Various

“ Not a word can be spoken by a supposed reactionary orator without a murmur—not a phrase completed without a shout of denegation, a torrent of interruptions, or peeling bursts of ironical laughter. The "Mountain" is in perpetual labour; but its produce bears more resemblance to a yelping pack of hungry blood-hounds, than to an innocent mouse: it is in perpetual movement; and, like crushing avalanches from its summit, rush down its most energetic members to the tribune, to attempt to crush the Assembly by vehemence and violence of language. ”

“ The absolute necessity of property in land, in order that the soil should be cultivated, (that is, under any condition in which humanity has hitherto presented itself,) is a palpable truism. Yet property in land leads to the exaction of rent—leads to the same division which we have seen marked out by so many laws between two classes of society—those who may enjoy leisure, and those who must submit to labour; classes which are generally distinguished as the rich and poor, never, we may observe in passing, as the happy and unhappy, for leisure may be as great a curse as labour. ”

“ On every single branch of knowledge to which we have alluded, the power and skill profitably to influence the plant are dependent.
And for what purpose does the plant spring up, the soil feed and nourish it, and the blessed sun mature its seeds? To adorn, no doubt, the surface of the beautiful earth, and to keep alive and propagate its species; but principally to nourish the animal races which supply food and yield their service to man. And, upon the study of this nurture and feeding of the animal races, how much intellect has been expended! ”

“ Justice, though not understood after the manner of Mr Godwin, is a sentiment which really lives and moves in the very heart of society. Men respond to an appeal to their sense of justice; they become ungovernable if that sense of justice is long outraged; they work upon this sentiment; they can labour and endure according to its dictates: but for this philanthropy, or fraternity, of which we hear so much—what has it ever done? It never regulated the transactions of a single day; never produced a grain of corn, or a shred of apparel; produces nothing but theories. ”

“ The steam-frigate appears to live, and thunders as she moves, breathing fire and smoke. But the still life of the plant awes and subdues more than all this. Man may forcibly obstruct the path of the growing twig, but it turns quietly aside and moves patiently on. The dead iron and wood, and the forceful steam, all obey man's will—his intellect overmasters their stubbornness, and tames them into crouching slaves—but the life of the plant defies him. That life he can extinguish; but to use the living plant he must obey it, and study its wants and tendencies. ”

“ Indeed, when we compare the Political Justice with the reveries of Communism, so rife amongst our neighbours, we feel proud of our English dreamer. Godwin's scheme was somewhat as if one of the ancient stoics, not content with imposing upon his wise man rules of conduct quite independent of all human passions and affections, had resolved that the whole multitude of the species should demean themselves according to the same impracticable rules, and should learn to live, and labour, and enjoy, like reasoning automata. ”

“ How will his thesis and his antithesis help us to adjust the claims between labour and capital? If he has any adjustment to propose—if he has found what he calls his synthesis—let us hear it. If the synthesis is only to be developed in those future evolutions of time, which neither he nor we can divine, of what use all this angry exposition of the inevitable Contradictions that mark and constitute the progress of humanity? ”

“ Another minute, and the suspense was too great for me to help looking up: just at that moment I saw how set Westwood's face was: he was watching his enemy with an eye that showed to me what the other's must be—seeking for his life. The seconds gave the word to each other in the middle, and dropped two white handkerchiefs at once with their hands together; I caught the flash of Westwood's pistol, when, to my astonishment, I saw the captain of the Orestes next moment jerk up his arm betwixt me and the sky, fire in the air, and slowly fall back—he was dead!—shot through the heart. ”

“ Many envied Coronel the glory of inspiring such devoted attachment, and every one awaited with thrilling interest the last moments of a man whom all Castile was accustomed to consider as the model of an accomplished and valiant knight." The assault was given, the castle taken, and Coronel was led before Alburquerque. "What!" exclaimed the minister, on beholding his foe, "Coronel traitor in a kingdom where so much honour has been done him!" "Don Juan," replied Coronel, "we are sons of this Castile, which elevates men and casts them down. It is in vain to strive against destiny. ”

