Various

“ Dear generous mamma! She would not hear of my staying with her and giving up Edgar; nor would she listen to what he was noble enough to propose, that he should abandon his profession and come and live at the Hazels, rather than that I should feel I was tampering with my duty, for his sake, dear fellow!"
And the tears stood in Catherine's eyes.
"Nothing I could say would make her listen to it. I could hardly be sorry for Edgar's sake. I knew what a sacrifice it would be upon his part—more than a woman ought to accept from a lover, I think—a man in his dotage, as one may say. ”

“ And then such a sweet picture of happiness presented itself to tempt her—Catherine settled there—settled there forever. That handsome, lively young man, with his sweet, cordial ways and polite observance of every one, sitting by their hearth, and talking, as he did, to the general of old days and military matters, the only subject in which this aged military man took any interest, reading the newspaper to him, and making such lively, pleasant comments as he read! How should she ever get through the debates, with her breath so short, and her voice so indistinct and low? ”

“ The majestic cathedral of Milan is a monument of the noble architectural taste of Valentina's father. In the midst of donjons and fortress-palaces it rose, an embodiment of the refining influence of religion; bearing in many respects a likeness to the fair and innocent being whose fortunes we are about to narrate, and who assisted at its foundation. The progress of the building was slow; it was not till a more magnificent usurper than any of the Visconti assumed the iron-crown of Lombardy, in our own generation, that the general design of the Duomo of Milan was completed. ”

“ The other details of an execution were hurried over with all the speed of practiced address, and the figure was placed beneath the drop. Down fell the ax, and Gougon, lifting up the wooden head, paraded it about the scaffold, crying,
"Behold! an enemy of France. Long live the republic, one and 'indivisible.'"
Loud and wild were the shouts of laughter from this brutal mockery; and for a time it almost seemed as if the ribaldry had turned the mob from the sterner passions of their vengeance. This hope, if one there ever cherished it, was short-lived; and again the cry arose for blood. ”

“ It is pleasant to observe how it penetrates through the coldness and awkwardness of society, gradually bringing men nearer together, and, like the combined force of wine and oil, giving every man a glad heart and a shining countenance. Genuine and innocent wit like this, is surely the flavor of the mind! Man could direct his ways by plain reason, and support his life by tasteless food; but God has given us wit, and flavor, and brightness, and laughter, and perfumes, to enliven the days of man's pilgrimage, and to "charm his pained steps over the burning marl." ”

“ What has made thy heart so sore as to come and cry a-this-ons? Speak and tell me. Nay, cry on, poor wench, if thou canst not speak yet. It will ease the heart, and then thou canst tell me."
"Nanny is dead!" said Susan. "I left her to go to father, and she fell down stairs, and never breathed again. Oh, that's my sorrow but I've more to tell. Her mother is come—is in our house. Come and see if it's your Lizzie." Mrs. Leigh could not speak, but, trembling, put on her things, and went with Susan in dizzy haste back to Crown-street. ”

“ But you'll want a new gown and a new shawl, my dear, though, indeed, you can always take mine, as you did this morning."
"Now, Myra!" said Lettice, "can you really be so naughty? Nay, you are cross; I see it in your face, though you won't look at me. Now don't be so foolish. Is it not all the same to us both? Are we not in one box? If you wish for the new bonnet, take it, and I'll take yours: I don't care, my dear. You were always used to be more handsomely dressed than me—it must seem quite odd for you not to be so. ”

“ This is the reverse of the pleasing picture drawn by the poet of the Eastern woman's existence—but, though less pleasing, it is true—nor need we describe her in the lower ranks of life in those countries, where, her beauty faded, she has to pass a wearisome existence, the servant of a rival, whose youthful charms have supplanted her in her master's affections. The calm happiness of advancing age is seldom hers—she is the toy while young—the slave, or the neglected servant, at best, when, her only merit in the eyes of her master, physical beauty, is gone. ”

“ Before the wild daffodils were in flower in the sheltered copses round Upclose Farm, the Leighs were settled in their Manchester home; if they could ever grow to consider that place as a home, where there was no garden, or outbuilding, no fresh breezy outlet, no far-stretching view, over moor and hollow—no dumb animals to be tended, and, what more than all they missed, no old haunting memories, even though those remembrances told of sorrow, and the dead and gone. ”

“ I believe it is what you would pay if you had them done at the schools."
"Threepence, fourpence, ninepence! Good Heavens!" cried Catherine; "so beautifully done as these are; and then your needles and thread, you have made no charge for them."
"We pay for those ourselves," said Lettice.
"But my dear," said Mrs. Danvers, "what Catherine would have to pay for this work, if bought from a linen warehouse, would at least be fifteen pence, and not nearly so well done, for these are beautiful. Come, you must ask eighteen pence; there are six of them; nine shillings, my dear." ”

“ The splendor which surrounds us is only a mockery. The rajah, wearied and worn out by a life of debauchery, takes no longer any pleasure in our society, and is only roused from his lethargy to inflict disgrace and cruelties upon us. We, who are of Brahmin caste, for his amusement, are forced to learn the work of men—are made to carry in the gardens of the hareem a palanquin, to work as goldsmiths—and, may our gods pardon us, to mingle with the dancing-girls of the bazaar. ”

“ I wish, after all I have said about wit and humor, I could satisfy myself of their good effects upon the character and disposition; but I am convinced the probable tendency of both is, to corrupt the understanding and the heart. I am not speaking of wit where it is kept down by more serious qualities of mind, and thrown into the background of the picture; but where it stands out boldly and emphatically, and is evidently the master quality in any particular mind. Professed wits, though they are generally courted for the amusement they afford, are seldom respected for the qualities they possess. ”

