Various

“ We had paid Moritz Retzsch the involuntary compliment, of forgetting the celebrity of the artist, in the warmth of our admiration of the man. The gate was closed, and we were driving [Pg 513] rapidly toward Dresden—the scenery softened and mellowed by the gray and purply tone which follows a golden sunset. Yes, we felt as if we had parted from a friend; and surely the sacred lovingness we bear to those—honored though unseen—who have been as friends within our homes, dispersing by the power of their genius all trace, for a time, of the fret and turmoil of the busy world; soothing our sorrows ”

“ But Riccabocca was now looking again at the letter, and did not notice either the gesture or the remark of his servant.
"My aunt is no more!" said he, after a pause.
"We will pray for her soul!" answered Jackeymo, solemnly. "But she was very old, and had been a long time ailing. Let it not grieve the Padrone too keenly: at that age, and with those infirmities, death comes as a friend."
"Peace be to her dust!" returned the Italian. "If she had her faults, be they now forgotten forever; and in the hour of my danger and distress, she sheltered my infant! That shelter is destroyed. ”

“ Beneath the tób, truth allows a beautiful bud-burstiness of bosom; yet I swear, by John Bunyan, nothing so aggravating as the Howadji beholds in saloons unnamable nearer the Hudson than the Nile. This brilliant cloud, whose spirit was Kushuk Arnem, our gay Ghazeeyah, gathered itself upon a divan, and she inhaled vigorously a nargileh. A damsel in tób and shintyan exhaling azure clouds of aromatic smoke, had not been displeasing to that Persian poet, for whose coming I had prayed too late.
But more welcome than he, came the still-eyed Xenobi. She entered timidly like a bird. ”

“ But the musical Howadji will find a fearful void in his Eastern life. The Asiatic has no ear, and no soul for music. Like other savages and children, he loves a noise, and he plays on shrill pipes—on the tarabuka, on the tár, or tambourine, and a sharp, one-stringed fiddle, or rabáb. Of course, in your first Oriental days, you will decline no invitation, but you will grow gradually deaf to all entreaties of friends, or dragomen, to sally forth and hear music. You will remind him that you did not come to the East to go to Bedlam. ”

“ When I looked I saw Dick Jackson holding her hand, and speaking quick, and low, and thick, as a man speaks in great vehemence. She seemed white and dismayed; but all at once, at some word of his (and what it was she never would tell me) , she looked as though she defied a fiend, and wrenched herself out of his grasp. He caught hold of her again, and began once more the thick whisper that I loathed. I could bear it no longer, nor did I see why I should. ”

“ Riccabocca, how am I to answer him?"
"You should have thought of that before," said Mr. Dale, with unwonted asperity; "and, indeed, if I had ever believed any thing serious could come out of what seemed to me so absurd, I should long since have requested you not to interfere in such matters." "Good heavens!" continued the Parson, changing color, "if we should have assisted, underhand as it were, to introduce into the family of a man to whom we owe so much, a connection that he would dislike! how base we should be! how ungrateful!" ”

“ Riccabocca looked up at the sound of the young peasant's step.
"I beg your honor's pardon—I did not know—"
"Never mind; lay the book there. I wish to speak with you. You look well, my child; this air agrees with you as well as that of Hazeldean?"
"Oh, yes, sir."
"Yet it is higher ground, more exposed?"
"That can hardly be, sir," said Lenny; "there are many plants grow here which don't flourish at the Squire's. The hill yonder keeps off the east wind, and the place lays to the south." ”

“ Riccabocca, as that same peasant. He can endure a good deal of contumely sometimes, it is true, from his superiors, (though, thank Heaven! that he rarely meets with unjustly) ; but to be looked down upon, and mocked, and pointed at by his own equals—his own little world—cuts him to the soul. And if you can succeed in breaking this pride, and destroying this sensitiveness, then he is a lost being. He can never recover his self-esteem, and you have chucked him half way—a stolid, inert, sullen victim—to the perdition of the prison or the convict-ship. ”

“ Those who remember Chapelizod a quarter of a century ago, or more, may possibly recollect the parish sexton. Bob Martin was held much in awe by truant boys who sauntered into the church-yard on Sundays, to read the tombstones, or play leap-frog over them, or climb the ivy in search of bats or sparrows' nests, or peep into the mysterious aperture under the eastern window, which opened a dim perspective of descending steps losing themselves among profounder darkness, where lidless coffins gaped horribly among tattered velvet, bones, and dust, which time and mortality had strewn there. ”

