Various

“ Kate, my own Kate, I have heard them sneer at you for being poor, and it made my heart ache. I'll stop that, any way. Go you in my place to the funeral; he that is dead will forgive me; his spirit knows now what I endure; and I'll send you a writing, all sealed and signed, shall make Bolton Hall and Park yours; and when you are happy with some one you can love, as well as I love you, think sometimes of poor jealous Griffith, that loved you dear and grudged you nothing; but," grinding his teeth and turning white, "I can't live in Cumberland, and see you in another man's arms." ”

“ M. Jacobus was standing by the window, watching the awful stillness with which a new day lifts itself over the sea; he had the child in his arms, and beckoned Lotty to his side. She came and leaned her head on his shoulder.
"You will never leave me now, Sharley,—never," he said, his face kindling with a new, strange triumph.
The waves lapped the shore in gentle rifts of spray; the beach itself shone in the rising light like fretted silver. Beyond the foamy earth-colored breakers lay the illimitable sea, a dark violet glow, fading into the dim horizon whence came the dawn. ”

“ Biddy and her mistress are two human beings, with the same human wants. Both want to escape trouble, to make their life comfortable and easy, with the least outlay of expense. Biddy's capital is her muscles and sinews; and she wants to get as many greenbacks in exchange for them as her wit and shrewdness will enable her to do. You feel, when you bargain with her, that she is nothing to you, except so far as her strength and knowledge may save you care and trouble; and she feels that you are nothing to her, except so far as she can get your money for her work. ”

“ He can tell you just where and how the best-laid scheme is likely to fail, just the screw that will fall loose in the smoothest-working machinery, just the flaw in the most perfect character, just the defect in the best-written book, just the variety of thorn that must accompany each particular species of rose.
Yet Theophilus is without guile or malice. His want of faith in human nature is not bitter and censorious, but melting and pitiful. "We are all poor trash, miserable dogs together," he seems to say, as he looks out on the world and its ways. ”

“ In the castle a superb banquet was improvised. Music, guests, and rare dishes were brought together with wonderful speed, and the choicest wines of the cellar were drawn upon. Prince Boris, bewildered by this sudden and incredible change in his fortunes, sat at his father's right hand, while the Princess filled, but with much more beauty and dignity, the ancient place of the Princess Martha. The golden dishes were set before her, and the famous family emeralds—in accordance with the command of Prince Alexis—gleamed among her dark hair and flashed around her milk-white throat. ”

“ No sin, my dear, I admit; but there is a certain amount of work and trouble that somebody must take, to carry on the family and the world; and the mischief is, that all are agreed in wanting to get rid of it. Human nature is, above all things, lazy. I am lazy myself. Everybody is. The whole struggle of society is as to who shall eat the hard bread-and-cheese of labor, which must be eaten by somebody. Nobody wants it,—neither you in the parlor, nor Biddy in the kitchen. ”

“ If one looks to the individual for proof of the power of Christianity, he will generally look in vain. Creeds differ; but of persons from the same rank in life, one is, on the whole, apparently about as good as another. If we are virtuous where we are not tempted, liberal in matters concerning which we are indifferent, reticent when we have nothing to say,—in one word, pleasant when we are pleased,—it is all that our best friends have any reason to expect of us. What religion does for a man may be great, and even radical, from his near point of view ”

“ If Andy Johnson is consistent with himself, with the principles which raised him from a tailor's bench to the head of a mighty nation, he will see to it that the work that Lincoln began is so thoroughly done, that every man and every woman in America, of whatever race or complexion, shall have exactly equal rights before the law, and be free to rise or fall according to their individual intelligence, industry, and moral worth. ”

“ It may not be advisable to renew the old custom of making clerks and apprentices members of the family; but surely the pleasantly lighted parlor, with its pictures, its piano, its little sheltered window-nooks, its agreeable daughters, its matronly and dignified mother, may be made a Mecca for the homesick young pilgrim, without any sacrifice that shall seem too great to the followers of Him who laid down the glory which He had with the Father before the world was, for nothing but that He might save sinners. Is it a dangerous thing to introduce strangers into a young family? ”

“ As the kibitka slowly climbed the hill on its way to the castle-gate, Prince Alexis, who had heard and enjoyed the noises in the village from a balcony on the western tower, made his appearance at the head of the steps which led from the court-yard to the state apartments. The dreaded whip was in his hand; his eyes seemed about to start from their sockets, in their wild, eager, hungry gaze; the veins stood out like cords on his forehead; and his lips, twitching involuntarily, revealed the glare of his set teeth. A frightened hush filled the castle. Some of the domestics were on their knees ”

“ As I struck my front-door-bell, I heard Lucy still screaming out her assurance of a heavenly home; but the chanting had lost its irritating sound, and I listened to it, if not with pleasure, at least with patience: even the Skye, Ton-Ton was so improved in temper by the walk as to coil up its little silky gray body in the basket with perfect indifference to the domestic music. While I was dining, the watchful ears of my dogs detected the steps of strangers on the terrace-steps of the entrance, which news they announced in shrill barks. ”

“ So long as everything is not strictly in accordance with our principles of democracy, so long as there is in any part of the country an aristocratic upper class who despise labor, and a laboring lower class that is denied equal political rights, so long this grinding and discord between the two will never cease in America. It will make trouble not only in the South, but in the North,—trouble between all employers and employed,—trouble in every branch and department of labor,—trouble in every parlor and every kitchen. ”

“ Something of the atmosphere of home will cling to office-walls, and soften the sharp outlines and sweeten the unfragrant air of perpetual traffic and self-seeking. The society of pure and sprightly girls will be a constant inducement to keep himself sprightly and pure. Reading, studying, riding, singing, driving, boating, with well-bred and high-hearted young friends, will give plentiful outlet to his animal spirits, plentiful gratification to his social wants, plentiful food for his mental hunger ”

