Various

“ Paqueta loved dress above all things, and had the taste to wear it—the French part of her composition—and when, on a gala day, she appeared tricked out with ribbons, her joy ran over, and sparkled in her eyes, and lighted up her face, and babbled from her tongue, and played in her feet, so airily, that she seemed to tread upon nothing. She loved admiration, too; and no punishment could be devised, for any of her faults, so effective as the forbidding her to appear before the company which visited her mistress’ house. She took to music from nature, for she was born amid the sound of bells ”

“ A strange feature in the wine country is the wonderously capricious and fitful nature of the soil. A forenoon’s walk will show you the earth altering in its surface qualities almost like the shifting hues of shot silk—gravel of a light color fading into gravel of a dark—sand blending with the mould, and bringing it now to a dusky yellow, now to an ashen gray—strata of chalky clay every now and then struggling into light only to melt away into beds of mere shingle—or bright, semi-transparent pebbles, indebted to the action of water for shape and hue. ”

“ Paqueta was one of those “pets” to be found in every creole family of Louisiana; and which seem to be as necessary to the completeness of the establishment, as was the fool among the nobler of our ancestors, some three centuries past. The pet is ever a slave, a little slave, sometimes full-blooded and jetty black, and sometimes so near upon white, as to puzzle the eye to find a trace of the African sun in its complexion. It is adopted from chance, or whim, and grows daily into the affections, until it becomes the most indulged, pampered, spoiled, cared-for, and idolized thing about the house. ”

“ To all Englishmen the triad of ostrich feathers has a peculiar charm as the especial crest of the Prince of Wales. Romantic is the history connected with this well-known badge, which in its adoption was sorely stained with blood; for at the battle of Cressy no quarter was given, and nearly forty thousand good men and true, of the best blood of France, then yielded up their lives. But of all the sad incidents that occurred that day, there was none more touching than that which marked the closing scene of the life of the brave old King of Bohemia, whose crest was the ostrich plume. ”

“ All who touched la belle France returned free; so Paqueta’s mistress, knowing full well that her little maid-in-waiting, whom she had spoilt, and whom everybody had spoilt, was too white for servitude, was too white for any thing except one long Easter-day, as the pagans kept it, put her among her baggage. I saw Paqueta on shipboard, and there, standing upon the deck which was to take her forever from the clime of which she was a most true child, the wind whistling through her hair, and her tongue garrulous of the joy which childhood ever finds in all things new. ”

“ Lily Grey—the subject of his recent reverie, the being who had awakened the first thrill of love that he had ever known, for he did love her, in spite of himself—lay before him, with not the faintest shade of color upon cheek or lip, and the blood slowly oozing from a wound upon her temple.
For a moment, Frederick gazed upon her as if spell-bound; then stealing softly forward, as if she were sleeping, and he feared that he might waken her, he knelt upon the green sward by her side. At first, he had no thought but the dread one of death. ”

“ Let us to the joyous ingathering of the fruits of the earth—the great yearly festival and jubilee of the property and the labor of Medoc. October is the joyous “wine month.” For weeks, every cloud in the sky has been watched—every cold night-breeze felt with nervous apprehension. Upon the last bright weeks in summer, the savor and the bouquet of the wine depend. Warmed by the blaze of an unclouded sun, fanned by the mild breezes of the west, and moistened by morning and evening dews, the grapes by slow degrees attain their perfect ripeness and their culminating point of flavor. ”

“ The last words the traveler sung aloud, while a tear trickled down his cheek. Silent and dreaming he went on till he came to a little bridge, which led over a brook into a meadow. There his countenance brightened, and he said with emotion—“Here I first pressed Rosa’s hand! Here our eyes confessed for the first time that there is a happiness on earth which seizes irresistibly our hearts, and opens heaven to the young! As now, so then shone the yellow iris flower in the sunshine; the frogs croaked, full of the enjoyment of life, and the larks sang above our heads.” ”

“ Just as surely as you do is misery in store for him. A mother’s heart is a prophetic heart, and I repeat it—just as surely as you do is misery in store for him and you; just so surely will his sun and yours set in darkness and in gloom. Oh, Andrew, Andrew! for your own sake—for my sake—for the sake of these precious ones,” she added, drawing him to the couch where their children lay, “cease this struggle that is wearing your life away, and changing you so greatly, that at times I can scarcely recognize the Andrew Gordon of my early love.” ”

