Various

“ Alice Churchill was none of those fragile beauties whose step is too light to bend “a hare-bell ’neath its tread”—whose eyes are compared to those of the gazelle, or to violets and dew-drops—with cheeks like the blush rose, and lips vieing with sea-corals, contrasted by teeth of pearls! No such wealth of beauty had Alice, but she was a very sweet girl notwithstanding—just pretty enough to escape being called plain, and yet plain enough to escape being spoiled for her prettiness. ”

“ But why, amid this joyous scene, is the brow of Mrs. Hazleton clouded? Admiration can find no higher aim than the charms of Julia; nor does her own ear drink in unwelcome the flatterer’s whisper—yet still the cloud is there. Would you know the reason? Herman Wallace makes not one of the festive throng. She is almost angry with Julia for being so carelessly happy—with Alice for her composure. Suddenly her eye brightens. Ah, the game’s in view! And in a few moments Mrs. Hazleton, now all smiles, presses on to the gay circle of which Wallace seems to be the attraction. ”

“ Here you are pitying Fanny for having married a man, who, by your own account, she is in love with.”
“No, Sarah,” replied Mary, “I am not pitying her for marrying the man she is in love with, but for being ashamed of the man she loves.”
“Ashamed of the man she loves!” repeated Miss Gorham with infinite contempt. “Now, really, Mary, you had better reserve your compassion for a more deserving object. If Fanny has married a man she is ashamed of, she should be ashamed of herself.” ”

“ We regret that the relict of the late Capt. Budd did not behave exactly as became a ship-master’s widow, under fire. Instead of remaining silent and passive, even while frightened, as was the case with Rose, she screamed quite as loud as she had previously done that very day in Hell-Gate. It appeared to Spike, indeed, that practice was making her perfect; and, as for Biddy, the spirit of emulation became so powerful in her bosom, that, if any thing, she actually outshrieked her mistress. ”

“ Harry Mulford would have enjoyed this conversation to the top of his bent, had it not been for Rose. She well knew her aunt’s general weakness of intellect, and especially its weakness on this particular subject, but she would suffer no one to manifest contempt for either, if in her power to prevent it. It is seldom one so young, so mirthful, so ingenuous and innocent in the expression of her countenance, assumed so significant and rebuking a frown as did pretty Rose Budd when she heard the mate’s involuntary exclamation about the “twelve masts.” ”

“ Allen, as she threw herself into Mary Ludlow’s arms, who, ever true to her in sorrow as in joy, was with her now in her hour of bitterest anguish, “you, you alone feel for one who did not feel for others. The heart that was hardened by prosperity deserved to be broken by sorrow.” And then the full tide of anguish, and repentance, and confession, gushed forth with a freedom and humility that wells up alone from a broken and a contrite heart. ”

“ I know too well what all these deceptive appearances of health amount to. I would not alarm you for the world, Rosy dear, but a careful parent—and I’m your parent in affection, if not by nature—but a careful parent’s eye is not to be deceived. I know you look well, but you are ill, my child; though, Heaven be praised, the sea air and hydropathy are already doing you a monstrous deal of good.”
As Mrs. Budd concluded, she wiped her eyes, and appeared really glad that her niece had a less consumptive look than when she embarked. Rose sat, gazing at her aunt, in mute astonishment. ”

“ Kate alone betrayed neither surprise nor emotion. “Ah! indeed,” was her unconcerned reply.
Preston turned pale with suppressed mortification at this indifference; mere friendship, he said to himself, demanded some expression of regret at least. His feelings were not allayed by what followed.
“You’re not going to join Marion, are you?” said Major Lindsay, in a tone of triumphant banter, little imagining how near he was to the truth. “Has he frightened you by the great oath he has sworn to revenge his nephew, who was shot for a rebel? I hear he threatens some mighty deed. ”

“ Spike?”
“Only in a philanthropic way, Madam Budd. Yes, let us get a good offing, and a rapping to’gallant breeze, and I do not think I should care much for two of Uncle Sam’s new-fashioned revenue craft, one on each side of me.”
“How delightful do I find such conversation, Rose! It’s as much like your poor, dear uncle’s, as one pea is like another. ‘Yes,’ he used to say, too, ‘let me only have one on each side of me, and a wrapper round the topgallant sail to hold the breeze, and I’d not call the king my uncle.’ Now I think of it, he used to talk about the king as his uncle, too.” ”

“ The steamer had her quarter watches, and officers of the deck, like a vessel of war, the discipline of which was fairly enough imitated, but even a man-of-war may be overreached on an occasion.
Spike was only great in a crisis, and then merely as a seaman. He understood his calling to its minutiæ, and he understood the Molly Swash better than he understood any other craft that floated. For more than twenty years had he sailed her, and the careful parent does not better understand the humors of the child, than he understood exactly what might be expected from his brig. ”

