Various

“ So I asked friend Hicks—only I asked it in this way: "May Barbara write letters to me?"
"I will write thee all that is necessary, as thee will write me: what more is needful?" answered friend Hicks.
So, as I went away, and it was Seventh Day, and the world seemed expecting the morrow, when the world's peace should be personified in public praise and a cessation from labor and earthly thought, I stood in the shadow and took friend Hicks's hand.
"I trust thee may be successful," said he.
"I think any man may be successful in this world's affairs," I said. ”

“ No other country which I have ever seen presents in an equally limited area such diversities of climate, scenery and vegetation as does the isthmus of the Caucasus. On the northern side of its white jagged backbone lies the barren wandering-ground of the Nogai Tatars—illimitable steppes, where for hundreds of miles the weary eye sees in summer only a parched waste of dry steppe-grass, and in winter an ocean of snow, dotted here and there by the herds and the black tents of nomadic Mongols. But cross the range from north to south and the whole face of Nature is changed. ”

“ I really believe Mauritius stands alone in the whole world for variety of scenery, of climate and of productions within the smallest imaginable space. It might be a continent looked at through reversed opera-glasses for the ambitious scale of its mountains, its ravines and its waterfalls. When once you leave the plains behind—it is all on such a toy scale that you do this in half an hour—you breathe mountain-air and look down deep gorges and cross wide, rushing rivers. Of course the sea is part of every view. ”

“ Judith answered with a sob. Miss Crawford's confession of old age went to her heart. So did that pathetic cry, which was half longing for her who had been so many years at rest, and half for Miss Crawford's own stronger and brighter self of bygone days. She put her arm round the schoolmistress and held up the shaking, unsubstantial little figure. "If Bertie has done this, he has killed her," said the girl to herself, even while she declared aloud, "I will help you, dear Miss Crawford. I will do all I can. Don't be so unhappy: it may be better than we fear." ”

“ She had never learned my name, nor had expressed a desire to know it: what were names of things to her who had lost the things themselves?
"Thank thee, friend Jordan," I would say; and then we would sit and talk. Sometimes she would do all the talking: at other times she let me join her. With her confused mind it was perhaps the best work I could have had, to try to let in a little light where darkness had been so long.
"We always love those the most who give us the most pleasure, do we not?" ”

“ Friend Hicks must have been sensibly astonished. That night when I went home friend Jordan for the first time grated upon me, and I would fain have gone into my room and closed the door and thought long and painfully. In my flighty mind I saw Barbara pining, and for me! Never before had I thought she cared so well for me as now when she was not in fair health. It is a sad happiness to think that some dear one is far from thee, and heavy of heart all for thee. But I was selfish, for I heard a sob at my closed door, and friend Jordan was crouched on the sill. ”

“ What weigh upon me most sadly in the Mauritius are the solitude and the intense loneliness of the little island. We are very gay and pleasant among ourselves, but I often feel as if I were in a dream as far as the rest of the world is concerned, or as if we were all living [Pg 504] in another planet. Only once in a month does the least whisper reach us from the great outer world beyond our girdling reef of breaking foam: only once in four long weeks can any tidings come to us from those we love and are parted from—any news of the progress of events, any thrilling incidents of daily history ”

“ He was recalling that day at Rookleigh—the red houses by the water-side, the poplars, the pigeons, the old church, the sleepy streets, the hot blue sky, the gray glitter of the river through the boughs, and the girl half seen behind the evergreens. She had been to him like a fair faint figure in a dream, and the airy fancies that clustered round her had been more dreamy yet. But suddenly the dream-girl had stepped out of the clouds into every-day life, and stood in flesh and blood beside him. ”

“ Thee knows I am not advanced in the world's wealth, and that I am but a beginner in manhood; thee knows that I came here and set up as a lumberman; thee may or may not care to have thy daughter to know me."
"I care as much as beseems any father to bethink him of his child's welfare. Come with me, Samuel Biddle."
So he fetched me into the sizable sunny kitchen where Barbara was preparing vegetables for the dinner.
"This is friend Samuel Biddle," said he.
"I am pleased to see thee," said she, "and if thee waits until I dry my fingers I will shake hands with thee."
Youth is ever impetuous. ”

“ I was conscious of a dulness and thickness in my voice as I replied, "She is much handsomer."
"She is more womanly," pursued Jack: "I think her manner has softened a little. There is more tenderness about it: as a girl she was sometimes a trifle—hard. Now—But you see how she is, Floyd: there is nobody like her. Good God! I ask myself sometimes what that perfect creature can see in me."
"A good deal apparently, since she is to be your wife." I said it without faltering, and felt better after it. Something seemed to clear away from my brain, and I could look at Georgy now with less emotion. ”

“ The force of everything is weakened, its strength broken. Can you fancy the position of a ship at sea, not voyaging toward any port or harbor, but moored in the midst of a vast, desolate ocean? Once in a weary while of thirty days another ship passes and throws some mailbags on board, and whilst we stretch out clamorous hands and cry for fuller tidings, for more news, the vessel has passed out of our reach, and we are absolutely alone once more. ”

