Various

“ Men in those days were indeed images of the immortal—women, types of ideal loveliness!—many a form was there of youthful warriors, such as were models unto him who wrought from the inanimate rock of Paros, that breathing, deathless god, the slayer of the Python—many a girlish shape such as we worship in the poet’s dream, Psyche, or Hebe, or Europa—many a full blown figure, ripe in the perfect luxury of womanhood, such as enchants the eyes, intoxicates the hearts, enthrals the souls, of all who look upon the Medicean Venus. ”

“ The remark of the gentlewoman is as applicable to a class of characters as that of Lady Macbeth.
I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole body.
This is the voice of innocence—lowly, self-congratulating innocence. The humble dependant of the royal household is made to feel the immeasurable advantage a peaceful conscience affords over all the passing and hollow gauds of the world. She sees what a mockery are rank, wealth, power, fame—when bought by the sacrifice of that greatest of all treasures—a quiet heart. ”

“ Upon the other hand, facing her aged father, was one whom but to look upon, would have excited the coldest, dullest heart to passionate, enamored phrenzy—the young, the beautiful Polyxena, the destined bride of the goddess-born—the bravest of the brave, the noblest of the noble, victor of victors, unsurpassed of men, magnificent Achilles. He had beheld her first, before her gallant brother fell, by his hand, beside the Scæan gates, while with her aged mother, and mad Cassandra and her train, she was engaged in mystic rites upon the plain—beheld and loved upon the instant! ”

“ None can rationally hope to bear up by philosophy and strength of intellect alone, against the consciousness of sin, if Lady Macbeth, in those rude times, could not.
Here, then, we have successful guilt. Painted by a historian, perhaps she might have excited the envy of the lowly. We should have seen her surrounded by splendor and luxury. The glittering crown upon her brow—a circle of courtiers bending around her—as she presided at state councils or gay banquets. The historian would have shown her situation, and we might have exclaimed, “see how guilt triumphs.” ”

“ Sir Glendower, do you close with me?”
“Even so,” said Glendower; “I will distance you a score of paces and more, or my steed belies his former feats. Your fair cousin shall smile on me, or rebuff me fairly, for once.”
At the word, the two cavaliers darted forwards at an increased pace; and instantly every eye, forgetful of the quarry, was directed towards the race. Both the knights rode splendid horses, and as the animals were now pressed to show their greatest speed, their riders seemed borne along the earth as if they were mounted on the enchanted steeds of fairy land. ”

“ But he thought of nothing but a pair of large black orbs that used to dart lightning into his soul, when he was on the little island; and he never heard his intended bride utter a word without thrilling, by contrast, all over, with the memory of that fairy music which soothed him in Undine’s bower. And he saw her in his dreams—and even when he was wide awake, his soul still lingered round that charmed spot, hallowed by the presence of immortal love. But earthly ties are more palpable than the air-wrought links of the soul’s affections, and find a stronger hold in our gross and earthly nature ”

“ During a separation of ten years from Isabel, his bosom companion had been her reckless cousin, and perhaps the conversation of the two young soldiers had often turned on the young heiress and thus insensibly deepened the passion felt for her by Glendower. Certain it is, that when the young knight met her on his return to England, and saw that she had grown up more beautiful than he had imagined her even in his dreams, he felt his passion for her increased to such an extremity that her love became thenceforth necessary to his very being. ”

“ Behold guilt with all that earth can give of power and exemption—the terrified maid on one side—the watchful doctor on the other—herself confessing, under a torture more awful than that of the rack, the bloody secret of her soul, and the physician taking notes of what falls from her lips! Behold guilt! in its castle—surrounded by its guards, with all the sources of earthly pleasure at its command. ”

“ Even Blackwood—so long an oracle almost of the literary world—even Kit North himself, than whom a better man or truer poet never existed—has turned cynic and snarler in his old age, and after having marched side by side with Scott, Göethe, Byron, Coleridge, Schiller, Schlegel, and Shelley, through the brightest era of literature that has dawned and blazed upon the world since Johnson, has at last sunk to the level of a literary parvenu, and laughs at German literature! ”

“ At the same instant another falcon was cast off, and directly the quarry and its pursuer were lost in the clouds, while the cavalcade, galloped away along the banks of the river, following the direction taken by the heron, and leaving Isabel and Glendower wholly alone.
Glendower did not for a moment reply, for a world of thoughts was in his bosom—but over them all reigned the consciousness that Isabel appeared to be less repellent than she had been for days. Why then should he not avail himself of this accidental tête à tête, and learn all? Why should he be longer tortured with doubt? ”

“ He does not seem inclined to enter upon any confidential interchanges of opinions with the gentlewoman. He is, in all things, the man of the world—the professional man and the courtier. The very air he breathes he may imagine full of eyes and ears. He may be no more inclined to trust the gentlewoman than she had been to trust him. Guilt, gloom, and danger preside over the blood-stained castle, and envelope the principal inmates—while suspicions, fear and silent watchfulness are hugged to the anxious bosom of each distrustful servant. ”

“ Spencer left his property to the undivided control of his son, fondly imagining, that unlimited sway would overcome the imbecile principles of youth, and teach him that firmness of mind, and stability of purpose, so essential to manhood.
Youth is the season of luxury and enjoyment. Joy is evanescent; and grief, in the young bosom, is but the sudden o’ercasting of a summer sky; the cloud passes away, and the bow of promise is bent in the now smiling heavens. Thus was it with Bradley’s grief ”

