Various

“ It was the Tchouktchas on their sledges, bounding with lightning speed along the frozen surface!
"Up!" cried the hunter. And when his companions were on their feet, "Quick with your guns! The enemy are on us! But show a bold front, and let them feel the weight of lead!"
Ivan and Kolina quietly took up their post, and awaited the orders of Sakalar. No time was lost, and fortunately, for the savages were already near, and were the next minute alighting from their sledges: hand in hand they advanced along the snow, with their long ice shoes, to the number of a dozen. ”

“ The simple portal is surmounted by a plain massive cross of stone, and a door, secured by an open work of bronze, leads into a sepulchral chamber, the key of which had been confided to me.
All within breathes the holy calm of eternal repose; no gloom, no mouldering damp, nothing to recall the dreadful images of decay. An atmosphere of peace appears to pervade the place, and I could almost fancy that a voice from the tomb whispered, in the words of Dante's Beatrice—
"Io sono in pace!" ”

“ She strove to impress your infant mind with the very soul of charity; and yesterday she looked down from the heaven of the holy departed, and saw you refusing me, your father, a few shillings to bestow on charity.
"Henry, I can live with you and your wife no more. I should grow avaricious in my old age, were I to remain with you. I should long for money to call my own. Those doled out shillings which I received wakened within me feelings of a dark nature—covetousness, and envy, and discontent—which must have shadowed the happiness of your mother in heaven to look down upon. ”

“ Ivan was delighted. He was a little puzzled by the character of the lady, who, after marrying an old man for his fortune, seemed equally desirous of reconciling her interest and her affections in a second marriage. But very nice ideas are not those of the half-civilized, for we owe every refinement both of mind and body to civilization, which makes of the raw material man—full of undeveloped elements—what cooking makes of the potato root. Civilization is the hot water and fire which carry off the crudities, and bring forth the good qualities. ”

“ She had loved Ivan as a playmate—she loved him as a man; and here, he whom she had longed for all the winter, and he whom she had hoped to see once more the next summer, had suddenly come, starting on a perilous journey of years, to win the hand of an avaricious, but young and beautiful widow. Kolina saw all her fairest dreams vanish, and the idol of her heart crumble into dust. And yet she felt no ill-will to Ivan, and never changed her resolve to be the faithful companion and attendant of her father and his friend in their wild journey to the supposed islands in the Frozen Sea. ”

“ It was in this spirit that, one day during my recent visit to Paris, I escaped from the busy idleness of that gay and ever-bustling city, to make a pilgrimage to the tomb of one whose surpassing qualities of mind, and heart, and person, had endeared her to all who knew her—whose brilliant career had been closed with awful suddenness—and whose lamented death has left a void in the circle over which she presided with such graceful urbanity, which no other can hope to fill. ”

“ The weak Marmontel, who, according to his own description, was only fitted for superficial conversation and writing, boasts of the prudence, foresight and skill of his protectress, and shows how she understood the way to gain the confidence of others without ever yielding her own. This distinguished art made the house of Madame Geoffrin invaluable to the great world, and to those learned men who wished to shine in this kind of society, and to cultivate and avail themselves of it, for such people must learn above all things neither to say too much nor too little. ”

“ She has neither charity, nor pity, nor kindness; she saves from me—she saves from the starving poor—she saves, that she may waste large sums on parties and dresses. I shall never more ask her for money—give me a few shillings. My God! the father begs of the son for what was his own—for what he toiled all his youth—for what he gave up out of trusting love to that son. Henry, my son, I am sick of asking and begging—ay, sick—sick; but give me some shillings now. ”

“ The darkness which I experience, less oppressive than that of the tomb, is owing to the singular goodness of the Deity, passed amid the pursuits of literature and the cheering salutations of friendship. But if, as it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God, why may not any one acquiesce in the privation of his sight, when God has so amply furnished his mind and his conscience with eyes?—Milton's Prose Works. ”