“ He had a gun upon his shoulder, but his game-bag was empty; and the pretty gray-squirrels hopped from tree to tree, rabbits stared curiously at him with their bright, saucy eyes, and even the wild partridge fluttered around him—unharmed, while he wandered on, wrapped in a somewhat moody reverie.
His thoughts seemed to be very variable—partly sad and partly glad; for, at one moment there would be a cloud upon his brow, a look of doubt and irresolution—and the next, a smile would break over his face, making it remarkably pleasing in its transient expression. His figure was tall and graceful ”

“ But in Summer, having reached the middle term of their annual life, they pause in their appointed course, and then, if ever, taste the nourishment they take in, and ‘enjoy the air they breathe.’ And he who, sitting in Summer time beneath the shade of a spreading tree, can see its branches fan the soft breeze as it passes, and hear its polished leaves whisper and twitter to each other like birds at love-making, and yet can feel any thing like an assurance that it does not enjoy its existence, knows little of the tenure by which he holds his own. ”

“ Those who have gone on from childhood to manhood under a loved mother’s eye, and have only parted with her at the threshold of that gate which we must all pass, can form no idea of the sensations experienced by one who has never known a mother’s care, when he hears the very word mentioned—the longing, the yearning, the never-to-be satisfied desire to see the face, to hear the voice, to press the lips of her who gave us birth. ”

“ The creak of another cart-load of tubs is heard, and immediately the wagon is backed up to the broad, open window, or rather hole in the wall, above the trough. A minute suffices to wrench out tub after tub, and to tilt their already half-mashed clusters splash into the reeking pressoir. Then to work again. Jumping with a sort of spiteful eagerness into the mountain of yielding, quivering fruit, the treaders sink almost to the knees, stamping and jumping and rioting in the masses of grapes, as fountains of juice spurt about their feet, and rush bubbling and gurgling away. ”

“ I was thinking of Paqueta, and what her part might be in her husband’s ambitions, when the reverberations of the fusilade of Paris, the cries of the massacred of the 25th, smote upon my ears, here, three thousand miles from the scene of that tragedy. Thus fell the Mountain: and with the Mountain, and through the Mountain fell the Republic; for the Republic died with the coming in of the Dictatorship, and the Mountain rested and must ever rest upon the shoulders of the poor. ”

“ Who buys the maid, trained to all luxury, sighing for position! And who buys the youth, in science well instructed, ambitious of a name! The poor are bought daily, under every sum that civilization acknowledges, and the rich, when in want of other purchasers, sell themselves to their own vices. Small difference is it, whether the price be pounds, shillings, and pence, or a promise of ease, or power, or bread, or pleasures, forbidden in this life, to be accounted for in the next. So Paqueta was not so unfortunate, after all. ”

“ I am Louis De Lacy, the son of him you murdered. He is before you in my person. He speaks to you by my voice. He demands that you do justice to his memory, even now, when you are trembling on the brink of that grave beyond which you will soon meet face to face. Answer me, Marquis de Carcassonne. Will you at length tell the truth? Will you do justice to the dead? ”

“ In this manner he sat long, sunk in gloomy reverie; the unfathomable eternity weighed heavily on his soul, when a human step awoke him out of his dreams. It was the old grave-digger, who, with his spade on his shoulder, came along by the church-yard wall. Misery and indigence might be read in his whole exterior: his back was bent, and through his constant labor with the spade had become crooked; his hair was white, and wrinkles ploughed his brow; though strength and spirit still spoke in his eye. ”

“ For my part, if ever I marry”—and here I involuntarily touched the rapidly thinning locks on my temples—“if ever I marry, it must be a brilliant, cultivated woman, one that would command general admiration—I hate your jealous, selfish men—one that would force me to keep up to her mark. I must confess, I wonder at half the marriages now-a-days—men of talent united to women who do not look as if they had ever opened a book in their lives, or would have the courage to criticise it if they had—good enough—amiable enough—but lacking spirit—originality.” ”

“ I saw that—I saw behind the magnificent quarters, behind the stately palaces, streets and markets, where the luxury and pomp of city and aristocratic life flourished in their fullest extent, that there were hidden regions, streets and lanes where might be seen the very opposite of all this—haunts of human wretchedness, of human tatters both outward and inward. I wished also to see these with my own eyes; to see St. Giles’s and the dirty quarters behind Westminster; because I endeavor to see, every where, the best and the worst, the heaven and the hell of existence in all spheres of life. ”

