Various

“ Bella had made a fool of herself, and doubtless Archie had all along been a party to the deception. This thought coming suddenly, revived her like a stimulant. What would her disappointment be in comparison with his humiliation when he should learn that which his father had to tell him! Then there was that haughty Madame De Vigne. For her, too, the hour of humiliation was at hand. As she thought of these things, while on her way to Sir William’s room, Lady Renshaw’s spirits rose again. She felt that life had still some compensations for her. ”

“ The cool obscurity of the cellars, where these immense vats are ranged like so many transformed giants, gives one a sense of restfulness and shelter; while out of doors, the sun, lying keen and bright on wall and pavement, casting shadows as sharply defined as if purple paper had been cut with a pair of scissors and thrown on the ground, has the sentiment of passionate vitality peculiar to Sicily. Men in coloured shirts, with blue or red sashes round their waists, add to the general picturesqueness of the scene ”

“ Rugged capes and fertile plains, small smooth exquisite bays and inland mountains, orange-gardens and vineyards, fields of{796} pale lilac flax, woods of beech and ilex, and rivers running down in song to the sea—there is not a feature of Southern scenery wanting on this lovely way. And the sea, where the white sails of passing ships gleam in the sunlight like the wings of birds, is as beautiful as the land, where here a ruined temple crowns a height, and there a modern mansion stands sheltered on the slopes. ”

“ Madame De Vigne, of her own free will, had already commissioned her friend, Colonel Woodruffe, to tell me without reservation the whole history of her most unhappy married life.’
‘What an idiot the woman must be!’ was her ladyship’s unspoken comment; but she only stared into the baronet’s face in blank amazement. Recovering herself with an effort, she said with a cunning smile: ‘People sometimes make a merit of confessing that which they can no longer conceal. You will know how to appraise such a statement at its proper worth. You say that your mind is already made up, Sir William. ”

“ When we see them, the only guests are black beetles, a couple of dirty little lads as unkempt as wild Highland cattle, and a half-maniacal shock-headed Dugald kind of creature, with an atmosphere of garlic, which makes us rejoice when we turn out once more into the fresh air blowing over the breezy flower-clad upland, with the blue sea in front and the bright sun overhead. ”

“ It is indeed a wonderful garden, with a wonderful history, and although, as unscientific observers, we cannot trace the different phases of its development in the dim geological past, still, standing by these gray old stones on which have been laid the softening and romantic influences of countless ages, it is as if we had pages of the world’s history unrolled before our eyes. ”

“ Like a second Wellington, Penelope saw her chances of a successful attack. In love and war, the occasion is everything. She gently laid her spare fingers on the plump hand of the widow, and softly whispered: ‘Why should you be utterly alone, dear friend?’
Mrs Fraser directed an inquiring glance in response at the speaker.
‘We know of one who would be only too happy to be your companion for life,’ pursued Penelope. ”

“ For the man who is fond of outdoor exercise and has a taste for gardening, the life in Florida has a charm all its own, for fruit-growing is nothing but gardening on an extensive scale. The soil in Florida has the most unpromising appearance, looking like nothing so much as silver sand. ”

“ But the point of the whole visit is the wine-stores of Ingham—the largest and most important of all the Marsala wine-factories. These stores seem to be interminable; and the perspective of arches, from each side of which branch out these huge above-ground cellars, is a sight at once strange and picturesque. The balio or inclosure wherein the whole concern stands—storehouses, workshops, dwelling-house, garden, fields, &c.—is really like a fair-sized estate. To ‘walk in the grounds’ is quite enough exercise for any moderate-minded pedestrian. ”

“ For what else is wanted than the sun and the sky, the fruits and the flowers, the charm and{797} the glory of nature? Nevertheless, the material luxury of the North and West is invading the hitherto frugal and, in one way, ascetic South; and France and England both, are being imitated even so far as Marsala, where once the house was held as merely a place of refuge where tired Christians might sleep at noon and at night, but in nowise as a place of enjoyment worth the spending of thought or money to make beautiful. ”

