Various

“ Ought not the name of Isabella to be forever associated with that of Columbus, as without her aid he could never have crossed the Atlantic? Should not the honor of the discovery of the western world rest alike upon him who conceived, and her who enabled him to execute the mighty project? And yet the fame of Columbus is wide as the world, and eternal as the lands to which he opened the way across the billows; while she who gave wings to his genius and power to his arm is almost forgotten. ”

“ How holy, how powerful is the influence of a mother! The father may do much, but the mother can do more toward the formation of the mind, and the habits of early childhood. Exercising a power, silent, yet refreshing as the dews of heaven, her least word, her lightest look, sinks deep into the hearts of her children, and moulds them to her will. How many men have owed all that has made them great to the early teachings of a mother’s love! ”

“ In a wild tumult of feeling, half joy half sorrow, he stood upon the deck of the vessel, and watched the shores of his native land as they faded in the distance.
‘The sails were filled, and fair the light winds blew,
As glad to waft him from his native home.’
And now he is on the ocean—the waves are dashing against the ship and bearing him onward—whither? To the land of his hopes. To the land of his dreams. Why each moment does he grow sadder and sadder? Why, as the crescent moon rises serenely in the heavens, does he press his eyelids down to shut her beauty from his sight? ”

“ This display of magnificence is not at my command. It belongs to our nobles, our churches, our officers and soldiers. You behold here the spoils of the vanquished, which must reward the vanquishers. It is possible to be poor in the midst of regal splendor. But I have jewels which are at my own disposal, which add nothing to my power or my happiness. I will dispose of them, and give you the means to prosecute your project to discover new worlds amid the wilderness of waves, and win that undying fame which you deem within your reach. ”

“ The beauty of the queen was of a style to command respect rather than admiration, obedience rather than love. Majesty was in her form and mien, pride sat on her brow, and in her tones and gestures lived an authority which none dared question or disobey. Well was it for herself and those around her that she was governed by the nicest principles of honor; that her whole life was swayed by the most fervent and conscientious devotional feelings; so that as a queen, as a wife, and as a mother, she was above reproach. ”

“ I seek to confirm by actual discovery the truths which reason and religion proclaim to my mind as indisputable. And yet I have found no soul capable of understanding mine; no rich prince or noble willing to risk a few thousands for an incalculable benefit to the whole world through all the years to come, and a fame which shall live until the sun burns out in the great temple of the blue ether. You will ask why I, a citizen of Genoa, a rich and powerful state, find it necessary to solicit the aid of foreign powers. ”

“ A light, intense, but momentary, flashed over the face of the dark-browed man, as he pressed the hand of his messenger, exclaiming, “Thank you—to me you are, indeed, San Angel!”
Gradually the gay groups disappeared from the scene of magnificent enchantment; the lights went out one by one, like stars at the approach of day; the voices of melody ceased amongst the pavilions, and in the echoing halls, and silence seemed resuming her natural empire over the night.
In a retired apartment of the royal palace sat Isabella of Castile, with her two young daughters. ”

“ The warm blood never gave a living glow to the dark olive of her complexion, and it was seldom that the deep fringes of her eyelids were lifted sufficiently to allow those with whom she conversed to mark the beautiful and flitting shadows of the deep and sweet emotions of her loving spirit.
“Oh, mother!” cried the young Isabella, her whole person radiant with the spirit’s light, “oh, mother, what a glorious thing it is to be a queen’s daughter; to live in such magnificence, to be an object of admiration and worship, to listen while gay and noble cavaliers extol one’s beauty and accomplishments ”

“ Better would it have been for Annette had she possessed more firmness of character—a will to do as she pleased—a determination to have her rights respected. But she was by nature too gentle to wrestle with the unfeeling hearts around her, and therefore yielded herself a passive victim. Or better, perhaps, would it have been, had her bosom covered a marble heart, and that, callous to all the tender ties which can make life desirable, she should have walked through life that mysterious anomaly—a beautiful woman without a soul! ”

“ Pray, then, why should he offer to marry Annette, if he looks upon the connection as something to be ashamed of?” said Mrs. Doily, getting almost angry.
“Why? why because he has fallen in love with Annette’s pretty face; he means to marry her, not her family, and he trusts to his future power over her, and to a woman’s devotedness to her husband, right or wrong, to wean her away from all her earlier ties!” ”

