Various

“ We could compare ourselves to a company of immortals quitting the earth and traversing the electric seas which lead to brighter homes. Or we were voyagers to the sun, or to the nearer Venus, or to the far distant Centaurus. What a world of new thought was forced upon us by the fancies and realities and charm and awe of our extraordinary condition, combined with the profound consciousness we could not fail to entertain of the effects which this crowning discovery of Messrs. Bonflon and De Aëry must produce on travel, on commerce, on art, and the common destiny of mankind! ”

“ And she rose up with flashing eye and glowing cheek, looking as her father looked when he protested against the slave-trade.
"Thou art my Saint Catharine," said Virginie, rising up, excited by Mary's enthusiasm, "and hast the sword as well as the palm; but, dear saint, don't think so very, very badly of him;—he has a noble nature; he has the angel in him."
"The greater his sin," said Mary; "he sins against light and love." ”

“ Bartlett has been enabled to gather, for it shows that our language is alive. It is only from the roots that a language can be refreshed; a dialect that is taught grows more and more pedantic, and becomes at last as unfit a vehicle for living thought as monkish Latin. This is the danger which our literature has to guard against from the universal Schoolmaster, who wars upon home-bred phrases, and enslaves the mind and memory of his victims, as far as may be, to the best models of English composition,—that is to say, to the writers whose style is faultlessly correct, but has no blood in it. ”

“ He held in one hand a handsome American flag, of moderate size, and occasionally, with a slight motion of his arm, and a glance of pride, spread out its silken folds on the motionless air. Gradually the "Flying Cloud," under his skilful hands, closed upon the bleak, glittering summit, which, rounding off like the bald head of some venerable giant, was, at its apex, scarcely ten feet in diameter.
"No eagle, even, has ever set his foot here," said De Aëry. "There is not a track, or feather, or mark of any living thing to be seen. ”

“ When we love one more than ourselves, we only hurt ourselves with our anger."
"But," said Mary, "love is founded on respect and esteem; and when that is gone"——
"Why, then," said Madame, "we are very sorry,—but we love yet. Do we stop loving ourselves when we have lost our own self-respect? No! it is so disagreeable to see, we shut our eyes and ask to have the bandage put on,—you know that, poor little heart! ”

“ Mary Scudder, you know better than that, now. I look like it, don't I?"
"Why, yes," said Mary, looking at Cerinthy, deliberately; "on the whole, I think you do."
"Well! one thing I must say," said Cerinthy,—"I can't see what he finds in me. I think he is a thousand times too good for me. Why, you have no idea, Mary, how I have plagued him. I believe that man really is a Christian," she added, while something like a penitent tear actually glistened in those sharp, saucy, black eyes. ”

“ Where is the girl so angelic as not to feel a slight curiosity to know how she shall look in a new and strange costume? Mary bent over the rock, where a little pool of water lay in a brown hollow above the fluctuations of the tide, dark and still, like a mirror,—and saw a fair face, with a white shell above the forehead and drooping wreaths of green seaweed in the silken hair; and a faint blush and smile rose on the cheek, giving the last finish to the picture. ”

“ In the other basket lay pots of golden butter curiously stamped, reposing on a bed of fresh, green leaves,—while currants, red and white, and delicious cherries and raspberries, gave a final finish to the picture. From a basket which Miss Prissy brought in from the rear appeared cold fowl and tongue delicately prepared, and shaded with feathers of parsley. Candace, whose rollicking delight in the good things of this life was conspicuous in every emotion, might have furnished to a painter, as she sat in her brilliant turban, an idea for an African Genius of Plenty. ”

“ What new achievement of the human mind ought to startle one in this nineteenth century, after having witnessed the wonders of steam and electro-magnetism? I determined to sift the matter, but immediately remembered that all the knowledge I had of it had been imparted to me in the strictest confidence. The ingenious inventors, as was clearly their right, had reserved it to themselves to choose the time and way of making their invention public, when it was to break on the world, some fine morning, like the discovery of a second moon performing its orbit round the earth. ”

“ I had likened Niagara to a vast mill-dam, because I could find no peer to set beside it; so now, in my weakness, the sublime pageant of the "Flying Cloud" could search out nothing higher in my recollection with which to compare it than a wild, ride of my youth in a canoe, for a half mile or so, down the rapids of a river.
But morning was at hand. The rich golden glow of night, to which the dwellers on the earth's surface are accustomed, as we passed to higher altitudes, had given place to a thin inky blue. ”