“ Owing to recent railway and shipping facilities, a man nowadays may—if his land is well selected—grow early vegetables, &c., without interfering with his orange-trees, and ship them north to Baltimore, Philadelphia, or New York, and realise profit sufficient to enable him to pay his expenses whilst his grove is coming into bearing; for it must be borne in mind that the Floridians can grow any vegetable in winter which the Northerners grow in summer; and the Northern people are quite willing to pay a high price for such luxuries as peas, tomatoes, or strawberries at Christmas. ”

“ In a pretty little village near Madras, called Poonamalee, as well as in Bangalore, there dwell very many of those pensioners with their families. I was wont to pay periodical visits to this place on professional duty; and certainly I found it at first not only strange but grotesque to see young men and maidens and numerous children, with faces as black as a minister’s coat, but yet bearing some good old Scottish name, and speaking the English with an accent as if they had been born and bred in the wilds of Lochaber. ”

“ The proofs of past glaciers are all around us in the grindings and scratchings on the rocks—in the ice-worn stones—and still more in the deep smooth circular hollows, which are perhaps the most perfect known specimens of the singular phenomena called glacier-mills. These erosions have been found also in Scandinavia and in the Jura Mountains, and are caused by the rapid whirling of a stone by a stream from the melting ice, which in the course of ages scoops out ever deeper and wider these cavities in the rock. ”

“ At Lucerne, it is impossible to forget, as we wander about the paths in this archaic garden, that countless years before the great glaciers planed away the old flora from off the face of the land, there was a period of tropical heat and tropical vegetation which succeeded the earliest epoch in the existence of our globe. Petrifactions of the first stages of life are distinctly visible upon, the rocks—relics of a primeval ocean. ”

“ In Florida, four hundred pounds will buy forty acres of land, ten of which may be cleared, fenced, and planted with orange-trees. A house may be inexpensively erected at an average cost of ten pounds per room. The orange-tree will bear five years from the bud, or ten years from seed; but a man left in charge—say the son of the owner—would have no difficulty in supporting himself by the sale of small fruit, which, coming to perfection in the middle of winter, commands the best prices in the New York and other Northern markets. ”

“ It is particularly interesting and instructive to travel over districts now, and observe bearing orange groves, the owners of which are securing handsome incomes, where ten years ago not a tree was planted. In Orange County, many emigrants who first went to Florida for their health, have improved sufficiently to earn their living and raise an orange grove in addition. Many of them took up one hundred and sixty acres of land under the Homestead Law, and selling off portions of it to later comers, have realised enough money to cultivate the balance retained. ”

“ Many are the beautiful roads stretching away from this parade-ground into the country, where are the picturesque dwelling-houses of civilians and officers, whose encircling gardens all the year round are in perpetual bloom—for Bangalore, though in a tropical region, has an Italian climate. The fortunate Europeans who are stationed there are not scorched up by the terrible heat under which their unlucky countrymen must swelter at Madras and in the southern plains ”

“ Deer, wild turkeys, quail, and numerous other kinds of game have not yet learned to shun the haunts of men.
Extensive drainage-works have made available for settlement vast tracts of land which have probably been submerged for centuries, but which now, thanks to the remarkable system of drainage-canals, is as dry and firm and as healthy to live upon as the best land in the State. A pretty site judiciously chosen on the banks of a lake will eventually enormously enhance the value of the property when the surrounding country is settled up. ”

“ I know that what we term the world deals very hardly in such matters—that the innocent are too often confounded with the guilty. But in this case at least, the world need never be any wiser than it is now. The secret of Madame De Vigne’s life is known to three people only—to you, whom a singular accident put in possession of part of it; to Colonel Woodruffe ”

