Various

“ His correspondence is, indeed, rich in traits of quiet humour, if by that word we understand a 'humane influence, softening with mirth the ragged inequalities of existence'—the very 'juice of the mind oozing from the brain, and enriching and fertilising wherever it falls'—and seldom far removed from its kindred spirit, pathos, with which, however, it is not too closely akin to marry; for pathos is bound up in mysterious ties with humour—bone of its bone, and flesh of its flesh. ”

“ Viewing such important results, we cannot but enter into the feeling with which Dr Buckland penned the following remarks:—'The historian or the antiquary,' he says, 'may have traversed the fields of ancient or of modern battles; and may have pursued the line of march of triumphant conquerors, whose armies trampled down the most mighty kingdoms of the world. The winds and storms have utterly obliterated the ephemeral impressions of their course. Not a track remains of a single foot, or a single hoof, of the countless millions of men and beasts whose progress spread desolation over the earth. ”

“ There is a glassy surface, beautiful but hard, of which you can make nothing, and presently you feel a kind of strangeness come over you, as if you were not looking into the eye of a creature of your own kind. ”

“ She lives in a material world, blind and deaf to the influences that thrill the bosoms of others. No noble thought ever fires her soul, no generous sympathy ever melts her heart. Her share of that current of human nature which has welled forth from its fountain in the earthly paradise is dammed up, and cut off from the general stream that overflows the world. ”

“ Her daughter elopes, her son marries the governess, her husband loses his seat in parliament; but there are other daughters to marry, other sons to direct, other honours to win; and so this excellent woman runs her busy and meritorious career. But years come on at last, although she lingers as long as she can in middle life; and, with her usual graceful dignity, she settles down into the reward the world bestows on its veterans, an old age of cards. ”

“ Looking at the catastrophe, the subject of railway mismanagement is somewhat too serious for a joke, and we have only drawn attention for an instant to the errors of the past in order to draw a warning for the future. It must ever be lamented that the introduction of so stupendous and useful a thing as locomotion by rail, should have become the occasion of such widespread cupidity and folly; for scarcely ever had science offered a more gracious boon to mankind. ”

“ What is the influence which keeps up the weak and keeps down the strong, and spreads itself like oil upon the boiling sea of human passion? We have a notion of our own, that all this is the work of an individual of the female sex; and, indeed, even the most unconscious and unreflecting would appear to assign to that individual her true position and authority, in naming her the Woman of the World.
Society could never exist in a state of civilisation without the woman of the world. The man of the world has his own department, his own métier ”

“ As for the everyday young lady, who has a genius for reverence, she reveres her; and these two, with their male congeners, are the dress-figures the woman of the world places about her rooms like ivory pieces on a chessboard. ”

“ They do not reflect that in the morning she breaks into a new consciousness of reality from the clinging dreams of her maternal ambition, and not from the small visionary arms, the fragrant kiss, the angel whisper of her lost babe. ”

“ An ordinary woman would dawdle away her time in admiring their soft eyes, and curly hair, and full warm cheeks; but the woman of the world sees the bud grown into the expanded flower, and the small cradle is metamorphosed into the boudoir by the magic of her maternal love. ”

“ How carriages may be run well and cheaply, yet profitably, is the sole question for determination; and everything else is either subordinate or positively useless. A suitable degree of knowledge on these points would, we think, tend materially to restore confidence in railway property. Could there be anything more cheering than the well-ascertained fact, that no railway has ever failed for want of traffic? In every instance, the traffic would have yielded an ample remuneration to the shareholders, had there been no extravagant expenditure. ”

“ They do not feel that in opening upon the light, her eyes part with the fading gleam of gems and satin, and kneeling coronets, and red right hands extending wedding-rings, and not with a winged and baby form, soaring into the light by which it is gradually absorbed, while distant hymns melt and die upon her ear. ”

“ There is no question that, from the moment of his first interview with her, M. Derville had conceived an ardent passion for Mademoiselle de la Tour—so ardent and bewildering as not only to blind him to the great disparity of age between himself and her—which he might have thought the much greater disparity of fortune in his favour would balance and reconcile—but to the very important fact, that Hector Bertrand, a young menuisier (carpenter) , who had recently commenced business on his own account, and whom he so frequently met at the charming modiste's shop, was her accepted, affianced lover. ”