“ I have not the honor of understanding in the least the reason of this apparently capricious sentence, but I bow to it in submission."
"Mr. Burr," said Mary, walking up to him, and looking him full in the eyes, with an energy that for the moment bore down his practised air of easy superiority, "I wish to speak to you for a moment, as one immortal soul should to another, without any of those false glosses and deceits which men call ceremony and good manners. You have done a very great injury to a lovely lady, whose weakness ought to have been sacred in your eyes. ”

“ Bonflon! De Aëry! All ere this might have perished, and the "Flying Cloud," aside from myself, be bearing into these upper altitudes nothing but a load of death.
Terror-struck, I dragged myself, with all the speed I could accomplish, to the stern. There sat the helmsman at his post, but asleep or insensible. I shook him, but he gave no signs of life. I shouted with what little strength I had, but in vain.
"Wake up! wake up!" I cried, "or we are lost!"
At length he opened his eyes, but did not move.
"Wake up!" I screamed again. "Breakers ahead, and worse. You have let the craft run wild. ”

“ She turned quickly, and her eye was caught by something that Mary did not see; she only saw the smile fade suddenly from Madame de Frontignac's cheek, and her lips grow deadly white, while her heart beat so that Mary could discern its flutterings under her black silk bodice.
"Will the sea-nymphs punish the rash presumption of a mortal who intrudes?" said Colonel Burr, stepping before them with a grace as invincible and assured as if he had never had any past history with either. ”

“ Sufficient provocation having been given, they are allowed to go at each other in their own fashion, and their attacks and breathing-spells are not very unlike a bout of fencing. They flap, fly at each other, fly over, peck, seize by the neck, let go, rest a moment, and begin again, getting more and more excited with each round. The negro separates them, when about to draw blood. And as for Don Manuel, he goes mad over them, like an Italian maestro over his favorite pupil. ”

“ I am afraid I have been too severe. After all, these distinguished men are so tempted! we don't know how much they are tempted; and who can wonder that they are a little spoiled? So, my angel, you must be merciful."
"Merciful!" said Mary, kissing the pale cheek, and feeling the cold little hands that trembled in hers.
"So you will go down in your little spinning-toilette, mimi? I fancy you look as Joan of Arc did, when she was keeping her sheep at Domremy. Go, and God bless thee!" and Madame de Frontignac pushed her playfully forward. ”

“ Then came such a display of sweetmeats as would exercise the mind of a New England housekeeper beyond all power of repose,—a pudding,—a huge tart with very thick crust,—cakes of yuca,—a dish of cocoanut, made into a sort of impalpable preserve, with eggs and sugar,—then a course of fruits,—then coffee, of the finest quality, from the host's own plantation,—and then we arose and went into the drawing-room, with a thankful recollection of what we had had, and also a thankful assurance that we should have no more. ”

“ Burr turned away, and stood looking through the window; tears were dropping silently, unchecked by the cold, hard pride which was the evil demon of his life.
It is due to our human nature to believe that no man could ever have been so passionately and enduringly loved and revered by both men and women as he was, without a beautiful and lovable nature;—no man ever demonstrated more forcibly the truth, that it is not a man's natural constitution, but the use he makes of it, which stamps him as good or vile. ”

“ For he had said,—"Look not upon the soup when it is hot, neither let any victuals entice thee to more than a slight and temporary participation; for the dishes at a Cuban dinner be many, and the guest must taste of all that is presented; wherefore, if he indulge in one dish to his special delectation, he shall surely die before the end." And it came to pass that we remembered this, and walked through the dinner as on egg-shells, gratifying curiosity, on the one hand, and avoiding satiety, on the other, with the fear of fulness, as it were, before our eyes. ”

“ The real love with which these wonderful pictures are caressed by the careful, thoughtful artist makes them most precious. Every little flower is delicately and artistically done, and everything is invested with a sort of sacred reverence by this earnest Pre-Raphaelite. One or two Van Eycks have the same splendor and depth of feeling. These pictures look as if they were painted yesterday, so clear and brilliant are their colors.
It is a pleasant circumstance, that some of the great Venetian pictures in the gallery here were gained for Spain by the judgment and taste of Velasquez. ”

“ There is too much preaching throughout it, and in certain parts a suddenness in the kneeling down to pray that is quite startling. This stupid sort of goodness helps much to defeat the purpose of the work. Even the strong minister, although his is not the old-fashioned way, seems to have more beef on his bones than brains in his head, or he would not answer to a desperate exclamation of Mary Smith,—"Don't say that. God only knows what is best for us all; even you, and all like you, may begin to live for the good of society, without being its bane." ”

“ Though Nature is gay, polite, and generous abroad, she is sullen, rude, and niggardly at home; return the visit, and she admits you with all the suspicion of a miser, and all the reluctance of an antiquated beauty retired to replenish her charms. Bred up in antediluvian notions, she has not yet acquired the European taste of receiving visitants in her dressing-room: she locks and bolts up her private recesses with extraordinary care, as if not only resolved to preserve her hoards, but to conceal her age, and hide the remains of a face that was young and lovely in the days of Adam. ”

