Various

“ Where all the gracious arts, all the generous rivalries of mind, that deck and animate the bright calm of peace? Where all the devotion, heroism, self-sacrifice in a common cause, that exalt humanity even amidst the rage and deformities of war, if, throughout well-ordered, close-welded states, there ran not electrically, from breast to breast, that love of honour which is a part of man’s sense of beauty, or that instinct towards utility which, even more than the genius too exceptional to be classed amongst the normal regulations of social law, creates the marvels of mortal progress? ”

“ Had I won her, I can scarcely conceive that I should have become more tempted to ambition or less enamoured of home. Still, whatever leaves so deep a furrow in a man’s heart cannot be meant in vain. Where the ploughshare cuts, there the seed is sown, and there later the corn will spring. In a word, I believe that everything of moment which befalls us in this life—which occasions us some great sorrow—for which, in this life, we see not the uses—has, nevertheless, its definite object, and that that object will be visible on the other side of the grave. ”

“ But you see, sir, there is this difference between Sir Percival and myself:—He has had no motive in improving Nature for her positive uses, and therefore he has been contented with giving her a prettier robe. He loves her as a grand seigneur loves his mistress. I love her as a man loves the helpmate who assists his toils. According as in rural life my mind could find not repose, but occupation—according as that occupation was compatible with such prudent regard to fortune as a man owes to the children he brings into the world—my choice of life would be a right or a wrong one. ”

“ Enthusiasm on any subject is a rare virtue in Tuscany; and if a military life for six years could infuse into the rising generation some energy and some habits of discipline, the army would prove a more important means of education than all the new schools which are to be introduced.
But how is it that throughout this perambulation of the town of Florence we have not come across a single sign of that touching affection for the late Grand-duke which has been so vividly and so often described in England? ”

“ Clara is avenged already. But you have done wisely. Let him succeed or let him fail, you have removed from Clara her only rival. If you had debarred him from honour you would have estranged him from love. Now you have bound him to Clara for life. She has ceased to be an obstacle to his dreams, and henceforth she herself will be the dream which his waking life will sigh to regain.”
“Heaven grant he may come back, with both his legs and both his arms; and, perhaps, with a bit of ribbon, or five shillings’ worth of silver on his breast,” said Percival, trying hard to be lively. ”

“ The only thing that can keep the Whigs alive in the imagination of the public, is to show that party is dead. Happily the country has only to look at the Opposition side of the House to see that the Tory party is alive, and exuberant in strength and hope. It is fortunate for the interests of the State that they are so. The main attack upon the bulwarks of the Constitution has been decisively repulsed—the legions of “Reform” have been scattered in such hopeless rout that their leaders have thrown away their standards and disavow their cause. ”

“ The Government is obnoxious to the charge of not providing for a contingency that ought to have been foreseen, by furnishing the means for sustained operations. And the Government might, in great measure, exonerate itself at the expense of the nation. For years before, no Member of Parliament could have proposed an increase on the estimates in order to render the army an efficient engine of war, without being covered with obloquy. At that time, what troops we had were barely tolerated by the people. Considering all things, we cannot think the step wise. ”

“ He who is truthful, just, merciful, and kindly, does his duty to his race, and fulfils his great end in creation, no matter whether the rays of his life are not visibly beheld beyond the walls of his household, or whether they strike the ends of the earth; for every human soul is a world complete and integral, storing its own ultimate uses and destinies within itself ”

“ If Mr Kinglake was unsparing in his denunciations of French intrigue, he is no less bold and outspoken in criticising the military merits of our allies. But we no longer find the same reasons for dissenting from his conclusions. Many, no doubt, will say that it would have been politic to suppress some of those revelations which will jar most on the sensitive ears of our neighbours. But, if history is to be written at all, it must be written with all the truth attainable. History, which conceals and glosses, is but historical romance. ”

“ They had been warned by the first little band of adventurers that Scotland was not rich; yet the intense poverty of the country whence so many daring adventurers had gone over to ruffle it with the flower of European chivalry, astonished and appalled them. Of the extreme and special nature of the poverty of Scotland, the great war against the English invaders was the cause. It has been estimated, indeed, by those devoted to such questions, that Scotland did not recover fully from the ruin caused by that conflict until the Union made her secure against her ambitious neighbour. ”