“ The land of promise had receded from his view, and the shores of Italy were as a far-off vision seen in the dimness of deepening twilight. Oh, what a sinking of the heart follows such disappointments! A goal is to be won—the aspirant rushes eagerly to the race—hope lures him on—he grows weary, oh, how weary—courage—the thrilling sound of fame’s trumpet-peal is ringing on those heights afar—courage—one more struggle and the prize will be his own! ”

“ Well, my dear sister, I may be mistaken, and for your sake, and for Annette’s sake, I hope to God I am! I call myself a pretty good judge of character, and if I err not, Mr. Eccleson has so much pride, arrogance, perhaps, would be the better word, for it is not the pride of a high-minded, honorable man, as will make him callous what ties he rends, or what sacred altars he may trample down to serve his own ambitious views. Besides, Jane, I never yet knew any true happiness to result from unequal marriages ”

“ In the days of their youth, when the freshness of their young lives should have been given to better and holier ends, the parents of Penn Eccleson looked forward only to the aggrandizement of themselves and children, through the potent influence of money; and to this end they toiled and delved in the service of Mammon, with a bondage almost equal to that of the gold-seeking maniac amid the mountain fastnesses of California, denying themselves all the luxuries, and most of the comforts of life to swell the hoard of avarice, and feed their ill-directed ambition. ”

“ With her little hands clasped upon her bosom, and her eyes gazing almost wildly into his, did Annette listen to the words of her heartless, selfish husband. But there was no resentment, no anger visible in her sweet face; with a sigh which would have moved any heart but his, she said,
“I am grieved to hear you speak so, dear Penn; nothing can ever make me forgetful of the ties of nature; you yourself would despise me, if, through the allurements of wealth and fashion, I could be brought to forget those who gave me being. ”

“ The spirits of youth are elastic, and after great pressure will naturally rebound. ‘Hope on, hope ever,’ is a maxim seldom forgotten until age has chilled the blood and palsied the powers of life. After a few days spent in brooding over the present, Paul again looked forward to the future, and determined to seek some other avenue by which he might gather up a little, just a little, of the treasure which others possessed in such abundance. ”

“ He took the flowers from his wife, and looking mournfully upon them, said, ‘When we cross the waters to visit my native land, we will take with us some of your precious roses, beloved, and beautify my mother’s silent home; and now,’ he continued, twining his arm round her waist, and leading her to the harp, ‘sing me that little song I wrote while yet a student in old Rome.’ Pressing her lips upon his brow, Carlotta seated herself, and sung the song, which she had set to music. The air was soft and melancholy, and the sweet tones of the singer were tremulous with emotion. ”

“ He was willing to toil, to endure privation and fatigue, could he but visit that land where heavenly beauty is depicted on the canvas, where the marble wants but the clasp of him of old to warm it into life, and where the soft blue of the sky, and the delicious atmosphere brooding over the glories of centuries gone by, make it the Mecca of the artist’s heart. ”

“ Paul Talbot is in the city of wonders. Ivy-girdled ruins of the time-embalming Past are lying in the distance. Lofty cathedrals, rich in votive offerings of surpassing magnificence, surround him on every side. Stately palaces, their long galleries filled with the noblest works of the mighty minds of old, are baring their treasures to his gaze. The ‘dew-dropping coolness’ of the marble fountain, breathes new vigor into his frame. ”

“ Eternities are in his mind, and all the vast concerns of angels and of men are before him; and yet for one city, one erring city, one little spot upon the great map of the universe, he fixes his eyes, and over its fate he weeps tears of earthly sorrow—weeps not that one stone of the temple shall not be left upon the other—weeps not that all the monuments of his nation’s glory shall be wasted, and that the ploughshare of the infidel shall upturn the sacred soil. ”

“ Good God! the misery, and wretchedness, and grinding poverty, deadening to the heart, which exist in large cities, within ken of opulence, of luxury and of splendor! O! could the voice of these wretched throngs be heard, in its collected wailing, what a cry of despairful agony would go up to the throne of the Everlasting! Dead souls in living sepulchres, stalking their gloomy round of poverty, neglect and wo—uneducated, ungodly, famine-stricken—what hope is there for them in this world, and, word of horror, what in the next! ”