“ If you have a kind, indulgent friend who protects you and cares for you, you can be grateful to him, you can try to make him happy, and in time you may come to love him very much. He is a thousand times nobler man, if what you say is true, than the one who has injured you so."
"Oh, Mary!" said Madame de Frontignac, "there are some cases where we find it too easy to love our enemies." ”

“ Madame de Frontignac made no reply; but curtsied with a stately grace, turned and went into her little, room, whither Mary, after a few minutes, followed her.
She found her thrown upon the bed, her face buried in the pillow, her breast heaving as if she were sobbing; but when, at Mary's entrance, she raised her head, her eyes were bright and dry.
"It is just as I told you, Mary,—that man holds me. I love him yet, in spite of myself. It is in vain to be angry. What is the use of striking your right hand with your left? ”

“ The intensity of the mental crisis through which she had herself just passed had developed her in many inward respects, so that she looked upon life no longer as a timid girl, but as a strong, experienced woman. She had thought, and suffered, and held converse with eternal realities, until thousands of mere earthly hesitations and timidities, that often restrain a young and untried nature, had entirely lost their hold upon her. Besides, Mary had at heart the true Puritan seed of heroism,—never absent from the souls of true New England women. ”

“ The change from the clinging to the present to the welcoming of the future comes very soon, for the most part, after all hope of life is extinguished, provided this be left in good degree to Nature, and not insolently and cruelly forced upon those who are attacked by illness, on the strength of that odious fore-knowledge often imparted by science, before the white fruit whose core is ashes, and which we call death, has set beneath the pallid and drooping flower of sickness. There is a singular sagacity very often shown in a patient's estimate of his own vital force. ”

“ At Spielberg, the sistema diabolico, as it has been justly called, especially at the epoch of Foresti's incarceration, retained the galling chain on the limbs, cut off the supply of moral and intellectual vitality, refused appropriate occupation, baffled hope, eclipsed knowledge, and kept up a vile inquisitorial process to goad the crushed heart, sap the heroic will, and stupefy or alienate the mental faculties; dawn ushered in the twilight of a mausoleum, noon fell dimly on paralyzed manhood, night canopied aggravating dreams. ”

“ Ariadne is in the foreground, full of warm, breathing life, her arm thrown over her lovely head, and her golden hair falling over the vase of gold and onyx on which she rests; a river of red wine runs through the emerald grass; two beautiful girls have just put by their music and instruments, and one turns her exquisite face toward us to speak to the other reclining on the grass. The one who turns to us is the beauty of the Louvre, or some one very like her, in full Venetian loveliness. ”

“ The alliance with France, Burgoyne's capture, two campaigns without useful results, Washington's admirable patience and management at Valley Forge, with starvation and mutiny in the ranks and disaffection to his person in the officers of the Gates faction, ought to have convinced every Englishman in America that the attempt to reduce the Colonies was now hopeless. Paine was so indignant with the reckless obstinacy of the British government, that he conceived the idea of carrying the war into England with pen and paper,—weapons he began to think invincible in his hands. ”

“ At nightfall the ram was brought and turned into a paddock, where he was left fettered to the dog with a couple of yards of chain. At the dawn of morning the ram's master approached confidently the arena of discipline, secure of a result triumphant for his theory. But theory was a delusion in this instance; for the red dog Tanner sat there alone and surfeited with mutton,—though there was a good deal of the ram still left.
It is wonderful what an amount of crime can be committed, even by a small dog, when, like the Chourineur of Eugene Sue, he is under the glamour of blood. ”

“ Paine finds it impossible to express his contempt for the baseness of the ministry who could attempt to sow dissension between such faithful allies. "We sometimes experience sensations to which language is not equal. The conception is too bulky to be born alive, and in the torture of thinking we stand dumb. Our feelings, imprisoned by their magnitude, find no way out; and in the struggle of expression every finger tries to be a tongue." It will be difficult to describe better the struggle of an indignant soul with an insufficient vocabulary. ”

“ She put her cold, trembling hands into his, and he drew her up and placed her safely beside Mary. A few moments of difficult climbing followed, in which his arm was thrown now around one and then around the other, and they felt themselves carried with a force as if the slight and graceful form were strung with steel.
Placed in safety on the top of the bank, there was a natural gush of grateful feeling towards their deliverer. The severest resentment, the coolest moral disapprobation, are necessarily somewhat softened, when the object of them has just laid one under a personal obligation. ”