Various

“ Throughout the summer months the pie trade flourishes with unabated vigor. Each successive fruit, as it ripens and comes to market, adds a fresh impetus to the traffic. As autumn waxes every week supplies a new attraction and a delicious variety; as it wanes into winter, a good store of apples are laid up for future use; and so soon as Jack Frost sets his cold toes upon the pavement, the delicate odor of mince-meat assails the passer-by, and reminds him that Christmas is coming, and that the pieman is ready for him. It is only in the early spring that the pie-shop is under a temporary cloud. ”

“ Harley—"Man of sense! Where shall I find a model? I don't know a man of sense!—never met such a creature. Don't believe it ever existed. At one time I thought Socrates must have been a man of sense;—a delusion; he would stand gazing into the air, and talking to his Genius from sunrise to sunset. Is that like a man of sense? Poor Audley, how puzzled he looks! Well, I'll try and talk sense to oblige you. And first— (here Harley raised himself on his elbow) —first, is it true, as I have heard vaguely, that you are paying court to the sister of that infamous Italian traitor?" ”

“ And I will do it; every hour gives me more strength. I see the end nearer and nearer—it grows upon me. I awaken to my business early; it is my first thought—my last; it never leaves me. Day after day I have watched you, and have tracked you home at last. And here it is you live—you, Astræa, whom I loved—whom I still—no, not that! You live here with him—his wife! You call yourself his wife? Ha! ha! That is good—his wife! I wonder to see you living, Astræa. I should have looked for your corpse in this room rather than the living Astræa—the proud, soaring, ambitious Astræa! Why do you not die? ”

“ Our almighty-browed and cavernous-eyed statesmen sit, heroically, on the safety-valve, and the mighty ark of our vast Empire of the West moves on at a pressure on the square inch which would rend into shivers the rotten boiler-plates of your outworn states of the Old World.
To use a phrase which the refined manners of our ladies have banished from the drawing-room, and the saloon of the boarding-house, we go ahead. And our progress is the progress of all—not of high and low, for we have abolished the odious distinction—but of man, woman, and child, each in his or her several sphere. ”

“ I neither could tell the date of Napoleon's passing St. Gothard, nor the amount of his force; neither knew I whether he meant to turn eastward toward the plains of Lombardy, or march direct to the relief of Genoa. Of Moreau's success in Germany, too, I had only heard vaguely; and, of course, could recount nothing. I could overhear, occasionally, around and about me, the murmurs of dissatisfaction my ignorance called forth, and was not a little grateful to an old artillery captain for saying "That's the very best thing about the lad; a spy would have had his whole lesson by heart." ”

“ It is astonishing how Leonard had altered since he had left his uncle's. He was both younger and older; for the sense of genius, when it snaps its shackles, makes us both older and wiser as to the world it soars to—younger and blinder as to the world it springs from.
"And it is not a very handsome city either, you say?"
"Very ugly, indeed," said Helen, with some fervor; "at least all I have seen of it."
"But there must be parts that are prettier than others? You say there are parks; why should not we lodge near them, and look upon the green trees?" ”

“ Save us, O Pele?"
Toleho darted from the crowd, and stood beside her. His stately form was drawn up to its full height; from his shoulders hung a splendid mantle of green and scarlet feathers; his right arm was extended, and in it he held a small book.
"Oani! beloved Oani!" he exclaimed; "call not upon Pele to save you. There is but one Saviour, and to know Him is life."
"Recreant," cried the khan, "you have forsaken the great goddess yourself, and you would now draw away her priestess." ”

“ And youth feels so glorious a vigor in the sense of its own strength, though the world be before and—against it! Removed from that chilling counting-house—from the imperious will of a patron and master—all friendless, but all independent—the young adventurer felt a new being—felt his grand nature as Man. And on the Man rushed the genius long interdicted—and thrust aside—rushing back, with the first breath of adversity to console—no! ”

“ If there be such a deity as Pele, is she worthy of your adoration? Is she not ever busy in works of mischief—destroying the people, devastating our hills, and filling up our fruitful valleys with floods of lava? Are they not cruel gods, who even require human sacrifices? Could such beings have created that bright pure sky over our heads, or that glorious sun which sends light and heat to ripen our corn and our fruit? No! The Creator of all must be good, as well as great—an object of love as well as of fear. ”

“ She had, to a high degree, the air of dignity, I had almost said of graceful elegance, which characterizes the aristocracy of the island; and, when she bade me welcome, the tones of her voice and the contour of her features seemed familiar. "Oani!" thought I; "Oani, a wife and a mother. Poor Toleho! So much for woman's constancy." But I wronged her—I wronged that sex who, if inferior in other things, surpass us in depth and unchangeableness of affection. We entered the sitting-room; her husband rose to receive me—it was Toleho. ”

“ Men are now in their hearts so conscious of this, that when they hear of instances of disconnection between genius and virtue, it is with a start of surprise and horror; and we believe that though all the men of genius who ever lived had been tainted with vice, still the thoughtful would have been slow of drawing the horrible inference, that the brightest and most divine-seeming power in the human mind was a fiend in the garb of a radiant angel, and would have sought elsewhere for the real solution of the problem. ”

“ But even in the depth of this undiminished feeling of sorrow, we must acknowledge that no writer, save Milton and Wordsworth, has done so much in our country to restore the genuine respectability, and to proclaim the true mission of literature. In his hands and on his eloquent tongue it appears no idle toy for the amusement of the lovesick or the trifling—no mere excitement—but a profound, as well as beautiful reality—to be attested, if necessary, by a martyr's tears and blood, and at all events by the life and conversation of an honest and virtuous man. ”