“ When the nations are engrossed by their difficulties and disasters, and the jarring discord of revolution and thundering crash of monarchies on every side resound, the history of a semi-barbarous period, and of a king now five hundred years in his grave, should be set forth with surpassing talent to attract and sustain attention. But M. Mérimée is the literary Midas of his day and country: the subject he handles becomes bright and precious by the magic of his touch. ”

“ Free-trade, therefore—for which we sacrificed our revenue, submitted to an income-tax, and ruined our West India colonies—has utterly failed to stimulate our exports, the end which it deliberately proposed.
The diminution of exports implies of course a corresponding diminution of labour. This is a great evil, but one which is beyond the remedy of the statesman. You cannot force exports—you cannot compel the foreign nations to take your goods. ”

“ No sooner is one interest pulled down than they make a rapid and determined assault upon another, utterly reckless of the misery which they have occasioned, and hopelessly deaf even to the warnings of experience. They are true destructives; because they feel that they dare not pause in their career of violence, lest men should have leisure, to contemplate the ruin already effected, and should ask themselves what tangible benefit has been obtained at so terrible a cost. Mr Cobden knows better than to resume consideration of free-trade principles, now that we have seen them in actual operation. ”

“ Leave, then, this sacred void unfilled, unprofaned; and accept this compromise of chivalrous courtesy—while my father lives with the Captain, we will believe in the printer; when away from the Captain, we will stand firm to the knight."
"Good!" cried Uncle Roland, as I paused, a little out of breath.
"And," said my mother softly, "I do think, Austin, there is a way of settling the matter which will please all parties. It is quite sad to think that poor Roland, and dear little Blanche, should be all alone in the tower; and I am sure that we should be much happier altogether." ”

“ We have a battle to fight involving a more important stake than ever. We must fight that battle under circumstances of great disadvantage; for not only has treachery thinned our ranks, but the abandonment of public principle by a statesman whose hairs have grown gray in office, has given an example of laxity most pernicious to the morals of the age. But not the less readily do we go forward at the call of honour and duty, knowing that our cause is truth, and confident, even now, that truth must ultimately prevail. ”

“ And so too often it is with you who feed, and with you who look at the simple process of feeding stock. As the turnip and the barley, and the oats and the linseed, and the beans, are placed before the almost perfect short-horn, or the graceful Ayrshire, or the untamed West Highlander, or the stately stallion, or the well-bred Leicester or Cheviot ram, or the cushioned and padded Berkshire porker—how little do you know or think of the science, and long skill, and intellectual labour, which have been expended in preparing what is to you so simple! ”

“ At all events, exclaims another, we will reduce the inequality which we cannot expunge, and put down the enormous and tyrannical capitalist: we will have a law limiting the fortune of each individual to so many hundreds or thousands; or, if we allow a man to earn and appropriate unlimited wealth, we will take care that it shall be dispersed at his death,—not even to his son shall he be permitted to bequeath more than a certain sum. But all schemes of this kind can tend only to equalise the fortunes of the first class—those who employ labour ”

“ Of all the arts of life, there is none which draws its knowledge from so great a variety of fountains as practical agriculture. Every branch of human knowledge is mutually connected—we may say interwoven with—and throws light upon, or is enlightened by, every other. But none of those which largely contribute to the maintenance of social life, and conduce to the power and stability of states, is so varied in its demands upon the results of intellectual inquiry, as husbandry,—or rural economy in its largest sense. ”

“ But while the machine has added immensely to the products of labour, it has done nothing to diminish the class of manual labours. It has done nothing, nor does it seem probable that it will ever effect anything, towards rendering that class less requisite or less numerous. On the contrary, it has always, hitherto, multiplied that class. The machine will not go of itself, will not manufacture itself, nor keep itself in repair. The human labourer becomes the slave of the machine. ”