“ The unthinking call her an unnatural mother, for they make no distinction. They do not know that death is with her a perfectly arranged funeral, a marble tablet, a darkened room, an attitude of wo, a perfumed handkerchief. They do not consider that when she lies down to rest, her eyes, in consequence of over-mental exertion, are too heavy with sleep to have room for tears. ”

“ The Annandale footmarks are impressed on slabs of the New Red Sandstone—a formation not long subsequent to the coal, and remarkable for its comparative deficiency of fossils, as if there had been something in its constitution unfavourable to the preservation of animal remains. It is curious to find that, while this is the case, it has been favourable to the preservation of what appears at first sight a much more accidental and shadowy memorial of life—the mere impression which an animal makes on a soft substance with its foot. ”

“ THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. Return to Table of Contents
We all know that there are certain conventional laws by which our social doings and seemings are regulated; but what is the power which compels the observance of these laws? There is no company police to keep people moving on, no fines or other penalties; nobody but the very outrageous need fear being turned out of the room; we have every one of us strong inclinations and strong will: then, how comes it that we get on so smoothly? Why are there no outbreaks of individual character? ”

“ Although without sympathy, the woman of the world has great sensitiveness. She sits in the room like a spider, with her web fitting as closely to the whole area as the carpet; and she feels the slightest touch upon the slightest filament. ”

“ The excursion train, suddenly discharging its hundreds of strangers at some antique town or castle, or in the neighbourhood of some lovely natural scenery, is one of the wonders of the day—and one, we think, of truly good omen, considering the importance that seems to be connected with the innocent amusements of the people. ”

“ Many of our readers must have heard of the interest excited a few years ago by the discovery, that certain marks on the surface of slabs of sandstone, raised from a quarry in Dumfriesshire, were the memorials of extinct races of animals. The amiable and intelligent Dr Duncan, minister of Ruthwell, who had conferred on society the blessing of savings-banks for the industrious poor, was the first to describe to the world these singular chronicles of ancient life. ”

“ But for all that, he has a comfortable fund of the vis comica, upon which he rubs along pleasantly enough, hospitably entertaining not a few congenial spirits who can put up with him as they find him, relish his simple and often racy fare, and enjoy a decent quantum of jokes of his own growing, without pining after the brilliant banquets of comedy spread by opulent barons of the realm. ”

“ The pursuing lover, endeavouring to clasp his mistress, flung himself from one illusory image to another, finding only the sharp, polished, glittering glass in his embrace, till faint, breathless, and bleeding, he sank upon the ground. ”

“ It is to her want of sympathy the woman of the world owes her position. The same deficiency is indispensable in the other individuals—such as a great monarch, or a great general—who rule the fate of mankind; but with this difference, that in them it is partial and limited, and in her universal. In them, it bears relation to their trade or mission; in her, it is a peculiarity of her general nature. ”

“ This admirable lady is sometimes a mother, and she is devotedly fond of her children, in their future. She may be seen gazing in their faces by the hour; but the picture that is before her mind's eye is the fulfilment of their present promise. ”

“ Slabs of sandstone and shale often retain what is called the ripple-mark—that is, the corrugation of surface produced by the gentle agitation of shallow water over sand or mud. We can see these appearances beneath our feet, as we walk over the pavement of almost any of our cities. ”

“ Half of the population of the country, as is seen by the same returns, die before reaching the age of twenty-one, and the average duration of human life the world over is but thirty-three years; Quakers, therefore, live a third longer than the rest of us. The reasons are obvious enough. Quakers are temperate and prudent, are seldom in a hurry, and never in a passion. Quakers, in the very midst of the week's business—on Wednesday morning—retire from the world, and spend an hour or two in silent meditation at the meeting-house. Quakers are diligent ”

“ According to Jeanne Favart, her master reached home with his face all bloody and discoloured, his clothes nearly torn from his back, and in a state of frenzied excitement. He rushed past her up stairs, shut himself into his bedroom, and there remained unseen by any one for several days, partially opening the door only to receive food and other necessaries from her hands. ”

“ The woman of the world is sometimes prosperous in her reign over society, and sometimes otherwise. Even she submits, although usually with sweetness and dignity, to the caprices of fortune. Occasionally, the threads of her management break in such a way, that, with all her dexterity, she is unable to reunite them: occasionally, the strings and feelings are too strong to rend ”