“ The news told her by Mr Etheridge had excited her in no common degree; there was no one in the hotel that she cared to talk to; so, finding it impossible to stay indoors, she had sought relief in the open air. She was expecting Bella and Mr Golightly back every minute; meanwhile, she was wandering aimlessly about the grounds, and brightened up at the sight of Miss Penelope. Here at least was some one she knew—some one to talk to. She advanced smilingly. ‘What a number of correspondents you must have, dear Miss Gaisford,’ said her ladyship after a few words of greeting. ”

“ Archie was got out of the way for a day or two; and the only person who knew me not to be Mr Etheridge was my old friend here, Colonel Woodruffe, to whom, by-the-bye, I must introduce your ladyship.’
‘It was really too bad of you, Sir William, to hoax us all in the way you have done,’ simpered her ladyship when the process of introduction to the colonel was over. She did not forget that elderly baronets have occasionally fallen victims to the wiles of good-looking widows. ”

“ From the vats full of their golden treasure to the casks in process of making, the transition is natural. Here, again, light and colour give a certain charm, making a novelty of that which is so well known at home. For cask-making in Marsala is very much the same as cask-making in England; and only the men, with very minor details in the method of manipulation, are different. ”

“ Until recently, the United States depended almost wholly upon the enterprise of foreigners for their supply of oranges; but, as if by an inspiration, the discovery has been made that they can, amongst the numerous other industries for which they are remarkable, grow their own oranges, and that, too, of better quality, both in size and flavour, than those which are imported. ”

“ Around the English cantonment, more especially on the north side of it, is the modern town of Bangalore, containing about sixty or seventy thousand inhabitants, who are chiefly Tamulians, the descendants of those native camp-followers and adherents who accompanied the British forces from Madras and the plains of the Carnatic when they conquered and took possession of the land. There are likewise at Bangalore a goodly number of English and Irish pensioners, who have chosen rather to abide in India than come back to this country ”

“ It is very seldom that loose fragments of rock exercise a protective power upon the ice; but instances have been met with on the higher glaciers of large stones warding off the rain and the radiation of the sun from the ice immediately beneath them; so that as the glacier wastes and lowers in the course of time, these glacier-tables{786} remain fixed upon elevated pillars of ice, which sometimes reach to a height of ten or twelve feet above the general level. ”

“ Mr Galloway alludes to a curious and interesting fact, namely, that men can be employed on arsenical works, some without being affected at all, others suffering much less than might be expected. The same singular fact of the immunity of those constantly exposed to evil influences is illustrated in the case of men employed in cleansing sewers; they work continually in the very atmosphere of the sewers, but do not suffer from those diseases which arise from the escape of sewer-gas into houses. ”

“ And when those pensioners are sober and industrious, they have abundant opportunities in India to enable them to support themselves and their families in great comfort, and even to become what we Scotch people call ‘bein folk.’ I could give many pleasing instances from amongst them of ‘success in life.’ I knew three Scotch gentlemen who were highly respected bank agents, and who had gone to India as artillerymen in the Honourable East India Company’s service. ”

“ In going through the stores, one is struck not only with the number, but also with the enormous size of the wine-vats. Some are of huge proportions, not quite equalling the famous Tun of Heidelberg perhaps, but coming pretty close to it, and holding wine to the worth of an astounding figure. The value of one store alone comes up to a moderate fortune ”

“ Lady Renshaw was doubtful. She was inclined to think that Bella had caught cold on the lake in the morning. She had sneezed more than once. It would scarcely be advisable, her ladyship thought, for Miss Wynter to venture on the water again in the chill of the evening. Besides, the clouds looked threatening, and to be caught in a storm on the lake, she had been told, was dangerous. ”

“ But science tells us very strange tales, even that the mountain streams in the present day are depressing the ridges of the Alps and the Apennines, raising the plains of Lombardy and Provence, and extending the coasts far into the waters of the Adriatic and the Mediterranean. ”