“ My lady readers may expect a description of the dress of the bride, the carriage, the feast, and a thousand other things, but as I am no Sir Charles Grandison, I shall pass them over without comment. I will only say that Beatrice—my own Beatrice at last—never looked lovelier than when she descended to the room, where we were all awaiting her, on that marriage morn. The smile, the blush, the look of unreserved affection as her eye was raised timidly to my face and then dropped, I shall never forget. ”

“ His garb was simple even to plainness; a short and narrow tunic of bright crimson cloth, leaving his mighty limbs exposed in their own glorious beauty, was belted round his waist by a small cord of gold—his head was covered only by its long silky tresses; sandals of gold were on his feet; he wore no weapons, but a long oaken sceptre studded with knobs of gold, supported his right hand.
Such was the glorious group which tenanted the shrine of the Thymbrœan god on that auspicious day—such was the ceremonial of Achilles’ marriage! ”

“ Nor are the principals in that domestic scene wholly unfamiliar to us, for in the mild eyes and Madonna-like countenance of the one, and in the well-known face and embrowned features of the other, we recognize two of those who have figured as the chief personages in our story. Years have not impaired the beauty of Beatrice, for they have fallen as light on her as blossoms. But she is not now alone in her loveliness, for at her knee is one, like and yet unlike her, younger but not more beautiful, gayer but with scarcely less sweetness. ”

“ What a picture of a tyrant’s castle. These trembling slaves dare neither of them express an opinion or confess they have seen what they are seeing—even to each other in the silence and solitude of the night.
The dream of the haunted lady now quickens its flow. She is back again at the murder scene whose successful completion has gratified all her worldly hopes and ambition, and at the same time blasted her mind and soul. ”

“ The delicate hand of the commentator had slightly touched the following:
“Her youth was filled with hope, and many colored dreams; she loved, and the hues of morning slept upon the yet disenchanted earth. The heavens to her were not as the common sky; the wave had its peculiar music to her ear, and the rustling leaves a pleasantness that none, whose heart is not bathed in the love and sense of beauty, could discern.” ”

“ Aye, that fairy mother, in the still star-light, when Undine slept like a rose upon the bosom of her lord, would come and fan her with her musical wings, and breathe fragrance over her, and spangle her hair with tears of love and fondness—and then the knight would wake and kiss them up, and fold her more closely to his breast ”

“ Strictly moral in his walk before men, he required all around him to show the same regard for the welfare of society. With a heart filled with benevolence, though veiled with an air of sternness, he received Bradley in his counting-house, as Henry Murray, knowing it to be a fictitious name, for Spencer scorned to impose on his benefactor in this respect, and though Bradley’s past history was a sealed book which his employer never attempted to pry into, he could not help fancying some misdemeanor had driven the young man from his home and friends. ”

“ And, as the grape is most luscious and tempting the very moment ere it is tainted by the sun’s unhallowed kisses, and drops, a disgusting thing, from the green and immortal vine, so she grew ripe with loveliness and so intense in beauty, that, Narcissus like, she fell enamored of her own sweet image, as it was reflected in the pure spring sacred to the innate Ideal which bubbled within her own bosom. ”

“ To detect occasional, or even frequent inadvertences in the way of bad grammar, faulty construction, or mis-usage of language, is not to prove impurity of style—a word which happily has a bolder signification than any dreamed of by the Zoilus of the Review in question. Style regards, more than anything else, the tone of a composition. All the rest is not unimportant, to be sure, but appertains to the minor morals of literature, and can be learned by rote by the meanest simpletons in letters—can be carried to its highest excellence by dolts who, upon the whole, are despicable as stylists. ”

“ Achilles had all-honorably proposed peace; Hector demanded treason—treason to Greece and the confederates, as the sole price of young Polyxena! The reply of the indignant Greek was renewed war—and Hector fell, and Troy quailed to its base and tottered! Then Memnon buckled on his armor for Troy, and he too fell! Penthesilea, and she likewise!—and now, all her chief captains down, all her allies retired, Troy was again in her extremity, and again—peaceable and courteous as he was fierce and valiant in the field—Achilles offered terms, peace for Polyxena. ”

“ No—not till America—the new world—becomes rich and settles herself down in quiet grandeur—not till her thousand mountains, her mighty lakes, her stupendous cataracts, and her boundless prairies, become invested with the magic of intellectual association—not until history begins to lose itself in dreamy and indistinct fable, to cast a vague interest over every charmed spot—will the bright-winged Ideal rouse from her sleeping nest. ”

“ Yet was it passing strange that not one of the Grecian chiefs stood by the bravest of their nation, his comrade and his friend on that sublime occasion; it was yet stranger that not one of all her noble brethren, not one of Priam’s fifty sons stood by their lovely sister. Yet such had been the will of Priam; and with the noble confidence—the proud contempt, which were a portion of his nature—confidence in his own dauntless and unrivalled valor, contempt of any mortal peril, Achilles had acceded to the terms. ”

“ But anon a brave and beautiful knight—whose ancestral castle still frowns above the Rhine, parting reluctantly, like a decaying beauty, one by one, year after year, with its fair proportions—came dashing through the foam to our dainty islet. ”

“ She shrinks from every thing practical, palpable, and common-place, as the rainbow loses its hues as it approaches the earth.
Let us then cherish and protect the thoughts and aspirations which these mighty minds have bequeathed us. Never did I think to find Wilson depreciating German literature. He is old, and should almost fear that posterity will retort upon him! A remnant of the old worshippers of the Ideal yet remain, haunting the ploughed fields of modern improvement, like the scattered and timid deer which are sometimes seen bounding along the margin of civilization. ”