“ The air is hot to breathe; the walls, the rafters, are scorched, and if the ordeal last much longer, all will soon be in a blaze. The goaded creature becomes maddened and desperate, and is striving to burst its prison; while above it a molten metal sea, seething and fiery, is heaving with its ponderous weight against the caldron's sides!
Lest it be thought this picture is too highly colored, or that it owes any thing to the imagination for its interest, let us look into the foundry of Munich, and see what was going on there at midnight on the 11th of October 1845. ”

“ The parish church was at Bolton, far enough away to serve as an excuse for all who did not care to go. I heard Nelly's sobs filling up every pause in the clergyman's voice; and every sob of hers went to my heart. She passed me on her way out of the church-yard; she was so near I might have touched her; but her head was hanging down, and I durst not speak to her. Then the question arose, what was to become of her? She must earn her living; was it to be as a farm-servant, or by working at the mill? I knew enough of both kinds of life to make me tremble for her. ”

“ But Miss Jemima is so soft: any one could live with Miss Jemima, as Joe and the servants say at the Hall."
"Indeed! Get my hat out of the parlor, and—just bring a clothes-brush, Lenny. A fine sunny day for a walk."
After this most mean and dishonorable inquisition into the character and popular repute of Miss Hazeldean, Signore Riccabocca seemed as much cheered up and elated as if he had committed some very noble action; and he walked forth in the direction of the Hall with a far lighter and livelier step than that with which he had paced the terrace. ”

“ Xenobi was perhaps sixteen years old, and a fully developed woman; Kushuk Arnem, of some half-dozen summers more. Kushuk was unhennaed; but the younger, as younger maidens may, graced herself with the genial gifts of nature. Her delicate filbert nails were rosily tinted on the tips with henna, and those peddler poets meeting her in Paradise would have felt the reason of their chant, "Odors of Paradise, O flowers of the henna!" But she had no kohl upon the eyelashes, nor like Fatima of Damascus, whom the Howadji later saw, were her eyebrows shaved and replaced by thick, black arches of kohl. ”

“ The Howadji seated themselves orientally upon the divan of honor. To sit as Westerns sit is impossible upon a divan. There is some mysterious necessity for crossing the legs; and this Howadji never sees a tailor now in lands civilized, but the dimness of Eastern rooms and bazaars, the flowingness of robe, and the coiled splendor of the turban, and a world reclining leisurely at ease, rise distinct and dear in his mind—like that Sicilian mirage seen on divine days from Naples—but fleet as fair. To most men a tailor is the most unsuggestive of mortals ”

“ Again the bold man determined to seek the monster; again he vanished, and his musket shot roared from the recesses of the rock. Up he was whirled; but this time, the bear, streaming with gore, and furious with pain, rushed after him, and with a mighty bound, cleared the confines of the cavern! A hasty and harmless volley was fired, while the bear glared round as if undecided upon which of the group to wreak his vengeance. Tom, the hunter, coolly raised his piece, but snap! no spark followed the blow of the hammer! ”

“ Buenos Ayres had not supported Lavalle as it ought to have done, nevertheless it inclosed within its walls a goodly number of men who, though they had indeed reason to manifest indifference for the Unitarian government, were too enlightened not to feel a bitter regret for their own culpable weakness. It was as a fire smouldering within the city, which sooner or later would not fail to burst forth into a flame. Rosas comprehended this movement, and bethought himself of the means of stifling it in the bud. It was then that he founded the famous popular society of the mashorca. ”

“ The melancholy monotony of this singing in unison, harmonized with the vague feelings of that first Nile night. The simplicity of the words became the perpetual childishness of the men, so that it was not ludicrous. It was clearly the music and words of a race just better than the brutes. If a poet could translate into sound the expression of a fine dog's face, or that of a meditative cow, the Howadji would fancy that he heard Nile music. For, after all, that placid and perfect animal expression would be melancholy humanity. ”

“ He seized my mother, and pointing a loaded pistol at her breast, cried, "The woman! We want the woman!"
At this moment Madeline, being exactly over the trap-door, heard a slight rustle underneath; and fearing that it would betray the stranger's hiding-place, endeavored to drown the noise from below by stamping with her foot, while she boldly replied, "I have no one to give up to you."
"Well, then, you shall see how it fares with those who dare to resist us!" roared one of the infuriated mob. Tearing off her vail, he seized Madeline by the hair, and pulled her to the ground. ”

“ This want of music is not strange, for silence is natural to the East and the tropics. When, sitting quietly at home, in midsummer, sweeping ever sunward in the growing heats, we at length reach the tropics in the fixed fervor of a July noon, the day is rapt, the birds are still, the wind swoons, and the burning sun glares silence on the world.
[Pg 492]
The Orient is that primeval and perpetual noon. That very heat explains to you the voluptuous elaboration of its architecture, the brilliance of its costume, the picturesqueness of its life. ”

