Various

“ Like germs and seeds of plants which have lain for centuries buried deep in the unfruitful bowels of the earth, and suddenly brought up by some convulsion of nature to the surface, the intellect of Italy burst forth, in the fourteenth century, into a tropical luxuriance, putting out its fairest flowers of poetry, and its solidest and most beautiful fruits of wisdom and of wit. Dante died seven years before, and Petrarch and Boccaccio about fifty years after, the birth of Chaucer, who thus was exposed to the strongest and directest influence of the genius of these great men. ”

“ Will those ravishing strains of music with which the Greeks are amused at their luxurious banquets, sound as sweet to the ear of the exile as the murmuring breeze of the morning and the droning wings of the humming-bird? Can the waters of the scented bath be as pure, as limpid and refreshing as the stream of the matronly Ganges? Can the ornate roofs of the Coutron be as pleasing to the eye of the bather as the vault of a tropic sky when half-seen and half-concealed by the branches thickly interwoven of the luxuriant tropic forest? ”

“ The old hermit, Nikaiyah, who, in the early twilight, pursued his devotions on the banks of the river, was making his orisons to the Ganges when the reddening water and glowing east gave tokens of the dawn. As he stooped to perform his ablutions, an object, dark upon the water, caught his eye. It was the lotus-cradle and its burden. The old man’s heart was moved, and, despite the voice of religion, which forbade to rob the Ganges, he listened to the voice of nature, and with many deprecations of the divine wrath, he took up the child and carried it to his humble dwelling. ”

“ And the light flickers, and the snow falls, and the glove swings over the now solitary spot—and I am still alone, and walk up and down the soft carpets in the romantic twilight.
After all, how gaudily life wears away! why should we not make the best of it? why not take the love and kindness that are offered, and make happy those that we can make happy? Why should we think so much of ourselves alone, and be so afraid of not being so happy as happy can be? we must think also of others, and be content for ourselves with a moderate share of happiness. ”

“ A little excited by the champagne, I came back to Rio Janeiro, and at the appointed time my chariot stopped before the ducal palace. Need I say that both mother and daughter received me most kindly, and that Angelica, dressed in Mechlin lace over pink silk, with the bandeau of pearls, looked like a goddess.
“Loveliest one,” cried I, “there is no jewel upon earth which would not be ten times more brilliant upon your fair brow. Command me, I beg. Every thing that you desire shall be yours in a quarter of an hour—the mammoth diamond from the turban of the great Mogul.” ”

“ Occasional flashes of lightning are the only guides to their path. The rain patters upon the metal helmets of the infantry, and the war-mail of the horses. Snorting with terror, the animals are forced along by the governing will of their masters. The heavy peals of thunder roll through the sky like the rumbling of a thousand chariot-wheels, as they fly over the field of battle. The great host reaches the banks of the stream, which, roused by the storm, rages doubly threatening, chafing with white foam like the steed impatient of his rider. ”

“ Yet it is no shallow stream, that, with puny murmur, frets impatient on its rough bed; but the yawning waters disclose abysses which could swallow the mighty elephant. On its banks reposes the lion, when tired with hunting the antelope. On the crags sits the rapacious eagle, watching his finny victims. One mightier than the lion, one more cruel than the eagle, now waited for his human prey, wary and shrewd in watching, on the Indian side of the river.
Why do the youth and the maiden start and pause on the skirt of the forest? ”

“ None so hopeful but to trust that to-morrow’s conference would be final; none so strong in courage as to dare support one other day’s assault.
All passed the night in doubt and fear; the countess alone in brave hope, and earnest prayer.
The day dawned, and—as men crowded to the ramparts, gazing toward the camp and the plain where Sir Hervè might be seen approaching with his Genoese, closing up to the town to receive possession—the countess arose from her knees, and she alone, of all in Hennebon, turned her eyes toward the sea; for she alone, of all to Hennebon, had faith in her God. ”

“ In the long summer twilight—the beautiful summer twilight that never sinks into perfect night—these two women lay side by side together; she that was oldest in suffering still comforting the other, until Bertha’s tears were dried, and exhausted with the grief that was so new to her, she lay silent in Gabrielle’s arms—both silent, looking into the summer night, and thinking of the days that were forever past. ”

“ The decisions of contemporaries may be swayed by fashion and prejudice; the criticism of scholars may be tinged with partiality; but the unanimous voice of four hundred and fifty years is sure to be a true index of the relative value of a work of genius.
Beautiful as are many of his other productions, it is the “Canterbury Tales” which have enshrined Chaucer in the penetralia of England’s Glory Temple; it is to the wit, the pathos, the humanity, the chivalry of those tales that our minds recur when our ear is struck with the venerable name of Chaucer. ”