“ You do not think we are afraid, though there are many reasons why we do not wish to be spoken by certain craft that are hovering about. In the first place, you know it is war time—I suppose you know, Madam Budd, that America is at war with Mexico?”
“Certainly,” answered the widow, with dignity—“and that is a sufficient reason, Rose, why one vessel should chase, and another should run. If you had heard your poor uncle relate, as I have done, all his chasings and runnings away, in the war times, child, you would understand these things better. ”

“ I’ve heard that the sea is a highway, it is true—the ‘highway of nations,’ I believe it is called, and that must mean something particular. But my poor Mr. Budd always told me that Neptune was king of the seas, and he was always so accurate, you might depend on every thing he said. Why, he called his last Newfoundland dog Neptune, and do you think, Rosy, that your dear uncle would call his dog after an imaginary being?—and he a man to beat the wind, and attack ship, and take the sun, moon and stars aboard! ”

“ Her bosom heaved, her cheeks flushed, her eyes filled with tears. “Oh! for the voice of a poet,” said she, speaking to herself, “to celebrate these splendors in some immortal song! Or the hand of a painter, to retain them in undying hues, for a joy to the worshipers of beauty forever. Alas! they are fading—they shall soon be lost to the universe; and there is none here who, with the power of inhaling them into his spirit as I, hath the happier gift of reproducing them in some diviner form. Alas! I am weak, with no power but to feel ”

“ She turned her eyes toward the window, which had been thrown open to admit the cool air of the evening, for the wind had died away, and the heavens were clear—and there, conspicuous amongst its fiery brethren, shone that bright, still, solitary star—still fair and tranquil, when life with all its excitements and hopes was passing away, as when shining above the passion of her young life. ”

“ No, sir, no; you’ve started wrong. My poor, dear, late Mr. Budd always admitted that the world turned round, as the books say; but, when I suggested to him the difficulty of keeping things in their places, with the earth upside down, he acknowledged candidly—for he was all candor, I must say that for him—and owned that he had made a discovery, by means of his barometer, which showed that the world did not turn round, in the way you describe, or by rolling over, but by whirling about as one turns in a dance. You must remember your uncle’s telling me this, Rose? ”

“ Although the age and sex of the artist invested the work with an interest in our eyes it would not otherwise perhaps so strongly possess, we would not for a moment have it supposed that they exercised the smallest influence upon our suffrages. We adore beauty, womanhood and youth, but we adore Art more, and have too high a sense of its dignity to permit any extrinsic consideration, however fascinating to the imagination, to divert us from our undivided homage toward it. ”

“ True love is always jealous—and you surely then cannot blame poor Frank, when, on his return from a long voyage, he hears of her only as the gayest among the gay, receiving with apparent pleasure the flatterer’s insidious praises!”
“She is not alone to blame, Mr. Wallace. Believe me, with all her seeming indifference, she is worthy the love of your friend,” said Alice. ”

“ How would the child who, in his early home, had heard none save kind words, had seen none other than heart-warm deeds, who had been trained to habits of submission, and taught to yield the gratification of his own wishes for the good or the pleasure of others, taught to do this even as a child may be taught, in the meek spirit of the gospel—how would such an one grow up a crown of glory to the hoary hairs of his parents, and a blessing to society. But, alas! the spirit of insubordination is rife in the world. ”

“ Allen was canvassed and talked over according to the feelings of the speakers, as if she were both master and mistress of the establishment. Mrs. Ludlow, her early friend, was still her friend, and sympathized, from the bottom of her heart, in all her trials.
Prosperity often seems to mark certain families for its own for years—but when the tide changes, misfortune frequently clings as obstinately to those who have hitherto seemed the favorites of fortune. To most of us, life is as an April day, checkered by clouds and sunshine ”

“ This circumstance, indeed, was the secret of his still being in the “Molly,” as Spike usually called his craft; the last voyage having excited suspicions that were rather of a delicate nature. Then the young man really loved the brig, which, if she could not be literally made to talk, could be made to do almost every thing else. A vessel, and a small vessel, too, is rather contracted as to space, but those who wish to converse can contrive to speak together often, even in such narrow limits. Such had been the fact with Rose Budd and the handsome mate. ”

“ It is to the solid excellence of the work itself—the new principles which it involves—principles, for the acquirement of which, I am not ashamed to say that I myself, as well as many others grown old in honors as in years, are not unwilling to descend into the character of pupilage—and not the less that we sit at the feet of a genius and a woman. ”