“ And verily, she has her reward: for death sometimes comes, to wither the bud, and disperse the dream in empty air. On such an occasion, her grief, as we may readily suppose, is neither deep nor lasting, for its object is twined round her imagination, not her heart. ”

“ We may be thankful that the world has at last seen through these pretenders to superhuman sagacity. With but remarkably few exceptions, the great railway men of the time have committed the grossest blunders; and the stupidest blunder of all, has been the confounding of proper and improper expenditure ”

“ We rejoice in every movement which tends to increase the number of places to which these holiday-parties may resort, as we thoroughly believe, that the more of them we have, our people will be the more virtuous, refined, and happy.
We lately had much pleasure in examining and learning some particulars of a short branch-railway which has added the ancient university city of St Andrews, with its many curious objects, to the number of those places which may become the termini of excursion trains. ”

“ But her theory is, that they are merely a superficial net-work surrounding the character, the growth of education and other circumstances, and that they may be twisted, broken, and fastened anew at pleasure by skilful fingers. No, she is not inhumane. She works for others' good and her own greatness. Sighs and tears may be the result of her operations; but so are they of the operations of the beneficent surgeon. She dislikes giving pain, and comforts and sustains the patient to the best of her power; but at the most, she knows sighs are but wind, and tears but water, and so she does her duty. ”

“ But Southey was not so rigorously grave a person as his graver writings might seem to imply. 'I am quite as noisy as ever I was,' he writes to an old Oxford chum, when in sober manhood. 'Oh, dear Lightfoot, what a blessing it is to have a boy's heart! it is as great a blessing in carrying one through this world, as to have a child's spirit will in fitting us for the next.' On account of this boyish-heartedness, he is compared by Justice Talfourd to Charles Lamb himself: 'In a certain primness of style, bounding in the rich humour which overflowed it, they were nearly akin ”

“ The woman of the world was never young—not while playing with her doll. She grew just as you see her, and will suffer no change till the dissolution of the elements of her body. Love-passages she has indeed had like other women ”

“ Among the scenes of these times, none stand out more vividly than the 'gathering-days'—the harvest of the year's enjoyment—the time when a whole twelvemonth's happiness was concentrated in the six weeks' vacation of the village-school. I do not recollect the time when I began to glean—or gather, as it is locally termed—probably I would, when very young, follow the others to the near farms, and gradually become, as I grew older, a regular gleaner. At that time the gleaners in our district were divided into two gangs or parties. ”

“ The plain is still mainly under pasture, fertile and well watered, and there I saw shepherds still tending their flocks. These shepherds have great influence over their sheep. Many of them have no dogs. Their flocks are docile and domestic, and not as the black-faced breed of sheep in Scotland, scouring the hills like cavalry. The shepherd's word spoken at any time is sufficient to make them understand and obey him. ”

“ In many instances, the footprints of animals are marked by such lines passing through them, shewing how the beach had dried and cracked in the sun after the animals had walked over it. In the quarries at Stourton, in Cheshire, some years ago, a gentleman named Cunningham observed slab surfaces mottled in a curious manner with little circular and oval hollows, and these were finally determined to be the impressions produced by rain—the rain of the ancient time, long prior to the existence of human beings, when the strata were formed! ”

“ At the present moment, the lines that are paying best are not those on which there is the greatest amount of traffic, but those on which there was the most prudent expenditure. In order to judge whether any proposed railway will pay, it is only necessary to inquire at what cost per mile, all expenses included, it is to be produced. If the charge be anything under L.5000 per mile, there is a certainty of its doing well, even if the line be carried through a poorly-populated district ”

“ Goodenough for a person no better than he should be; Toogood for any human creature; and Best for a subject who is perhaps too bad to be endured. Amusing, too, are the doctor's reasons for using the customary alias of female Christian names—never calling any woman Mary, for example, though Mare, being the sea, was, he said, too emblematic of the sex ”

“ The instructive fact gathered from railway experience is, that there is an expenditure which pays, and an expenditure that is totally wasteful. Directors have made the discovery, that costly litigation, costly and fine stations, fine porticos and pillars, fine bridges, and finery in various other things, contribute really nothing to returns, but, on the contrary, hang a dead weight on the concern. No doubt, fine architecture is a good and proper thing in itself; but a railway company is not instituted for the purpose of embellishing towns with classic buildings. ”