“ From that natal morn of infancy she had dwelt in innocence by the sacred stream—full of life and the glory of beauty, she had arrived at full-blown maturity. At the noon, when the sun, like her life, had reached its culmination, in the ripened noon, she departed. Anon comes the silence and darkness of evening overtaking the pair in the forest—the drama of life is advancing, and sorrows must obscure her path like the shadows from the mountains descending—like the clouds which hide the evening red and fleck the glorious sunset. ”

“ The hen fighting the sparrow-hawk careless of self for her defenseless brood, is a spectacle beautiful to behold, filling every heart with genuine sympathy, because her act itself is genuine; is part and parcel of her sex, her circumstances, her maternity; in a word, is the act of the God of nature. The hen gaffed and cropped and fighting mains against the males of her own family in the beastly and bloody cock-pit, is a spectacle that would make the lowest frequenter of such vile arenas shudder with disgust, would wring from his lips an honest cry of shame. ”

“ Mournfully Ganga bids farewell to her tame favorites, who, conscious as it were of the sanctity in which they held life, had congregated fearlessly around their dwelling, fed daily by the hands of the maiden. Sadly, they turn their backs upon their happy home and journey on to worldly experience. The sun’s rays have scarce reached their noontide severity when they pass up the banks of the river, casting many a glance behind to the forest so long familiar; accompanied by their feathered favorites, who soon must miss the fostering care of Ganga. ”

“ You, M. Fleury, shall have Champagne from Sillery, and vive Demoiselle Manon Larochière, rue Montmartre. I stand by the true German. O, ye honored grapes of Rudesheim, with what shall I compare you, if not with little Kate of Castle street, Barbarossa town; your sweet flower, with the flower of her beauty—your animating fire, with the fire that gleams in her eyes. Come, friends, let us bring down the high ideal to actual life. The trio of our loves shall sound in Madeira, Champagne, and Rudesheim; and inspired fancy shall present to our raptured gaze the gracious forms of our beloved ones. ”

“ And of that age I have a legend, reproduced from the old chronicles of old Froissart, so redolent of the truth, the vigor, and the fresh raciness of those old days, when manhood was still held in more esteem than money, and the person of a man something more valuable than his purse, that I think it may be held worthy to arrest attention, even in these days of sordid deference to the sovereign dollar, of stolid indifference to every thing in humanity that is of a truth good or great or noble. ”

“ I passed some time, a few months ago, in the seven-hilled city of the Bosphorus—in beautiful, but muddy Constantinople. I had seen and admired every thing that was to be seen and admired, as far as the Turks allow to a Christian dog. Often had I stood at the portal of the mosque of St. Sophia, and gazed with longing sighs upon the imperial seraglio just opposite, in the vain hope that some veiled beauty would appear at one of the balconies, observe me, and then raise her veil, that I might at home, in my native place—Gelnhaus—describe a Turkish Sultana ”

“ Do not fear my weakness. The great Being who sustains my age will not forsake me now.”
I had advanced to the bedside, and sinking down, buried my face in the covering. The truth was on my lips, struggling for utterance—but could I thus destroy all their hopes, brand myself as the murderer of Ernest, and be separated from Linda forever? I sprang, in the energy of despair, to my feet.
“’Tis madness to remain longer,” I exclaimed, clasping my hands in agony, “we are losing time; come, come. Oh, wretched me!”
“He is beside himself,” cried Linda, in a voice of terror; “speak to him, James.” ”

“ This humor, colored by and springing from universal sympathy, this noblest humanity—we mean humanity in the sense of Terence’s: “homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto”—is the heritage of only the greatest among mankind; and is but an example of that deep truth which Nature herself has taught us, when she placed in the human heart the spring of Laughter fast by the fountain of Tears. ”

“ They whisper as they gaze upon the gentle form, so beautiful and still, that with wild hair disheveled seems to sleep upon the rude couch of death. Where is Dudley—why does he not gaze and whisper too? Upon entering the room he threw himself upon a low seat behind the stove, and falling from that to the floor, sleeps soundly in his drunkenness.
Star-eyed Science walks unmoved among the dead. The students are busy about the table of the murderer. Nothing is heard save the voice of the instructor, or noise of his instruments as he lays bare the hidden mysteries of life. Dudley sleeps on. ”

