innocence—to triumph over your enemy; has saved you from the premeditated malice of that enemy; and do you feel no gratitude to Him for such signal mercies?"
"Indeed I have not thought of my preservation in this way before, nor have I been so grateful as I ought to have been. I have suffered human passions and affections to stand between me and heaven."
"We are all too prone to do that, Geoffrey. ”

“ Love cannot brook long separation from the object beloved. It withers beneath neglect, and without personal intercourse droops and dies. While you were happy and prosperous you never came near us; and I repeat again—what brings you now?'
"'I have been unfortunate, Alice; the dupe of villains who have robbed me of my property, while my own folly has deprived me of self-respect and peace of mind. Ill and heart-sick, I could not resist the strong desire to return to my native place to die.'
"'There is no peace here, Philip,' said she, in a low soft voice. ”

“ The voice, though long unheard, was only too familiar to my ear, and looking earnestly at the suppliant, with mingled sensation of pity and horror, I recognized my long-lost cousin Theophilus Moncton.
He, too, recognized me, and dropping the tattered remains of his hat at my feet, muttered half aloud:
"Do not betray me, Geoffrey; I am a lost and miserable man. My punishment is already greater than flesh and blood can well bear." ”

“ Death—natural death—the mere extinction of animal life, I did not dread. Had the conflict ended with annihilation, I might have welcomed it with joy. But death unaccompanied by total extinction was horrible. To be deprived of moral life—to find the soul for ever separated from God, all its high and noble faculties destroyed, while all that was infamous and debasing remained to form a hell of memory, an eternity of despair, was a conviction so dreadful, so appalling to my mind, that my reason for a time bowed before it, and for some days I was conscious of nothing else. ”

“ The scene was in unison with Margaretta's poetical temperament. She enjoyed it with her whole heart; her beautiful eyes brimful of love and adoration.
The landscape varied every moment. Now all was black and lowering; lightnings pierced with their arrowy tongues the heavy foliage of the frowning woods, and loud peals of thunder reverberated among the distant hills; and now a solitary sunbeam struggled through a rift in the heavy cloud, and lighted up the gloomy scene with a smile of celestial beauty. ”

“ And I, the rightful heir of the demesne, with a soul as large,—with heart and hand equal to do and dare, all that they in their day and generation had accomplished—approached the old home, poor and friendless, with a stigma upon the good name, which legally I might never be able to efface.
But, courage, Geoffrey Moncton! He who first added the appendage of Sir to that name, rode among the victors at the battle of Cressy, and the war-shout of one of his descendants rang out defiantly on the bloody field of Agincourt! Why need you despair? ”

“ How sincerely I can bless the munificent hand which wounds but to heal—punishes but to reform; who has poured upon the darkness of my soul the light of life, and exchanged the love of earth, which bound me grovelling in the dust, for the love of Christ; sorrow for the loss of one dear companion and friend, into compassion for the sorrows and sufferings of the whole human race. ”