“ Charity, indeed—there's enough spent in charity by myself and my husband. But I wish to stop extravagance—it is only extravagance to spend so much on charity as you would do if you could; therefore, you shall not have any money just now."
Mrs. Lawson was one of those women who can cheerfully expend a most lavish sum on a ball, a dress, or any other method by which rank and luxury dissipate their abundance, but who are very economical, and talk much of extravagance when money is demanded for purposes not connected with display or style. ”

“ In Belgium, female industry presents itself under aspects alike interesting to the painter, the poet, and the philanthropist. Here and there may be seen a happy-looking girl, seated at an open window, turning her spinning-wheel or working at her lace-pillow, whilst at intervals she indulges in the relaxation of a curious gaze at the passers-by in the street. ”

“ The spinning-wheel and lace-pillows are easily carried from place to place, and the work may be done with equal convenience in the house, in the garden, or at the street-door. In every Belgian town in which lace-making is the staple business, the eye of the traveler is continually greeted with pictures of happy industry attended by all its train of concomitant virtues. The costliness of the material employed in the work, viz., the fine flax thread, fosters the observance of order and economy, which, as well as habits of cleanliness, are firmly engrafted among the people. ”

“ Through the ornamented grounds of a handsome country residence, at a little distance from a large town in Ireland, a man of about fifty years of age was walking with a bent head, and the impress of sorrow on his face.
"Och, yer honor, give me one sixpence, or one penny, for God's sake," cried a voice from the other side of a fancy paling which separated the grounds in that quarter from a thoroughfare. "For heaven's sake, Mr. Lawson, help me as ye helped me before. I know you've the heart and the hand to do it." ”

“ Witness the dreary oblivion of our over-crowded vaults, where the eye of affection has never shed a tear, the hand of friendship never scattered a flower over the mouldering relics they inclose! It is not that the dead are forgotten—it is not that their memory has ceased to be dear and sacred to their friends—but it is that the gay and the worldly-minded shrink from the dark images called forth by the aspect of the grave; they recoil from the idea of familiarizing themselves with the inevitable spot where they must one day lie in "cold obstruction's apathy;" ”

“ The plump, fair-haired Flemish girl, bending earnestly over her lace-work, whilst her fingers nimbly ply the intricately winding bobbins, figure in many of those highly esteemed representations of homely life and manners which have found their way from the Netherlands into all the principal picture-galleries of Europe. ”

“ It is too much the way of the world in this our civilized Europe to neglect the receptacles of the dead. Those loved ones even, whose dwellings, while living, were thronged by admiring friends, are deserted when laid in their last narrow home. The breath once gone,—the last sad offices performed,—the funeral pomp over,—and the sepulchre closed,—all the requisites of affection and respect appear to have been fulfilled, and the spot that holds the dust once so doted upon, is forever abandoned! ”

“ The inventions of a generation weary after a while, but they are very likely to be revived if they have once ministered successfully to pleasure or ambition. The famous coteries in which learning was inter-blended with fashion in the golden age of French intelligence, are being revived under the new Republic, and women are again quietly playing with institutions and liberties, perhaps as dangerously as when Mesdames de Tencin, Pompadour, Geoffrin, Deffant, Poplinière and L'Espinasse assembled the destinies nightly in their drawing rooms. ”

“ Much manual dexterity, quickness of eye, and judgment, are demanded in lace-making; and the work is a stimulator of ingenuity and taste; so that, unlike other occupations merely manual, it tends to rouse rather than to dull the mind. It is, moreover, unaccompanied by any unpleasant and harassing noise; for the humming of the spinning-wheel, and the regular tapping of the little bobbins, are sounds not in themselves disagreeable, or sufficiently loud to disturb conversation, or to interrupt the social song. ”

“ Every hour of weather fit for out-door work is spent in fishing and hunting, and preparing food for the winter. In the light sledge, or on skates, with nets and spears, they labored at each of these employments in its season. Toward the end of the long winter, just as famine and starvation threaten the whole population, a perfect cloud of swans, and geese, and ducks, and snipes, pour in; and man and woman, boy and girl, all rush forth to the hunt. The fish come in next, as the ice breaks; and presently the time for the reindeer hunt comes round. ”

