Various

“ It was for this, for this: that I might see him once more, once more in all his unearthly beauty, in his unmatched perfection: that I might see, and know that time has not marred, nor decay changed, nor the worm defiled the being I have idolized for nearly a century. Spared too to rejoice that my own Albert cannot behold the change which time, and life have wrought in a form he once loved so well. To him these withered arms and lips are welcome as if they yet retained all their former loveliness. He will not reject his early love for her age, and sickness, and unsightlessness. ”

“ This love for his fellows is one of the finest characteristics of Lowell, and contrasts strikingly with the frippery of Pope, and the sneering misanthropy of Byron. We adore this feeling. It is the good old Saxon spirit, the sentiment of universal brotherhood. We are all the children of one father, fitted for sympathy, companionship, affection. We are not born to scorn our fellows. We have not been created to seclude ourselves from society, to dwell in caves, and cells, and lonely hermitages. We are made for nobler purposes. Our mission, like that of him of Nazareth, is to go about doing good. ”

“ It is not the mere appreciation of the beauty before us. It is a wild effort to reach the beauty above. It is a forethought of the loveliness to come. It is a passion to be satiated by no sublunary sights, or sounds, or sentiments, and the soul thus athirst strives to allay its fever in futile efforts at creation. Inspired with a prescient ecstasy of the beauty beyond the grave, it struggles by multiform novelty of combination among the things and thoughts of Time, to anticipate some portion of that loveliness whose very elements, perhaps, appertain solely to Eternity. ”

“ A thunder storm in these mountains is sublime beyond all that imagination can conceive. In looking up the river, while the sun is yet shining brightly, and the sky is blue above our heads, we see a dark cloud far off in the direction of Newburgh, whose white houses stand out in strong relief against the deep gloom that has gathered beyond; the coming vapor rises and spreads till it appears behind the Crow’s Nest, casting its deep shade upon the tops of the mountains, while on their sides still linger the last gleams of sunshine. ”

“ He had never possessed much of the bloom of youth, and his face had early worn the pale student-like ‘cast of thought,’ which years had only traced in deeper characters. His dapper little figure, still trim and upright, was not spoiled by the obesity so much dreaded by elderly gentlemen; his teeth were still perfect—his incipient baldness—but this was an exceedingly delicate point—we will draw the veil of silence over his reflections on this painful subject. Suffice it to say that Mr. De Courcy Waldie came to the conclusion that he was yet young enough to think of matrimony. ”

“ She was a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely than full of glee. And evil was the hour when she saw, and loved, and wedded the painter. He, passionate, studious, austere, and having already a bride in his Art: she a maiden of rarest beauty and not more lovely than full of glee: all light and smiles and frolicksome as the young fawn: loving and cherishing all things: hating only the Art which was her rival: dreading only the pallet and brushes and other untoward instruments which deprived her of the countenance of her lover. ”

“ Listen to the voice of the waves!—For the sea has a voice as well as the winds—not only where it speaks in thunders, booming upon the level beach, or roars among the time-worn rocks of an iron-bound coast, but far off in its loneliness, also, where no barrier opposes its will. Who knows not the mild tone of the breeze of spring from the melancholy moan of the autumnal gale?—As different is the dull plash of the lazy billow in a settled calm from the threatening sound that precedes a storm. ”

“ A day of promise is changed to a life of mourning by the event of a moment; the act of an instant destroys the happiness and poisons the memory of years! Those flowers were gathered in hope; and before they—frail, perishing mementos—can wither, he who bound them and she who wears them may be lost in despair!”
With a heavy heart Harry repaired to his love’s rendezvous, where, full of beauty and tenderness, Kate awaited him. ”

“ We have already spoken of Music as one of the moods of poetical development. It is in Music, perhaps, that the soul most nearly attains that end upon which we have commented—the creation of supernal beauty. It may be, indeed, that this august aim is here even partially or imperfectly attained, in fact. The elements of that beauty which is felt in sound, may be the mutual or common heritage of Earth and Heaven. In the soul’s struggles at combination it is thus not impossible that a harp may strike notes not unfamiliar to the angels. ”