“ Their fathers saved, and they enjoy; or they employ a part of the accumulation in the purchase of the labour of others, by which means their riches still further increase. The pyramid rises. But the descendants of those fathers who had consumed the product of their labour, they bring no postponed claim into the market. These are they who must sell their labour. They must work for the children of those who had saved. Our pyramid broadens at the base. This perpetual value given to money has enabled the man of one generation to tax all ensuing generations with the support of his offspring. ”

“ But what confidence can be expressed in the stability of this temporary state of order in a country so full of excitement and love of change, and in a state of continual revolution, in which such conspiracy ceases not to work in darkness, with the hope of attaining despotic power, and in which disaffection to the state of things is openly expressed? Events have run their course with such fearful rapidity, and the unexpected has been so greatly the "order of the day," in the last year's history of France, that who can answer for the future of the next months, or even weeks? ”

“ But I was overruled by that fellow Peck. Says I to him—says I—'Capitalist! pshaw—no popular interest there—it don't address the great public! Very confined class the capitalists; better throw ourselves boldly on the people. Yes,' said I, 'call it the anti-Capitalist.' By Jove, sir, we should have carried all before us! but I was overruled. The Anti-Capitalist!—what an idea! Address the whole reading world then, sir: everybody hates the capitalist—everybody would have his neighbour's money. The Anti-Capitalist!—sir, we should have gone off, in the manufacturing towns, like wildfire. ”

“ But if, for instance, I find a man possessing a certain facility of speech, happily adapted to his cause, addressing a great body of his fellow-men in inflammatory appeals to their passions, and stirring them up against the institutions of the country, that is what I call brute force—which I think the country would be very well content to do without, and which, if there be any sense or spirit left in men, or any men of right feeling in the country, they will resolve to put down as an intolerable and ignominious tyranny! ”

“ He is right: great indeed would be the joy of the clubs in Paris, Berlin, and Vienna, if there were not a soldier left. What jubilee and triumph there would be in every Continental capital! Not the suppression of the police would excite deeper exultation in the hearts of the denizens of St Giles', than would the abolition of standing armies in those of the bearded patriots of the Continent. No need then of barricades—no fighting for the partition of property—no bloodshed, preparatory to the coveted rape and pillage! The man who can talk in this way is beneath the average of idiots ”

“ We do not say that, in the present instances, such calamitous results are inevitable—we have hope that France may this time achieve a permanent constitution without having recourse to aggression. At the same time, it would be folly to shut our eyes to the fact that, throughout a great part of Europe, the old boundaries have been grievously disturbed; and that the modern system of intervention has a decided tendency to provoke war, at periods when the popular mind is raised to a pitch of extraordinary violence, and when the passions are so keenly excited as to disregard the appeals of reason. ”

“ The violence and struggling rage of the ultra-democratic and socialist journals, increasing in denunciation to the death, and positively convulsive in their rage, as the anti-republican reactionary spirit grows, and spreads wider, and every day takes firmer root, and even dares to blossom openly in the expression of public opinion, are looked upon as the throes of dying agony by the bold, but are regarded with dread by the less courageous, who know the force of the party's exaggerated violence, and have already felt the miseries of their fanatic subversive attempts. ”

“ Look at that magnificent ship, which cleaves the waters, now trusting to her canvass and wafted by favouring breezes; now, despite the fiercest gales, paddling her triumphant way over hill and valley, precipice and ravine, which the raging sea, out of her fertile materials, is every moment fashioning beneath her feet. Is there any product of human art in which more intellect is embodied than in this piece of living mechanism? ”

“ Let us hear Lord John Russell, whose interest it is to make things appear in as favourable a light as possible:—"I do not contend that there is not cause for anxiety in the present state of Europe. I am far from thinking that the revolutions which took place last year have run their course, and that every nation in which they occurred can now be said to be in a state of solid security. I rejoice as much as any man that the ancient empire of Austria, our old ally, is recovering her splendour, and is showing her strength in such a conspicuous manner. ”