“ But when he was called on to follow the more quiet and sedentary part of his occupation, he was not one-half so quick. His rough and rude life made town existence distasteful to him, and he evinced all that superb contempt for shop-keeping which characterizes the nomadic man, whether Red Indian, Arab, Tartar, or Siberian.
But Ivan was told he must make his way in the world. His parents who died before he attained to manhood, left him a small fortune in rubles and furs, which, if he chose to be industrious and persevering, might pave the way to the highest position in his native town. ”

“ It is scarcely possible for us to judge of the charm which these societies possessed in the great world. This may be best learned from their own writings and conversation, a specimen of which may be found in Marmontel's 'Memoirs,' and formed the subject of a conversation between him and the Duke of Brunswick (who fell at Jena in 1806) and his duchess.
The society of beaux esprits which met at the house of Madame de Poplinière, in the time of Madame de Tencin, was only short-lived, like the good fortune of the lady herself. ”

“ No one ever possessed all the requisites of masculine or feminine beauty without a profusion of hair. This is one of the crowning perfections of the human form, upon which poets of all ages have dwelt with the most untiring satisfaction. However perfect a woman may be in other respects; however beautiful her eyes, her mouth, teeth, lips, nose or cheeks; however brilliant her expression, in conversation or excitement, she is positively disagreeable without this ornament of nature. The question is sometimes asked, "What will cure love?" ”

“ The lace-maker, on the contrary, whose work requires only her thread and her fingers, is not disturbed by a refreshing breeze or a light shower; and even when the weather is not particularly fine, she prefers sitting at her street-door or in her garden, where she enjoys a brighter light than within doors.
In most of the principal towns of the Netherlands there is one particular locality which is the focus of lace-making industry; and there, in fine weather, the streets are animated by the presence of the busy work-women. ”

“ With respect to Deffant, however, we must not listen to Marmontel; she stood above his rhymes, his love tales, his sentimental wanton stories, and besides, he knew her only when she had become old. What we Germans name feminine and good morals formed no part of the distinction of Deffant, but talents only. Like Tencin, she was ill-reputed in her youth on account of her amours, and reckoned the Regent among her fortunate wooers; at a later period she turned her attention to literature.
Deffant brought together at her house all those persons whom Voltaire visited when he was in Paris ”

“ This society, after the death of De Tencin, assembled in the house of Geoffrin. It appears, however, that Madame de Tencin, as well as the whole fashionable world to which she belonged, could never altogether disavow their contempt for science, if indeed it be true, that she was accustomed to call her society by the indecent by-name of her ménagerie. Fontenelle, Montesquieu, Mairan, Helvetius who was then quite young and present rather as a hearer than a speaker, Marivaux and Astruc, formed the nucleus of this clever society and led the conversation. ”

“ At a doorway sits a young mother, surrounded by two or three children playing round the little table or wooden settle on which her lace-pillow rests. Whilst the mother's busy fingers are thus profitably employed, her eyes keep watch over the movements of her little ones, and she can at the same time spare an attentive thought for some one of her humble household duties. ”

“ I am not extravagant in my demands for the poor, either. All I have expended in charity during the few years since you came here, is but an insignificant amount as contrasted with the income which I freely gave up to my son and you; therefore, some money for the poor woman who is waiting, I shall now have; give me some shillings, for God's sake, and let me go." He advanced closer to her, and held out his hand.
"Nonsense!" cried Mrs. Lawson; "I am mistress, here—I am determined to stop extravagance. You give too much to common beggars ”

“ Fashion has assigned to each its particular place and purpose; for example:—the point de Malines (Mechlin lace) is used chiefly for trimming night-dresses, pillow-cases, coverlets, &c.; the point de Valenciennes (Valenciennes lace) is employed for ordinary wear or neglige; but the more rich and costly point de Bruxelles (Brussels lace) is reserved for bridal and ball dresses, and for the robes of queens and courtly ladies.
As the different sorts of lace, from the narrowest and plainest to the broadest and richest, are innumerable; so the division of labor among the lace-workers is infinite. ”