Various

“ What could induce you, my dear Eusebius, to commit yourself into the hands of a portrait-painter? And so, you ask me to go with you. Are you afraid, that you want me to keep you in countenance, where I shall be sure to put you out? You ask too petitioningly, as if you suspected I should refuse to attend your execution; for you are going to be be-headed, and soon will it be circulated through your village, that you have had your head taken off: I will not go with you—it would spoil all. You are afraid to trust the painter. ”

“ The weight of fire is the true test of infantry, the rapidity of charge is the true test of cavalry. The business of a general is manoeuvring—to menace masses by greater masses, to throw the weight of an army on a flank, to pierce a centre while the flanks were forced to stand and see it beaten; these were Frederick's lessons to his staff: and if Clairfait shall go on, with his perpetual hand to hand work, those sharp Frenchmen will soon learn his trade, and perhaps pay him back in his own coin. ”

“ In France, we found the people without leaders, without troops, and without experience in war; of course they have not resisted our hussars and guns. But they have not joined us. In any other country of Europe, we should have recruits crowding to ask for service. But the French farmer shuts up his house; the peasant flies; the citizen barricades his gates, and gives a cannon-shot for an answer. The whole land rejects us, if it dares not repel; and, if we conquer, we shall have to colonize."
"Well, we must fight them into it," said Varnhorst. ”

“ Speaking in broad terms it is wooded, but not so densely as on the Sydney side, Van Diemen's Land, or New Zealand. The peculiar and beautiful feature of this country is the open plain which is found at every ten or twelve miles spreading itself over a surface not less than three miles in length and half the distance in breadth. It is as smooth as a lawn. A magnificent tree rears itself to a great height here and there upon the sward, on either side of which appears a natural park, the finest that taste could fashion or art could execute. Nature has done in fact what no art could accomplish. ”

“ The tender frame of youth cannot bear her bridal kiss; union with the gods is fatal to man; and the mortal is annihilated in her embrace. I speak not of the education, of the mechanic preparation. And here at every step the Material enchaineth thee, buildeth up barriers before thee: marketh a formless vein upon thy block of marble, mingling soot with thy carmine, entangling thy imagination in a net of monstrous rules and formulas, commandeth thee to be the slave of the house-painter or of the stone-cutter. ”

“ We might have a mesmeric coma that might put us in possession of the past, if it can of the future—and gratify curiosity wofully at the expense of what is more valuable than that kind of truth. A mesmeric painter may take the portrait of Helen of Troy, and you may knock at your twenty neighbours' doors, and find perhaps a greater beauty, especially if chronology be trusted as to her age at the Trojan war. ”

“ The more intimately and generally an historical character is known, the more unfit must it be for the purposes of fiction.
Then again, in fiction, as in real life, our sympathies are more readily awakened, and more strongly moved, by the sufferings or the successes of those with whom we have much in common—of whose life we are, or fancy that we might have been, a part. The figures that we see in history elevated above the ordinary attributes of man, are magnified as we see them through the mist of our own vague perceptions, and dwindle if we approach too near them. ”

“ My dear Mr Editor, I am what is called a lone woman. Shakspeare, through whose recklessness originate half the commonplaces of our land's language, thought proper to define such a condition as "SINGLE BLESSEDNESS"—though he aptly enough engrafts it on a thorn! For my part, I cannot enough admire the theory of certain modern poets, that an angel is an ethereal being, composed by the interunion in heaven, of two mortals who have been faithfully attached on earth—and as to "blessedness" being ever "single," either in this world or the next, I do not believe a word about the matter! ”

“ Evil days had fallen on Obrazétz and his family. He seemed himself as though he had lost his wife and son a second time. Khabár raged and stormed like a mountain torrent. Anastasia, hearing the horrible stories—is sometimes trembling like an aspen-leaf, and then weeps like a fountain. She dares not even look forth out of the sliding window of her bower. Why did Vassílii Féodorovitch build such a fine house? Why did he build it so near the Great Prince's palace? 'Tis clear, this was a temptation of the Evil One. ”

“ He had applied the art of French cookery to the rude material of the world, and refined and reduced all things into a sauce piquante—all its realities were concentrated in essences; and, disdaining the grosser tastes of mankind, he lived upon the aroma of high life—an epicure even among epicures; yet not an indolent enjoyer of the luxuries of his condition, but a keen, restless, and eager student of pleasurable sensations—an Apicius, polished by the manners, and furnished with the arts of the most self-enjoying condition of mankind, that of an English gentleman of fortune in the 18th century. ”

“ Youth is at hand; for others 'tis the time of love, of soft ties, of revelry—the feast of life; for the artist, none of these. Solitary, flying from society, he avoideth the maiden, he avoideth joy; plunging into the loneliness of his soul, he there, with indescribable mourning, with tears of inspiration, on his knees before his Ideal, imploreth her to come down upon earth to his frail dwelling. ”

“ Taking Walpole as the head, and nothing can be happier than his mixture of keen remark, intelligent knowledge of his time, high-bred ease of language, and exquisite point and polish of anecdote; his followers, even in these few volumes, show that there were many men, even in the midst of all the practical business and nervous agitation of public life, not unworthy of their master. We have no doubt that there have been hundreds of persons, and thousands of letters, which might equally contribute to this most interesting, and sometimes most brilliant, portion of our literature. ”