“ Mulford attended to the main-sheet, and succeeded in getting the boom out in the right direction. Although the wind was in truth very light, the velocity of the drift filled the canvas, and taking the arrow-like current on her lee bow, the Swash, like a frantic steed that is alarmed with the wreck made by his own madness, came under command, and sheered out into the stream again, where she could drift clear of the apprehended danger astern.
“Sound the pumps,” called out Spike to Mulford, the instant he saw he had regained his seat in the saddle. ”

“ Separate rooms and separate tables had served to complete the estrangement which caprice and ill temper had begun, and they now exhibited that pitiable spectacle of a house divided against itself. And what is more pitiable than to see those who should mutually encourage and support each other, who should bear one another’s burdens, and in the spirit of blessed charity endure all things, and hope all things—what is more pitiable than to see them unkind, self-willed, bandying bitter sarcasms and rude reproaches? ”

“ We have said that the fine blue eye of Rose passed swiftly over the various objects near her, as she alighted from the cab, and it naturally took in the form of Harry Mulford, as he stood in the gangway, offering his arm to aid her aunt and herself in passing the brig’s side. A smile of recognition was exchanged between the young people, as their eyes met, and the color, which formed so bright a charm in Rose’s sweet face, deepened, in a way to prove that that color spoke with a tongue and eloquence of its own. ”

“ All these, with the back ground of gigantic mountains, pile on pile, that seem to raise a barrier from earth to heaven between this Paradise and a ruder world beyond, fill us with the idea of wandering amid some remnant of the scenery of the Golden Age, where of old, as the fables tell, the primeval deities used to dwell with a purer humanity, and in a younger and lovelier earth. ”

“ The major gave both parties, on the instant, a suspicious glance, but his softest smile immediately succeeded, and with easy assurance taking the seat Preston had vacated, he glided into a strain of brilliant small talk, such as would have done honor to any gallant of the day, incomparable at compliments and snuff-boxes. Preston was angry at this unceremonious supplanting, but even more angry to see how quickly Kate recovered herself, and dashed out into the strife of repartee, with a spirit and ease superior even to the major’s. ”

“ Motalleb answered in few words, after the manner of wise men, “Thy son will be rich without the labor of acquiring wealth. Make him good, and, for that purpose, let him be taught to distinguish what is true from what is false; for I say unto thee, O Abdallah! that the knowledge and the love of Truth is the foundation of all virtue.”
At the earnest solicitation of Abdallah, the dervise consented to superintend the education of his son, and Musa was accordingly committed to his care. His first lesson was never to depart from the truth, whatever might be the danger or temptation. ”

“ Angelica, they may give you praise, they may give you wealth; they may elevate you to a lofty place in the world’s view, where thy beauty and thy worth being recognized, may command the homage of the great and good; they may appoint you to a high rank among the hierarchy of genius that minister in the temple of fame—but I, only I, love thee! ”

“ For the first time in my life, I know what it is to be oppressed with languor. Every thing is a burden to me; and when I try to rouse myself and shake it off, my limbs refuse to obey my will.”
“My dear sister,” said Mrs. Eldon, “don’t attempt that. You need repose—If you overtask yourself now, you may feel the ill effects all your life.”
“That is what my dear, kind husband says,” replied Mrs. Allen. “And oh,” she continued, with much emotion, “you don’t know, Charlotte, how my conscience reproaches me for my former want of consideration—for my unkindness, in fact, to him. ”

“ Ah! innocent soul, thou didst not then know that the first power of an artist is to feel; that in his susceptibility for emotion lie his strength and the spirit of his calling; and that the achievement of the painter, the poet, or the sculptor, is but the expression of that emotion which our common language is too weak to supply, and only acquired, like any other language, through practice and experience. ”

“ A peculiar feature of this crew, however, was the circumstance that they were all middle-aged men, with the exception of the mate, and all thorough-bred sea-dogs. Even Josh, the cabin-boy, as he was called, was an old, wrinkled, gray-headed negro, of near sixty. If the crew wanted a little in the elasticity of youth, it possessed the steadiness and experience of their time of life, every man appearing to know exactly what to do, and when to do it. This, indeed, composed their great merit; an advantage that Spike well knew how to appreciate. ”

“ In the famous city of Bagdad there lived a rich merchant, named Abdallah, of whose numerous offspring the youngest alone survived in the person of Musa, an ingenuous and sprightly youth, in whom all the hopes and affections of the father were centered. He often pondered on the course of life to which he should direct the attention of his beloved son, and at length consulted the sage dervise Motalleb, celebrated for his learning, wisdom and virtue above all the inhabitants of that renowned city, where the Kaliph Haroun Al Raschid once reigned amid the splendors of oriental magnificence. ”