“ Day by day they had seen the vacant places left by those led out to die, and if their sorrows had not rendered them careless of life, the world itself had grown distasteful to them. In some cases a spirit of proud scorn was manifested to the very last; and, strange inconsistency of human nature! the very men whose licentiousness and frivolity first evoked the terrible storm of popular fury, were the first to display the most chivalrous courage in the terrible face of the guillotine. Beautiful women, too, in all the pride of their loveliness, met the inhuman stare of that mob undismayed. ”

“ Taking her life and her works together, their action and re-action upon each other, it may be observed that such a writer could be produced and fostered only in such a state of society as that of Paris. With all her genius she would perish in London. The moral atmosphere of France is necessary alike to its culture and reception—the volcanic soil—the perpetual excitement—the instability of the people and the government—the eternal turmoil, caprice, and transition—a society agitated and polluted to its core. ”

“ God calls all the passions out in their keenness and vigor for the present safety of mankind. Anger, and revenge, and the heroic mind, and a readiness to suffer; all the secret strength, all the invisible array of the feelings, all that nature has reserved for the great scenes of the world. For the usual hopes and the common aids of man are all gone! Kings have perished, armies are subdued, nations mouldered away! Nothing remains, under God, but those passions which have often proved the best ministers of His vengeance, and the surest protectors of the world. ”

“ From that hour forth, the child looked out upon the star as on the Home he was to go to, when his time should come; and he thought that he did not belong to the earth alone, but to the star too, because of his sister's angel gone before.
There was a baby born to be a brother to the child; and while he was so little that he never yet had spoken word, he stretched his tiny form out on his bed, and died.
Again the child dreamed of the opened star, and of the company of angels, and the train of people, and the rows of angels with their beaming eyes all turned upon those people's faces. ”

“ In the bedrooms of the cottager, the artisan, and the small tradesman, the infant at its mother's side too often awoke, like Milton's nightingale, "darkling"—but that "nocturnal note" was something different from "harmonious numbers." The mother was soon on her feet; the friendly tinder-box was duly sought. Click, click, click; not a spark tells upon the sullen blackness. More rapidly does the flint ply the sympathetic steel. The room is bright with the radiant shower. But the child, familiar enough with the operation, is impatient at its tediousness, and shouts till the mother is frantic. ”

“ I know the pious creatures, of old. Nothing they hate like a poor old veteran, with a naughty word or two in his mouth now and then. Never talk to me, Catherine, I can't abide such cattle."
"Dearest papa, what a picture you do draw! just to frighten yourself. Why, Lettice Arnold is only about nineteen, I believe; and though she's not particularly pretty, she's the pleasantest-looking creature you ever saw. And as for bemoaning herself over her neighbors' sins, I'll be bound she's not half such a Methodist as Randall."
"Randall is a very pious, good woman, I'd have you to know, Miss Catherine." ”

“ Accomplishments of mind and manner, by the way, are indefinite things; any body may put in a claim for them on the part of any one. As for the more positive acquirements which are to be seen, handled, or heard and appreciated—such as dancing, music, languages, and so forth, Myra had as slender a portion of those as usually falls to the lot of indulged, idle, nervous girls. The poor beauty felt all the bitterness of the deepest mortification at what she considered this cruel contrast of her fate as compared to Catherine's. ”

“ The poor mistress bore all this with patience for some time. She would have gone on bearing the roughness and the noise, however disagreeable, as long as Randall liked; but her soft heart could not bear those glum, cross looks, and this alarming silence.
"I was thinking of Miss Catherine's marriage, Randall. That was what made me forget the hour. What shall I do without her?"
"Yes, that's just like it," said the insolent abigail; "nothing ever can content some people. Most ladies would be glad to settle their daughters so well; but some folk make a crying matter of every thing. ”

“ It is possible I should have gone on to the very end, if the uproarious laughter which rung around had not stopped me.
"There's a brave youth!" cried Gougon, pointing toward me, with mock admiration. "If it ever come to pass—as what may not in these strange times?—that we turn to priest-craft again, thou shalt be the first archbishop of Paris. Who taught thee that famous canticle?"
"The Père Michel," replied I, in no way conscious of the ridicule bestowed upon me; "the Père Michel of St. Blois." ”

“ Yet it was here, and under the immediate eye of her father, this very Giovanni-Galeazzo, that Valentina Visconti, one of the most amiable female characters of history, passed the early days of her eventful life. As the naturalist culls a wild flower from the brink of the volcano, the historian of the dynasty of Milan pauses to contemplate her pure and graceful character, presenting itself among the tyrants, poisoners, murderers, and infidels who founded the power and amassed the wealth of her family. ”

“ But in Tuscany, for many generations, a spirit of free discussion has existed among the educated classes: the reforming spirit of Ricci has never died in the capital of Tuscany, and the memory of Leopold protected the freedom of thought: a sudden and a new value has been given to that prepared state of the Tuscan mind by the existence of free institutions in Piedmont. Giusti will no longer need to traverse the frontier of Italy in search of a printer. With free discussion in two of the Italian states, Milan will not be deaf, nor Naples without a whisper. ”

“ But why did not his friends, if weary of sustaining their kinsman stricken by the arrows of the Almighty, suffer him to perish in a beggars' mad-house? Would he had died in a ditch rather than this shadow had darkened over his grave! Burns was more fortunate in his death than Cowper: he lived self-supported to the end. Glorious hearted Burns! Noble, but unfortunate Cowper!
Burns was one of the few poets fit to be seen. It has been asserted that genius is a disease—the malady of physical inferiority. ”