“ All nations were not intended by nature, nor are they fitted by their physical circumstances, to excel in the same branches of industry; and it is the variety in the production which they severally can bring to maturity, which at once imposes the necessity for, and occasions the profit of, commercial intercourse. Nothing, therefore, can be so unwise as to attempt, either by arbitrary regulations, to create a branch of industry in a country for which it is not intended by nature, or to retain it in that branch where it is created by forced prohibitions. ”

“ Truth has a book and palm branch in her hand." What do you think of that, Eusebius, for a position? But why Nature or Truth should be surprised at viewing herself down to the middle, I cannot imagine. It evidently won't do to surprise you in that manner. Poor Gerrard, I see, thinks it a great condescension in him to speak of portrait-painting at all; he calls it, "departing from the essence of art, and subjecting (the painter) to all the defects of nature." Hear that, Eusebius! you are to sit to be a specimen of the defects of nature. ”

“ The artist, who was a great mimic, imitated his every gesture, and, with some extravagance, frowned as he frowned, swelled as he swelled, blew out his breath as the child did, advanced as he retreated, till the child at length found himself pinned in the corner, at which the artist put on such a ridiculous expression, that risible nature could stand it no longer; pride was conquered by humour, and from that hour they were on the most familiar terms. ”

“ What man can calculate the power of those untried elements? I implore your highness to consider with the deepest caution every step to be taken from this moment. Europe has no other commander whom it can place in a rank with yourself; and if you, at the head of the first army of Europe, shall find it necessary to retreat before the peasantry of France, it will form a disastrous era in the art of war, and a still more disastrous omen to every crowned head of Europe."
The duke looked uneasy. But he merely said with a smile—"My dear Guiscard, we must keep these sentiments to ourselves in camp. ”

“ No, Eusebius, we must not deny portrait-painters, nor portrait painting. It is the line in which we excel—and that we have above all others patronized, and had great men too arise from our encouragement—Who are so rich in Vandyks as we are? And some we have had better than the world allowed them to be—Sir Peter Lely was occasionally an admirable painter—though Sir Joshua did say, "We must go beyond him now." There was Sir Joshua himself, and Gainsborough—would that either were alive to take you, Eusebius, though I were to pay for the sitting. ”

“ We have reason to believe that many persons who have not visited the south-eastern corner of France, think of it as a "land of the cypress and myrtle;" where troubadours wander amongst orange groves, or tinkle their guitars under the shade of the vine and the fig-tree. There is something in a name, and Provence, if it were only for the sake of its roses, ought, one would think, to be a smiling and beautiful country. ”

“ England, for centuries the abode of industry, effort, and opulence, is subject to the same government, and situated in the same latitude as Ireland, where indolence is almost universal, wealth rare, and manufactures in general unknown. Russia, ignorant, united, and ever victorious, adjoins Poland, weak, distracted, and ever vanquished; and Prussia has risen with unheard-of rapidity in national strength, and every branch of industry, at the very time when Spain was fast relapsing into slavery and barbarism. ”

“ Now at last thou hast procured thyself daily bread, a decent habit for thy bones and flesh: inspiration thirsteth for its nourishment, demanding from thy soul images and forms. Thou createst, thou art bringing thy Ideal to fulfilment. How swiftly move the wheels of thy being! Thy existence is tenfold redoubled, thy pulse is beating as when thou breathest the atmosphere of high mountains. Thou spendest in one day whole months of life. How many nights passed without sleep, how many days in ceaseless chain, all filled with agitation! ”

“ When we cease to be a great manufacturing nation, when we are no longer formidable rivals, they will open their harbours; but not till then. In striving to introduce a system of free trade, therefore, we gratuitously inflict a severe wound on our domestic industry, without any chance even of a compensation in that which is destined for the foreign markets. We let in their goods into our harbours, but we do not obtain admission, nor will we ever obtain admission, for ours into theirs. The reciprocity is, and ever must be, all on one side. ”

“ Gaze upon these grounds, and for a moment imagine that the enormous bullocks before you, with their fearful horns, are a gigantic herd of deer, and you have a sight that England, famous for her parks, shall in vain attempt to rival. But against this royal scene—set off a melancholy drawback, one which I fear may never be made good even by the ingenuity and indomitable energy of man. The land has an awful want of spring water. ”

“ Now here in Scotland, is a feud past all arbitration: here is a schism no longer theoretic, neither beginning nor ending in mere speculation: here is a change of doctrine, on one side or the other, which throws a sad umbrage of doubt and perplexity over the pastoral relation of the church to every parish in Scotland. Less confidence there must always be henceforward in great religious incorporations. Was there any such incorporation reputed to be more internally harmonious than the Scottish church? None has been so tempestuously agitated. ”

“ We are inclined to believe that the great attraction of historical prose fiction is not any facility which it affords for the construction of a better story—for we think it affords none—nor any superior interest that attaches to the known and the prominent characters with which it deals, or to the events it describes; but rather the occasion it gives for making us familiar with the everyday life of the age and the country in which the scene is laid. Independent of the merits of the fiction as a work of imagination, we find another source of pleasure ”