“ The country is thrice happy to know that this is a union of hearts as well as of hands, and that the bride-elect possesses in an eminent degree those advantages of person, charms of manner, and piety and amiability of character, which captivate affection and secure domestic happiness. While as a good princess and queen she will win our hearts, it is an additional pleasure to feel that, as a Scandinavian Princess, she will rivet an old and national alliance, and draw into closer bonds the kindred races of the North. ”

“ Such is the stuff which the Codini nobles are made of, and so let them drive home in peace. These are not the manner of men to make counter revolutions. Brought up as boys by a priest, within the four walls of a palace, they have never had an opportunity of gaining any experience of life beyond that afforded by the café, the theatre, and the Court, and they feel alarmed and annoyed to find growing up around them a state of things in which men will have to rank according as they can make themselves honoured by the people, and not according to the smile they may catch at Court. ”

“ Habit has tyrannised over all his actions; break the habit, and the thread of his life snaps with it!
“Lastly, however, I am by no means sure that there is not in some few natures an inborn irresistible activity, a constitutional attraction between the one mind and the human species, which requires no special, separate motive power from without to set it into those movements which, perforce, lead to fame. I mean those men to whom we at once accord the faculty which escapes all satisfactory metaphysical definition—Ingenium;—viz., the inborn spirit which we call genius. ”

“ Here and there, of late, the links of this social despotism, under which we have groaned so long, show symptoms of giving way. The advance of fashion has done good service in one respect, that the modern service à la Russe, adopted in all good houses, has struck a decisive blow at the old English heavy dinner; and just as the fashion has long died out of pressing one’s guests to eat more than they wish, so the fashion is coming in of not thinking it necessary to put upon the table three times more than can by any possibility be eaten. ”

“ If our neighbours over the water read (as we hope many of them will) these little sketches of an English village, drawn in their own language, if not by one of themselves, yet by one who is evidently no stranger to their national sympathies, and who writes manifestly with the kindest feelings towards both, it is well, perhaps, that they should bear in mind that it is a picture purposely taken under a sunny aspect. Rural England is not all Arcadia. All English landladies, even in the country, are not Mrs Joneses, nor are all English families as hospitable as the Masons. ”

“ The impression made on each country by their experiences brought out their distinct national characteristics. The French knights were all ardour and impatience; they clamoured to be at the enemy without ascertaining the amount or character of his force. The wretched internal wars of their own country had taught them to look on the battle-field as the arena of reason in personal conflict, rather than the great tribunal in which the fate of nations was to be decided, and communities come forth freed or enslaved. ”

“ But if Parliament was right, they themselves were condemned; if it were wrong, why did they not dissolve, and appeal to the country? Had they been in earnest, they would have dissolved: but they knew that a dissolution would have been followed by the election of a Parliament still more hostile to them and to their measure. And therefore they chose rather to remain self-condemned, and to be pointed at with the finger of scorn, by the one party as recreants, by the other as impostors, rather than save their honour at least by the sacrifice of office. ”

“ Most financiers, and all sound ones, in such circumstances, would devote the surplus of revenue which might accrue to redressing the adverse balance of former years. But Mr Gladstone belongs to a new school. He leaves the balances to come right as they may, or bequeaths them as an embarrassment to his successor; while he goes on in his seemingly endless process of devising financial alterations, which always leave him deeper in the mire. He loves to carry every inch of canvass—he crowds all sail as he drives his financial pinnace through strange waters ”

“ I think she is quite right to make friends, if she can, in her new family. She knows she can always calculate upon us if she ever wants any service,” added the bride’s relation, with a slight heightening of colour and the ghost of a curtsy. The Miss Summerhayes were not unequal to the emergency.
“We all know how much poor dear Mary is liked among her own friends,” cried Miss Lydia. “Your dear girls were so fond of her last year when they spent such a long time at Fontanel; and dear Mary has such a taste in presents,” said Miss Laura, coming in so eagerly that she began out of breath. ”