“ If there is a being in the world worthy of our envy, after we have grown wise philosophers of the fireside, it is not the palled voluptuary, nor the care-worn statesman, nor even the great prince of arts and letters, already crowned with the laurel, whose leaves are as fit for poison as for garlands; it is the young child of adventure and hope. Ay, and the emptier his purse, ten to one but the richer his heart, and the wider the domains which his fancy enjoys as he goes on with kingly step to the Future. ”

“ As if the great Trafalgar signal had been suddenly displayed from the top of the Grand Stand, every man proceeds to do his duty. The weaker spirits, who were ashamed to set the great example, follow it instantly, and all around me there are table-cloths, pies, chickens, hams, tongues, rolls, lettuces, radishes, shell-fish, broad-bottomed bottles, clinking glasses, and carriages turned inside out. Amid the hum of voices a bell rings. What's that? What's the matter? They are clearing the course. Never mind. Try the pigeon-pie. A roar. What's the matter? It's only the dog upon the course. ”

“ And as if the outstretched finger of the dwarf had been the wand of a magician, the great cloud was suddenly torn open with a crash, and the rain descended like a deluge, swept along by a hurricane wind, and came in vast sheets of water, while high over our heads, and moving onward toward the sea 367 growled the distant thunder. The great mountain was now visible from base to summit, but not a soldier, not a gun to be seen! Swollen and yellow, the gushing torrents leaped madly from crag to crag, and crashing trees, and falling rocks, added their wild sounds to the tumult. ”

“ Great is the power of Pele. My daughter, you are her priestess; and, though you flung yourself from that shelving rock on which you stand, into the gulf below, Pele could save you." He was now in a state of frenzy. "She could and she would save you; prove to them her power."
"I will, I will," cried the unfortunate girl. "And I want her not to save me if she can. Toleho forsakes me, and I wish not for life." ”

“ Astræa's health was utterly broken. It was not her physique that died, but her heart, her spirits, her self-reliance, and her hope of the future. She felt that there was nothing for her in this world but remorse. The desolation that was round her killed her. She braved it earnestly at first. Her noble heart and her true love she thought were proof against the world and its hollow scorn. Alas! for true love and noble hearts! They can not stand up alone in ice and storms. ”

“ With some difficulty Leonard pacified poor Mrs. Fairfield, and got her to retire to bed; for she was, indeed, thoroughly exhausted. He then stepped forth into the road, musingly. All the stars were out; and Youth, in its troubles, instinctively looks up to the stars. Folding his arms, Leonard gazed on the heavens, and his lips murmured.
From this trance, for so it might be called, he was awakened by a voice in a decidedly London accent; and, turning hastily round, saw Mr. Avenel's very gentlemanlike butler. Leonard's first idea was that his uncle had repented, and sent in search of him. ”

“ The broad and tranquil waters of the Southampton and Itchen rivers—bounded in the far distance by the New Forest, with its wavy masses 379 of varying light and shade, and on the left by the leafy woods, from out of which I often think the gray ruins of the old abbey must in these days look grimly and spectre-like forth upon the teeming, restless life which mocks its hoary solitude—were at the full of a spring tide. ”

“ With daylight the view from this terrace, for such it was in reality, would have been magnificent, for even now, in the darkness, we could track out the great thoroughfares of the city, follow the windings of the bay and harbor, and, by the lights on board, detect the fleet as it lay at anchor. To the left, and for many a mile, as it seemed, were seen twinkling the bivouac fires of the Austrian army; while, directly above our heads, glittering like a red star, shone the solitary gleam that marked out the "Monte Faccio." ”

“ Poor Oani had neither ability nor inclination for controversial disquisitions. When her lover tried to lay before her the truths which had influenced him to the change she deplored, a knowledge of which would enable her to appreciate his motives, she would only weep, and say, "Toleho, I am sad—sleep has gone from me, and my food has lost its sweetness. If you do not worship Pele, her priestess must try not to love you. No more may I sing for you when you are weary; no more gather summer fruits to refresh you; nor bind sweet flowers in a chaplet for your brow." ”

“ Egerton resumed, as if in explanation, and even in kindly apology—
"Look at Lord L'Estrange himself. What young man could come into life with brighter auspices? Rank, wealth, high animal spirits (a great advantage those same spirits, Mr. Leslie) , courage, self-possession, scholarship as brilliant perhaps as your own; and now see how his life is wasted! Why? He always thought fit to think for himself. He could never be broken in to harness, and never will be. ”

“ How mysterious the designs of that inscrutable Providence, which, in the island of Corsica, under the sunny skies of the Mediterranean, was thus rearing a Napoleon, and far away, beneath the burning sun of the tropics, under the shade of the cocoa groves and orange-trees of the West Indies, was moulding the person and ennobling the affections of the beautiful and lovely Josephine. It was by a guidance, which neither of these children sought, that they were conducted from their widely separated and obscure homes to the metropolis of France. ”

“ Such was the school in which Napoleon was trained. The writings of Voltaire and Rousseau had taught France, that the religion of Jesus Christ was but a fable; that the idea of accountability at the bar of God was a foolish superstition; that death was a sleep from which there was no awaking; that life itself, aimless and objectless, was so worthless a thing that it was a matter of most trivial importance how soon its vapor should pass away. These peculiarities in the education of Napoleon must be taken into account in forming a correct estimate of his character. ”