“ I seem to float again upon the Rhine, and again to hear the song of the vine-dressers, suspended from the craggy and terraced slopes where the white wines of princes are produced.
Pfeffers and I have diverged more and more as we have grown older, and each is rigid in his cramps and oddities. Except in smoking, there is scarcely a point on which we agree. He loves to read Rabelais; whom, maugre all the eulogies of Coleridge and other great men, I continue to loathe as a filthy old man. ”

“ Miss Vaux cried; and her voice, harsh, loud, and quivering with passion, echoed through the room—“tell me who this woman is?”
From the widow’s lips there burst one word—one word like a sudden bitter cry—“Joanna!”
She stretched out her arms imploringly, trying to grasp even her daughter’s dress; but Miss Vaux sprung from her, and stood erect in the center of the room; her tall figure drawn to its full height; her burning eye still turned with unutterable anger upon the crouching woman near her. ”

“ They gaze with impatient, hollow eyes on the long-sought banks of the Hydaspes. Their emaciated forms and tangled hair, their sun-scorched features and cautious mien betray their long wandering, their contest with a thousand perils. Why do they not hasten to pass the goal of their journey, and escape from the fury of the pursuing priests into neighboring, friendly Indo-Scythia? Is it not the hope of this result with which the young fugitive has cheered the heart of his weary though courageous companion? ”

“ Besides, as her ripened intellect began to unfold in maturity, she feels those affections and aspirations peculiar to every female heart, more and more enlarged and developed, she conceives a passion, softened by the most maidenly modesty, for the noble youth who has twice rescued her from death; once from the monster while she was bathing on the coast of the Elephantine isle, and once from the glowing funereal pyre where smouldered the limbs of Nikaiyah, and who now affording her every proof of affection, offers her an asylum in his native land. ”

“ How many have fallen victims at thy shrine! victims of a mistaken zeal! Yet in India hast thou been most misrepresented. There have perished the human hecatomb yearly in thy service—there thou hast assumed those distorted forms borrowed from the visible effects in tropic nature—there have thy attributes been measured by the violent passions of thy dusky worshipers—yet, while thou hast thus sacrificed India’s race, thou hast left for later eyes those striking monuments of thy power, thy temples and shrines—those stupendous fanes which though sometimes grotesque are often sublime. ”

“ Here rich spoils await them, and the gorgeous luxury of the east finds but little mercy at the hands of the rude Macedonians.
Demetros, as he listens to the cries of the victors, detects the accents of his native Greek. Joyous he reassures the maiden, trembling before at the power of the Brahmins, and now equally shrinking from the shouts of friends—for how knows she that she shall not be torn from her lover and delivered up to the lusts of a brutal soldiery? And even if she gains unharmed the presence of the king, may he not refuse to release or preserve her? ”

“ Will the silent deference which honor the living continue to respect the dead?
The days passed quiet and undeeded by at Elephantum. Six moons had waxed and waned their crescents monthly, silvering the pillars of the temple; Nikaiyah, growing gray and hoary like the fading year, was bending under the burdens of life. As he neared the boundary of existence, he was ever more eagerly gazing into the future—more than over wrapt in devotion. Yet he would often seek to amuse his charge ”

“ The age of chivalry, however, had a real being; it was in very truth “the body of a time, its form and pressure;” and that was the age of Edward the Third, and the Black Prince of England, of the Captal de Buch and Sire Eustache de Ribeaumont, of Bertrand du Gueselin, and Charles of Luxemburg, the valiant blind king of Bohemia, and those who won or died at Crecy and Poictiers.
That was the age, when knights shaped their conduct to the legends which they read in the old romances, which were to them the code of honor, bravery and virtue. ”

“ And, though the countess perceived what was on the wind, and besought the lords of Brittany with tears and sighs, that made her but more lovely, “for the love of herself, and of her son; friendless but for them; for the love of God himself, to have pity on her, and faith in heaven, that they should receive succor within three days,” it seemed that she could not prevail.
Nor was there not cause for apprehension; since it was clear to all that the ramparts could not stand one more day’s breaching; and, those once battered down, Hennebon and all within it were at the mercy of the merciless. ”

“ Ten thousand guilders! What a sublime thought! Shakspeare, Schiller, and Goethe had had great thoughts, and Bethman and Rothschild have carried the poesy of trade to a wonderful extent—but this mosque of St. Sophia—I must control myself—I must clip the wings of my speculative fancy, or it will carry me too far—to Golconda or Potosi. Return to thy home, to the old town, where bloomed for Barbarossa the fair Gela, and where blooms now the burgomaster’s daughter, thy violet, and beside her, a shop stocked with all fancy articles, and with the delicious perfume of Karl Maria Farina of Cöln. ”