“ Instead of the apologies for, and abuse of, a colony (woe to you if you find fault, however!) with which your old colonist greets a new arrival, I find here a strong patriotic sentiment of pride and love, which is certainly well merited. When you take into consideration the tiny dimensions of the island, its distance from all the centres of civilization, its isolation, the great calamities which have befallen it from hurricane, drought and pestilence, and the way it has overlived them all, there is every justification for the pride and glory of its inhabitants in their fair and fertile islet. ”

“ With this assumption the idiosyncrasy of New York may be viewed in full. Like the prudent merchant of moderate attainments and medium culture, it is not far-seeing when a question arises not strictly in its line of business. Sympathetic, outwardly decorous, keenly sensitive, full of pity for the suffering, New York enters the field of art in a purely mercantile spirit. It has no love, but only that peculiar kind of affection that is the outgrowth of triumph over a rival. ”

“ I saw Jack Holt leaning against a pillar, and went up to him. "How do you get on, Floyd?" he asked in his slow, easy way. "Rather heavy work, eh?"
"Not at all," said I, feeling all the keen joy of youth: "I think it delightful. Miss Lenox spoke to me, Jack. Of course you have seen her."
"Oh yes," Jack laughed good-naturedly. "She at once told me I looked countrified and old-fashioned—that my hair was too long and my gloves were outrageous. In fact, she was ashamed to own me, and declared that nothing should induce her to confess she was engaged to me until I looked less seedy." ”

“ No leader arose to open its eyes to the true value of a complete collection of majolica and mediæval jewelry. The only known authority upon the subject of ceramics proved to be a blind leader of the blind, and the only result of Mr. Clarence Cook's interference was to leave the aforesaid gentleman in the melancholy plight of a plucked crow. The collection was reshipped to Europe while the feathers were still flying, and the public felt itself to be a gainer to the extent of witnessing a piece of good sport. No sense of loss spoiled its enjoyment of the fun. ”

“ I could see that she wept often, and that the tears ran down her white wan face all pinched by suffering, and that she supplicated the night in tender words to bring back to her what had gone away—what had gone away!
I was alone in this place: the people were not such as would be my choice of companions, for there were no Friends in the community, and I scarcely think I ever was fitted for the society of the world's people. ”

“ You are so clever, everything is easy to you. That is why I always liked you better than any one else. You have sympathy, wit, imagination. You understand things up to the heights and down to the depths. Harry Dart is a little like you: he has wit and imagination, but he is flippant, he has no sympathy. Poor old Jack has plenty of sympathy, but neither wit nor imagination. ”

“ The tiny island at once impresses me with a respectful admiration. What nonsense is this the geography-books state, and I have repeated, about Mauritius being the same size as the Isle of Wight? Absurd! Here is a bold range of volcanic-looking mountains rising up grand and clear against the beautiful background of a summer sky, on whose slopes and in whose valleys, green down to the water's edge, lie fertile stretches of cultivation. We are not near enough to see whether the pale shimmer of the young vegetation is due to grass or waving cane-tops. ”

“ But he came to me as I sat there on the porch, and he laid his hand on my arm: "I have been overly strict with Barbara, friend Samuel, and thee must pardon me, for I only kept her for thee. Thee is a good man; and although some of Barbara's and thy doings in this matter, as thee has related it, are scarcely in accordance with an understanding of the world such as I have, and such as thee may hope to have in time, and most of what thee has done is rather removed from orthodox, yet I hold myself in thy debt." ”

“ The curses of the Caucasus are as bitter and vindictive as its greetings are courteous and kind-hearted. I have often heard it said by the Persians and Tatars who live along the Lower Volga that there is no language to swear in like the Russian; and I must admit that they illustrated and proved their assertion when occasion offered in the most fluent and incontrovertible manner; but I am convinced, after having heard the curses of experts in all parts of the East, that for variety, ingenuity and force the profanity of the Caucasian mountaineers is unsurpassed. ”

“ I have always been glad I was true to Jack in the letter of my actions. As for the spirit, it is hard for any young fellow of twenty, with ardent impulses just awakening, to keep it cribbed within prudent limitations. Georgy's smiles had thrown a sudden illumination into my soul, and I understood myself better than I had done yesterday. ”

“ That there is some very different weather to be battled with is apparent by the extraordinary shutters one sees to all the houses. Imagine doors built as if to stand a siege, strengthened by heavy cross-pieces of wood close together, and, instead of bolt or lock, kept in their places by solid iron bars as thick as my wrist. Every door and window in the length and breadth of the island is furnished with these contre-vents, or hurricane-shutters, and they tell their own tale. ”

“ Yet friend Hicks grew more well-disposed toward me, and cared to talk much of himself to me; which always shows that a man thinks well of thee. I bethink me that if Barbara's mother had lived some things might have been different, and that perchance she might have claimed her husband's attention away from me a little, and monopolized an hour or so of his time each evening: women have a species of inner seeing which most men lack to a great degree. And yet, to show my fuller confidence in friend Hicks, I said to him once, "I wish thee to take charge of all my savings and earnings. ”

“ I had tried to do all these, and yet there were times when sensation overpowered calculation, and it would have afforded me peace to have held friend Barbara within my arms and said many foolish and irrelevant words, and heard such words from her. Sometimes it seems to me that three feet apart, two feet, one, two inches, one, is too much from one who is exceedingly much to us: the mere touch of hand to hand, unmeaning as such a thing is, may be infinitely more than a mere gratification of sense. ”