“ If this ambition to become a purchaser were confined to a desire upon every man’s part to feel himself absolute master of the home he lived in, then, whatever large proprietors or able political economists might have to say, it would be an object which would deserve the very highest respect. But, unfortunately, the feeling is not altogether that of desiring to live in peace under one’s own vine and fig-tree: it is the wish to have a tenement to let out to others. It is comparatively seldom that a small piece of land, suited to the sum at such a purchaser’s command, is thrown into the market. ”

“ It is a present happiness, and we trust it will be a lasting comfort, to our beloved Queen. It is the first gleam of returning sunshine to her heart after the darkness of sorrow and bereavement which so suddenly settled down upon her fifteen months ago. We know no drawback upon the general joy. Even in a political point of view this alliance is fortunate, and desirable above any other that could be formed. ”

“ Behind him is the sober professional man, in a French great-coat which has wandered from Paris, making room for newer fashions. There, too, is the priest of portly figure and wasted garments, which show at once his devotion to the inner man, and his neglect of the outer world, walking along with a blessing on his lips and a green cotton umbrella under his arm. By his side is the peasant come to town for the day, cart-whip in hand, and a long coarse cloak trailing from his shoulders, embroidered behind with flowers in green silk. Every stitch will show character in one way or another. ”

“ Not till at least a century after his brain and his hand are dust can even critics begin to form a rational conjecture of an author’s or a statesman’s uses to his kind. Was it, then, as Gray had implied, merely the force of habit which kept me in movement? if so, was it a habit worth all the sacrifice it cost? Thus meditating, I forgot that if all men reasoned thus and acted according to such reasoning, the earth would have no intermediate human dwellers between the hewers and diggers, and the idlers, born to consume the fruits which they do not plant. ”

“ The course of the leaders of the party has been such that they could not continue to enjoy any large measure of popularity, except upon the anomalous condition that a great number of Englishmen should join in hating England. For years past no petulant despotism, no drunken republic, could shake its coarse fist in the face of this country, without finding its warmest supporters in those men of the olive branch, who were never weary of urging us to offer both cheeks to the smiter. ”

“ When the English make inroads thither, as they have very frequently done, they order their provisions, if they wish to live, to follow close at their backs; for nothing is to be had in that country without great difficulty. There is neither iron to shoe horses, nor leather to make harness, saddles, or bridles; all these things come ready made from Flanders by sea; and should these fail, there is none to be had in the country.” What a magnificent contrast to such a picture is the present relative condition of Scotland and the Low Countries! ”

“ Poverty is a spur to action. Great wealth, on the other hand, not unnaturally tends to the desire of display, and in free countries often to the rivalry for political power. The golden mean is proverbially the condition most favourable to content, and content is the antidote to ambition. Mine was the golden mean! Other influences of pride and affection contributed to keep me still. Of pride; for was I not really a greater man here, upon my ancestral acres and my few yearly hundreds, than as a political aspirant, who must commence his career by being a political dependant? ”

“ If the time for the history is happily chosen, so is the historian. Few men who have written so little have so established their reputation as Mr Kinglake. His ‘Eothen,’ immensely popular at first, has settled into an English classic. It is full of interest, full of remarkably vivid descriptions, full of original writing; and though the style does not reject effects which a very pure taste would condemn, yet it possesses the eminent merits of vigour, condensation, and richness. In the fulness of the fame thus earned, Mr Kinglake accompanied the army to the Crimea. ”

“ But if to that happiness in the mere luxury of repose, I may add another happiness of a higher nature, it is in converse with some one friend, upon subjects remote from the practical work-day world,—subjects akin less to our active thoughts than to our dreamlike reveries,—subjects conjectural, speculative, fantastic, embracing not positive opinions—for opinions are things combative and disputatious—but rather those queries and guesses which start up from the farthest border-land of our reason, and lose themselves in air as we attempt to chase and seize them. ”

“ For myself, as I always feel somewhat melancholy in remaining on the same spot after friends depart from it, I propose going to Bellevue, where I have a small yacht. It is glorious weather for sea excursions. Come with me, my dear friend! The fresh breezes will do you good; and we shall have leisure for talk on all the subjects which both of us love to explore and guess at.”
No proposition could be more alluring to me. My recent intercourse with Tracey had renewed all the affection and interest with which he had inspired my youth. ”