Various

“ If I faltered in my vocabulary, when expressing an opinion or replying to a question, she supplied the missing word, or by glance and approving smile reassured me to recall it; if my thought lacked shape and completeness, she gave it a few sharp cuts with the chisel of her keen wit and clear intellect, handing it back for me to color as I chose. Miss Merton, lovely as she was, shone with a lesser light that evening in Miss Darry's presence; yet Mr. Lang, tempted away for a moment, always rejoined her with an admiring smile, well pleased at fascinations less indiscriminately exercised. ”

“ The Republic of Geneva stands alone in her celebrity. So small a country that one morning's drive embraces the whole of its territory, it can yet boast of a nationality so deeply rooted, and of an individuality so strongly marked, that no foreign invasion and no foreign contact have ever been able to impair them.
It is impossible, even for the most superficial reader of history, to overlook that great array of names which made the last years of the eighteenth century so illustrious in Europe. Among them it is equally impossible not to recognize those which Geneva so proudly furnished. ”

“ Ah, the librarian of the Astor is more fortunate than we; these spirits are all invisible, and we catch not even at midnight the rustle of the leaf they turn or the passing murmur of their voices. Yet within the library, ever ready to meet us, their souls still linger; and when we open the visible book which enshrines it, we find the hidden spirit.
A number of gentlemen once went together to a friend's house. While they awaited his entrance, one of the party, being a lover of books, naturally turned to the shelves of the library. ”

“ Behind the distant hills the heavens are resplendent with the autumnal hues of sunset, the water is aglow with reflected glories, while swooping and sailing over the waves come the white sea-gulls. It is a leaf from the illuminated prayer-missal for all eyes and hearts. The literary treasures of that friend's library have been elsewhere described, some of them gifts from wise men, earnest women, world-worshipped poets, bearing on their leaves the signatures of their authors' friendship. Other treasures are there, visible and invisible, among which we would fain linger, but we must pass on. ”

“ His wonderful genius was so pliable, that, while he excelled in the power of catching the warmest glow of Nature in those exquisite descriptions with which his writings are filled, and while, with picture-words, he could reproduce all the tender beauty of a sunset in the Alps, or the soft, singing gurgle of the mountain-brook, no one better than he could also portray every subtile shade and feature of the human mind. ”

“ With the glowing enthusiasm of youth, he put such beautiful construction upon the rules of Christian faith as would hardly survive the rough every-day wear of the world. Even the stiff dignity of Dr. Mowry he was inclined to count only an accidental incrustation of manner, beneath which the heart of the parson was all aglow with the tenderest benevolence. We hope he may have been right in this; it is certain, that, if he could carry forward the same loving charity to the end of his days, he would have won the best third of the elements of a Christian career, without respect to dogmas. ”

“ His marked fondness for sketching showed itself in numerous and picturesque outlines, all of which bore the unmistakable stamp of talent, and foretold in the exuberance of the boy-fancy what the man would be. Happily for him, happily for us who are allowed to gather up the crumbs of art and authorship which fell from his ample store, Töpffer enjoyed the very best and most propitious advantages which in any country can bless childhood. He was born in the lap of a society daintily intellectual and fastidiously cultivated. His very first impressions were those of refinement. ”

“ Fanciful, but never exaggerated, he stands before us an amiable philosopher, whose heart is large enough to comprehend and to pity the frailties of human nature, yet whose spotless purity serves as a beacon—light on the wreck-strewn shore of human passions. He has not the exaltation nor the ardent vehemence of Rousseau, neither has he the sentimental morbidity of Xavier de Maistre. On the contrary, he is always true and always simple, and he remains within the bounds of emotion which the family circle allows. ”

“ I never could comprehend why the practical affairs of life should not be ruled by judgment and reason,—why the mental mansion should not have every needful arrangement for comfort, though a hundred illusions may fresco its ceilings. Every child is charming because it is a child, as every bud is charming because it is a bud, though it may open a poppy or a rose. I haven't a doubt but this little friend of yours will develop some qualities of her ignorant ancestors to remove her in a few years far from your ideal of womanhood. ”

“ The spinster saw it, and rejoiced at the welding of this new link in the chain of her purposes. The village people all saw it, and said among themselves, "If he has won her from the iniquities of the world, he can win her for a wife, if he will."
And the echoes of such speeches come, as they needs must, to the ear of Rose, without surprising her, so much do they seem the echo of her own thought; and if her heart may droop a little under it, she conceals it bravely, and abates no jot in her abounding love for Adèle. ”