“ And truly he might well give up his heart to the passionate love of beauty which pervaded it; for the loveliness of that quiet valley was well calculated to gratify the intense desires of a mind thirsting for images of perfection. Not only did the mountain tops and mist gleam with the golden sunlight, but every flower at his feet, every blade of grass displayed each its wealth of gem-like dew glittering with unrivalled colors. ”

“ As a work of art nothing could be more admirable than the painting itself. The loveliness of the face surpassed that of the fabulous Houri. But it could have been neither the execution of the work, nor the immortal beauty of the countenance, which had so suddenly and so vehemently moved me. Least of all could it have been that my fancy, shaken from its half-slumber, had mistaken the head for that of a living person. ”

“ At the same instant, the loud crash of the thunder rattles directly over head, and it continues throughout the storm its long and incessant roll, the echoes of one peal not subsiding before those of another have commenced. The lightning glances on the bayonets of the centinels that “walk their lonely rounds” on the skirts of the camp; and frequently the tents are blown over by the violence of the gust, and lie prostrate on the wet grass. These terrific thunder-claps seem to shake the everlasting hills; the firm-set granite buildings of the institution trembling to their foundations. ”

“ How many hearts have sympathised with the blind old Milton, and how many more will sympathise with him to the end of all time. And thus it is with the good of every age. They live again in the memory of posterity. The dying words of Algernon Sidney will thrill the freeman’s heart through untold centuries. The apostolic charity of Fenelon, Latimer, Bunyan, Augustine, and of all holy men, will endear them to noble hearts as long as time endures. The only immortality worth having is an immortality like this; and it matters not whether our names are known to those who bless us or not. ”

“ The shy, quiet demeanor of Celina, contrasted strongly with the frank, bold manner of her companion. Emily would run to meet Mr. Waldie with a gay laugh, and throwing herself on a footstool beside him, would beguile him with her merry prattle, without seeming to care whether he were annoyed by her intrusion. But Celina would stand timidly awaiting an encouraging word from her benefactor, and thus it often happened, in the little household as in the great world, that modest merit was overlooked in favor of obtrusive importunity, and Celina was forgotten for the more clamorous Emily. ”

“ An hour has passed,—and what a change!—The ship close hauled on a wind, no longer rolls listlessly over the swell; but, laboring slowly up each coming wave, she staggers and shivers from stem to stern, as the crest of the watery mountain dashes against the weather bow,—then, rushing down into the trough of the sea and plunging deep into the succeeding billow, she strains every shroud and back-stay with the sudden jerk of the masts, and sends a broad sheet of crackling foam to leeward from beneath the bows. ”

“ Love is a question to amuse the people more than any act of mine. If His Grace of Somerset has seen fit to tread upon a serpent’s nest, the world will not marvel that his foot is stung where it would have crushed.
“No, Dudley, no—the king has rightly decided, and he who would have heaped ignominy on my son shall drain the cup he has drugged! Even as he forced the heir to my house to this closet in base contact with a wretch like that cringing cur yonder, shall he go forth and in like company.” ”

“ Milton belonged to no school but his own; he stands alone in unapproachable glory; but his genius was deeply influenced by the commotions of the civil wars. Shakspeare had few followers, but many predecessors, and as he was the last so he was the greatest of his school; while Spencer, standing as he did above the grave of chivalry and allegorical romance, only gave vent, in his immortal poem, to a requiem for the departed great. All these men embodied the characteristics of their age, and left them as a heritage to posterity. ”

“ Men have written noble sentiments and died and been forgotten, yet posterity has still yearned towards the poet when it read his lines. What comfort may not an author thus bring upon his fellows! Go out into the country and enter that lowly cottage,—you will find perhaps some mother weeping over little Nell, and drawing consolation from traits in the character which remind her of a darling child now in heaven. Thus by ten thousand links does an author bind himself to the hearts of his fellows, until at length he comes to be loved as we would love a brother. ”

“ With cringing and noiseless steps, those men whom Somerset had deemed his true and tried friends, those that would cling to him through good and through evil report—had glided from his presence and stood in the corridor, consulting together in whispers and waiting anxiously for Warwick to come forth, that they might offer him their support unchecked by the presence of the fallen noble to whom, in his prosperity, they had cringed with servile spirits, ready to kneel at any shrine which possessed stepping stones for their own ambition. ”