“ Jemima, strange as it may appear, had never once suspected the Captain of any other feelings to her than those of a brother. To say that she was not gratified by learning her mistake, would be to say that she was more than woman. Indeed, it must have been a source of no ignoble triumph to think that she could prove her disinterested affection to her dear Riccabocca, by a prompt rejection of this more brilliant offer. ”

“ In the East, you feel and see music, but hear it never.
Yet, in Cairo and Damascus the poets sit at the cafés, surrounded by the forms and colors of their songs, and recite the romances of the Arabian Nights, or of Aboo Zeyd, or of Antar, with no other accompaniment than the tár, or the rabáb, then called the "Poet's Viol," and in the same monotonous strain. Sometimes the single strain is touching, as when on our way to Jerusalem, the too-enamored camel-driver, leading the litter of the fair Armenian, saddened the silence of the desert noon with a Syrian song. ”

“ Then timid but not tremulous, the young Xenobi arose bare-footed, and danced the same dance, not with the finished skill of Kushuk, but gracefully and well, and with her eyes fixed constantly upon the elder. With the same regular throb of the muscles she advanced and retreated, and the Paradise-pavilioned prophet could not have felt his heavenly harem complete, had he sat smoking and entranced with the Howadji.
Form so perfect was never yet carved in marble; not the Venus is so mellowly moulded. ”

“ This was Egyptian Polyhymnia preluding Terpsichore.
TERPSICHORE.
"The wind is fair
The boat is in the bay,
And the fair mermaid Pilot calls away—"
Kushuk Arnem quaffed a goblet of hemp arrack. The beaker was passed to the upper divan, and the Howadji sipping, found it to smack of anniseed. It was strong enough for the Pharaohs to have imbibed—even for Herod before beholding Herodias, for these dances are the same. This dancing is more ancient than Aboo Simbel. In the land of the Pharaohs, the Howadji saw the dancing they saw, as uncouth as the temples they built. ”

“ Riccabocca renewed, "The priest recommends a convent."
"To the devil with the priest!" cried the servant; then, crossing himself rapidly, he added, "I did not mean that, Monsignore San Giacomo—forgive me! But your Excellency [5] does not think of making a nun of his only child!"
"And yet why not?" said Riccabocca, mournfully; "what can I give her in the world? Is the land of the stranger a better refuge than the home of peace in her native clime?"
"In the land of the stranger beats her father's heart!" ”

“ Then said Riccabocca mildly, "In much of what you have urged so ably, and so suddenly, I am inclined to agree. But base is the man who formally forswears the creed he has inherited from his fathers, and professed since the cradle up to years of maturity, when the change presents itself in the guise of a bribe;—when, for such is human nature, he can hardly distinguish or disentangle the appeal to his reason from the lure to his interests—here a text, and there a dowry!—here Protestantism, there Jemima. ”

“ But there is a faery always folded away in our souls, like a bright butterfly chrysalized, and sailing eastward, layer after layer of propriety, moderation, deference to public opinion, safety of sentiment, and all the thick crusts of compromise and convention roll away, and bending southward up the Nile, you may feel the faery fairly flutter her wings. And if you pause at Esne, she will fly out, and lead you a will-o'-the-wisp dance across all the trim sharp hedges of accustomed proprieties, and over the barren flats of social decencies. ”

“ Sitting in a crouching posture on the saddle, with a long beard and an assumed palsified shaking of the hand, nobody would have conceived for a moment that Willie was a man in the prime of life, of a well-built, athletic frame, with more power in his arm than three ordinary men, and of an intrepid and adventurous spirit, that feared nothing, but dared every thing. ”

“ The accumulated chicanery and blundering of several generations, called in forensic language the "wisdom of successive ages," gradually brought special pleading into its present shape, or, rather, into its present endless forms. Its extensive drain on the pockets of the suitors has rendered it always an important branch of legal study, while, when properly understood, it appears an instrument so beautifully calculated for distributive justice, that, when brought to bear upon property, it will often distribute the whole of it among the lawyers, and leave nothing for the litigants themselves. ”

“ Eastern eyes are full of moonlight—Eastern beauty is a dream of passionate possibility, which the Howadji would fain awaken by the same spell with which the prince of Faery dissolved the enchanted sleep of the princess. Yet kohl and henna are only beautiful for the beautiful. In a coffee-shop at Esne, bold-faced among the men, sat a coarse courtesan sipping coffee and smoking a nargileh, whose kohled eyebrows and eyelashes made her a houri of hell. ”