“ Somehow Miss Darry's confession of a little feminine timidity put me more at ease with her than I had ever been before. I was a strong, muscular fellow of nineteen, perfectly able to defend myself in circumstances of ordinary danger, and proud that a woman so superior to me should trust in my readiness to protect her. Life and vigor tingled in every nerve of my body; the clear, stinging winter air, exhilarating to healthy, as wine is to enfeebled bodies, thrilled me with enjoyment ”

“ Not one of those who fell on other fields, or died in hospitals and prisons in those States where the war was chiefly waged,—not one out of those innumerable martyred hosts lies on this pleasant hill. The bodies of once living and brave men, slowly mouldering to dust in this sanctified soil, form but a small, a single sheaf from that great recent harvest reaped by Death with the sickle of war.
Once living and brave! How full of life, how full of unflinching courage and fiery zeal, they marched up hither to fight the great fight, and to give their lives! And each man had his history ”

“ He was taken by the hand of Genius at the very outset of his career, and was never allowed to falter; for in the successive creations of his pencil and of his pen there is the same fulness of imagination, the same delicacy of observation, the same exquisite perfection of analysis. He seems to have understood so well the power of his mind, that he never ventured beyond his depth, but sustained himself through all his years of authorship with the same grace and elegance. ”

“ Töpffer lamented all his life long the privation that was thus forced upon him. Art, as a profession, was closed against his eager ambition; yet he loved Art, and lived for it. Happily for him, he was still in the complete possession of all his hopes and illusions. Happily for him, he was young; and, without being discouraged by his great disappointment, he turned the bent of his mind study-ward. Töpffer became a close student of human nature. ”

“ Every shrub and tree on the lawn was enveloped in a garment of more dazzling purity than the ermine before me. The moonlight was radiant, the stars sparkled lustrously in the steel cold sky, the earth was carpeted and canopied with a beauty more resplendent than the graceful luxuriance of summer. Miss Darry probably ascribed my immovable position to artistic enjoyment of the landscape, for I remained perfectly quiet while she explained the cause of her detention to Miss Merton. ”

“ Who shall say that authors and students do not come back to the books which contain their invisible souls, or spirits like themselves? Without venturing to invoke the sceptred sovereigns of literature, or to call up the shades of the prophets and sibyls of elder time, yet at midnight what a circle might come forth and visit the library! Scott and Burns and Byron, Burke and Fox and Sheridan, all in one evening ”

“ What would the elegant woman, with her costly jewels, India shawls, and splendid equipage, have thought of this whilom rival, who issued every summer morning from the lane, in her hand a bunch of those simple flowers, occupying, as she did, the border-ground between the wild hemlock and honeysuckle of the wilderness and the exotic of the parterre, the bachelor's-button, mulberry-pink, southernwood, and bee-larkspur, destined to fill a tumbler on an end of the counter where she displayed her most attractive goods? ”

“ We must, however, be honest enough to confess that we are ourself a bibliomaniac, and few possessions are more valued than an old manuscript, written on vellum some five hundred years ago, of which we cannot read one word. Nor do we prize less the modern extreme of external attraction,—volumes exquisitely printed and adorned, bound by Rivière, in full tree-marbled calf, with delicate tooling on the back, which looks as if the frost-work from the window-pane on a cold January morning had been transmuted into gold, and laid on the leather. ”

“ Long before Ruskin's first volume appeared, Töpffer's "Réflexions et Menus Propos" had commanded the admiration of the best writers and artists of the Continent. As an æsthetic and philosophic work, it is of the highest value. Pearls of thought and beauty are dropped on every side. It is relieved by fanciful episodes; and yet the whole book starts from and plays around a stick of India ink! It is not merely a volume in which the professional artist can gain great advantage, but one by which the general reader is fascinated as well as instructed. ”

“ An insect crawling on a leaf,—a bit of grass bringing the joy of its short life around the stones of the pavement,—a cloud floating over the meadows,—a murmur of voices in the air,—the wings of a butterfly, or the thundering of the storm above the lake,—all and everything was the domain where his genial disposition reaped so plentiful a harvest of rare graces and smiles. ”

“ Think of a woman's calling clear-starching and ironing domestic drudgery, and to better the matter turning to type-setting in a grimy printing-office! Call the care of china and silver, the sweeping of carpets, the arrangement of parlors and sitting rooms, drudgery; and go into a factory and spend the day amid the whir and clatter and thunder of machinery, inhaling an atmosphere loaded with wool and machine-grease, and keeping on the feet for twelve hours, nearly continuously! ”