“ That is tall Jan!”
On a fine autumn day of the year 1846, the diligence rolled along the great highway from Antwerp to Turnhout, at the regular hour. In haste the conductor drew up not far from a solitary inn, and opened the door of the carriage. Two young travelers sprang laughing and exulting out upon the road, and stretched their arms like escaped birds who again in full freedom try their wings. They gazed around them on the trees, in the beautiful blue autumn air, with a joy which we experience when we have left the city, and with every breath can enjoy free nature. ”

“ He could not meet the glance of her clear eyes, that glance so holy, so unworldly, without a pang of remorse for the unworthy incentives that had first led him to seek her. And he learned to love her deeply—devotedly. His heart thrilled at the sound of her voice, the lightest echo of her footsteps, the mere touch of her fair hand. He would have taken her to his bosom, and called her his own sweet wife, with no other dowry than the love of her pure, trusting heart. Yes, at last even Frederick Gordon loved disinterestedly.
Alas, poor Lily Grey! ”

“ The ancient types and figures descriptive of the vintage are still literally true. The march of agricultural improvement seems never to have set foot amid the vines. As it was with the patriarchs in the East, so it is with the modern children of men. The goaded ox still bears home the high-pressed grape-tub, and the feet of the trader are still red in the purple juice which maketh glad the heart of man. The scene is at once full of beauty, and of tender and even sacred associations. ”

“ Then I summon you to meet him whom you have belied and murdered, whom you still, unrepenting, and unatoning, calumniate and accuse, before the throne of Almighty God, and to answer, where falsehood is vain and cunning is of no resource, where the truth is written on tables of light, and falsehood is blotted out in everlasting darkness, where hell and eternal damnation await remorseless crime, for every word you have uttered this night! As your heart judges you, so feel, and so act. ”

“ The drake is very attentive to the female while she is laying, and yet more so while she is engaged in the duties of incubation; constantly wheeling about on the wing among the branches, near the nest on which she is sitting, and greeting her with a little undertoned murmur of affection, or perching on a bough of the same tree, as if to keep watch over her. ”

“ The ostrich, like many other of the feathered tribe, has a great deal of self-conceit. On fine sunny days, a tame bird may be seen strutting backward and forward with great majesty, fanning itself with its quivering, expanded wings, and at every turn seeming to admire its grace, and the elegance of its shadow. ”

“ I judge men by their acts and words, and my opinion hangs not upon another’s conclusions. I believe I have read all that has been most ably written about the revolution; in all, the acts are the same, and the words are the same, but the arrangement of the acts, and the voice given to the words, change with each several narrator. Neither Thiers, nor Allison, nor Miguet, nor Lamartine, shall speak for me; the prejudices of the Englishman, and the prejudices of the Frenchman color their vision—I am answerable for my own. When will History listen to the defense which has not yet been heard! ”

“ Here might be seen an elegant carriage, drawn by sleek-looking mules, whose smiling inmates looked the very personification of luxury and ease—there came a rude, country cart, lined with raw hide and filled with the family of some poor ranchero, drawn by a raw-boned ox made fast by thongs around his horns—here ambled by a crowd of donkey cavalry, whose riders, with feet trailing on the ground, urged the animals forward in hot haste toward the scene of festivities—then thousands came on foot, some carrying children strapped to their backs, some bending under loads of nick-knacks for sale. ”

“ In the evenings, which were getting chill and cold, I occasionally abandoned my room with illustrations from the Tour de Nesle for the general kitchen and parlor of Madame Cadillac, and, ensconcing myself in the chimney corner—a fine old-fashioned ingle, crackling and blazing with hard wood logs—listened to the chat of the people of the village; they were nearly all coopers and vine-dressers, who resorted there after the day’s work was over to enjoy an exceedingly modest modicum of very thin wine. ”

“ As our family was increasing, Rosa, the good soul, thought she would become a burden to us, and wished on the contrary to help us. It was impossible to hinder her from it: she became sick of sorrow. When we saw that—after the half-year—we gave way to her desire. For a poor blind person it is, nevertheless, no shame. At the same time, though we are poor, we do not make a gain of what she earns by begging. She will, ever and anon, compel us to take part with her; we cannot always be at strife with her, poor thing! ”

“ The process is universal in France, with the exception of the cases of the sparkling wines of the Rhone and Champagne, the grapes for which are squeezed by mechanical means, not by the human foot. Now, very venerable and decidedly picturesque as is the process of wine-treading, it is unquestionably rather a filthy one; and the spectacle of great, brown, horny feet, not a whit too clean, splashing and sprawling in the bubbling juice, conveys, at first sight, a qualmy species of feeling, which, however, seems only to be entertained by those to whom the sight is new. ”