“ She had never seen consumption in any of its varied and sometimes beautiful forms. She knew not that the eye could retain its lustre, that the cheek could glow with more than its usual brightness, that the heart could be lured by a false hope, until, like a red leaf of the forest, dropping suddenly from the topmost bough, the doomed one fell, stricken down in an unthought of moment by the stern destroyer.
“One morning, when Paul had remained much longer than usual in his apartment, Carlotta sought him for the purpose of whiling him abroad. ”

“ None but those who have experienced it can form an idea of the thrill of delight with which each man on board of a cruiser, in time of war, hears the cry “sail ho!” which ensures the excitement of a chase, and the probability of an engagement.
Long before the hull of the stranger was visible from the deck, her spars and sails, enveloped in the mist, in their shadowy outline seemed of gigantic size. Like a shapeless cloud rather than a thing of art, she came down before the breeze, now and then the mist, in fantastic wreaths, half concealing, half betraying her form and character. ”

“ I am sure I shall not sleep unless I see them to-night.”
“Nonsense, Annette,” replied Eccleson; “you are no longer a child, I hope, to be thus sighing and whining after your mother; really I am quite ashamed of my little wife! Come, I will myself show you to your dressing-room; you have not yet seen the splendid diamonds I have for you, nor the elegant trousseau my sisters have prepared. Come, Annette,” and encircling her slender waist with his arm, he would have led her from the room. ”

“ Do not frown, dear mother, my queen; but I cannot help thinking of the loving hearts, and beautiful women, and tender babes that perished in Grenada. They were infidels, but they had human hearts; they loved, and were beloved, and, oh, what bitter sundering of holy ties was in that devoted city. I cannot rejoice in such dreadful victory; I dare not thank our merciful Father in Heaven that he has permitted our armies to inflict such a vast amount of misery, not only on our armed foes, but on their helpless and innocent families.”
The queen’s countenance was troubled ”

“ Then gushed in clamorous torrents the bitter waters of envy, hatred, and detraction; but Isabella heeded not their clamors, but awaited with hope and exultation the arrival of her protégé.
At length a triumphant train approached the city. Loud shouts swelled up to heaven from the excited multitudes; the city poured out her torrents of living creatures to meet the mighty man who had wrested a world from the untraversed ocean floods.
The monarchs, in their most glorious apparel, sat upon their throne in the magnificently furnished reception hall of their palace home. ”

“ I am like a strong eagle, longing to scale the pinnacle of a lofty mountain, but bound by a heavy chain in a dark and miry valley, I am wearing out my life in a vain effort to spread my shackled pinions to the glorious sunlight. Let your royal bounty remove these shackles, give me the means, and say to me go, explore the ocean, discover new worlds, and take possession in the name of Isabella, the illustrious queen of Castile. ”

“ Those vast tides of human life what are they to him? He is but a drop in a wave of the mighty ocean—but a pebble thrown upon the sand—a broken link in the great chain of the Universe. Thus felt Paul, as on one of the loveliest days of laughing June, he wended his way to the office where he had left a manuscript to be examined by the publisher. ”

“ Talent is strength and subtlety of mind, genius is mental inspiration and delicacy of feeling. Talent possesses vigor and acuteness of penetration, but is surpassed by the vivid intellectual conceptions of genius. The former is skillful and bold, the latter aspiring and gentle; but talent excels in practical sagacity, and hence those striking contrasts so often witnessed in the world, the triumph of talent through its adroit and active energies, and the adversities of genius in the midst of its boundless but unattainable aspirations. ”

“ All was wonder, admiration and delight, except in the black habitations of envy and murderous hate. But Columbus had achieved his triumph—he had discovered a new world; he had triumphed over the malice of his enemies, he had won for himself an imperishable fame; but he laid all his glories at the feet of his royal patroness, Isabella of Castile, without whose aid the mighty soul of enterprise would have worn itself out in vain endeavors to spread its glorious pinions. Oh, that every mighty mind could find an Isabella. ”