“ I confess, my dear Madam, that we have succeeded as we human creatures commonly do, in supposing that we have destroyed an evil, when we have only changed its name. We have contrived to withdraw from the slave just that fiction of property relation which made it for the interest of some one to care for him a little, however imperfectly; and having destroyed that, we turn him out defenceless to shift for himself in a community every member of which is embittered against him. The whole South resounds with the outcries of slaves suffering the vindictive wrath of former masters ”

“ What would a man do, if he were compelled to live always in the sultry heat of society, and could never bathe himself in cool solitude?
A girl's lover to be slain and buried in her flower-garden, and the earth levelled over him. That particular spot, which she happens to plant with some peculiar variety of flowers, produces them of admirable splendor, beauty, and perfume; and she delights, with an indescribable impulse, to wear them in her bosom, and scent her chamber with them. Thus the classic fantasy would be realized, of dead people transformed to flowers. ”

“ Many years after Prince Alexis was dead, the serfs used to relate how they had seen him, in the bright summer afternoons, asleep in his arm-chair on the balcony, with the rosy babe asleep on his bosom, and the slumber-flag waving over both.
Legends of the Prince's hunts, reisaks, and brutal revels are still current along the Volga; but they are now linked to fairer and more gracious stories; and the free Russian farmers (no longer serfs) are never tired of relating incidents of the beauty, the courage, the benevolence, and the saintly piety of the Good Lady of Kinesma. ”

“ The Princess Martha wore a robe of pink satin embroidered with flowers made of small pearls, and a train and headdress of crimson velvet. Her emeralds were the finest outside of Moscow, and she wore them all. Her pale, weak, frightened face was quenched in the dazzle of the green fires which shot from her forehead, ears, and bosom, as she moved.
Prince Paul of Kostroma and the Princess Nadejda followed; but on reaching the table, the gentlemen took their seats at the head, while the ladies marched down to the foot. ”

“ The negroes are men and women, like any of the rest of us, and particularly apt in the imitation of the ways and ideas current in good society; and consequently to learn to play on the piano, and to have nothing in particular to do, will be the goal of aspiration among colored girls and women, and to do house-work will seem to them intolerable drudgery, simply because it is so among the fair models to whom they look up in humble admiration. You see, my dear, what it is to live in a democracy. ”

“ The great bear was tracked, and, after a long and exciting chase, fell by the hand of Prince Alexis himself. Halt was made in an open space in the forest, logs were piled together and kindled on the snow, and just at the right moment (which no one knew better than Sasha) the cask of vodki rolled into its place.
When the serfs saw the Prince mount astride of it, with his ladle in his hand, they burst into shouts of extravagant joy. "Slava Bogu!" (Glory be to God!) came fervently from the bearded lips of those hard, rough, obedient children. ”

“ It is difficult to say what are the very worst results of a system so altogether bad as that of slavery; but one of the worst is certainly the utter contempt it brings on useful labor, and the consequent utter physical and moral degradation of a large body of the whites; and this contempt of useful labor has been constantly spreading like an infection from the Southern to the Northern States, particularly among women, who, as our friend here has truly said, are by our worship and exaltation of them made peculiarly liable to take the malaria of aristocratic society. ”

“ In a few weeks the capital would be deserted.
"Shall we go to Germany with your father?" asked Boris, as he sat at a window with Helena, enjoying the long twilight.
"No, my Boris," she answered; "we will go to Kinesma."
"But—Helena,—golubchik,—mon ange,—are you in earnest?"
"Yes, my Boris. The last letter from your—our cousin Nadejda convinces me that the step must be taken. Prince Alexis has grown much older since your mother's death; he is lonely and unhappy. He may not welcome us, but long he will surely suffer us to come to him; and we must then begin the work of reconciliation. ”

“ The ground everywhere, in the field and in the woods, was strewed with mementoes of the battle,—rotting knapsacks and haversacks, battered canteens and tin cups, and fragments of clothing which Elijah's customers had not deemed it worth the while to pick up. On each side of the road were breastworks and rifle-pits extending into the woods. The clearing, once a well-fenced farm of grain-fields and clover-lots, was now a dreary and deserted common. Of the Chancellorsville House, formerly a large brick tavern, only the half-fallen walls and chimney-stacks remained. ”

“ Without care, he is cared for. Without capital, he controls capital. Free society does more for him than the richest despot does for the enslaved people whom the instinct of self-preservation forces him to cajole, and does it, too, without any infringement upon his manhood. We call it energy, enterprise, modern conveniences. It is the millennium.
But these matters are under full headway. Science and self-interest have taken them in hand, and there is no danger that they will not be carried out to their farthest beneficial limits. ”

“ He will never write it home, and there is nobody in the city who will discover it; provided he is prompt at his business, no one will meddle with his leisure hours. And if full-grown men are found to need the restraining influences of wife and child and neighbor, and to plunge into brutality whenever they form a community by themselves, what can prevent boys, when cast adrift, from drifting into sin? Genius is supreme, but genius is the heritage of but few; while passion and appetite, love of society and amusement, need of watchfulness and susceptibility to temptation, belong to all. ”

“ Two persons, by mutual agreement, to make their wills in each other's favor, then to wait impatiently for one another's death, and both to be informed of the desired event at the same time. Both, in most joyous sorrow, hasten to be present at the funeral, meet, and find themselves both hoaxed.
The story of a man, cold and hard-hearted, and acknowledging no brotherhood with mankind. At his death they might try to dig him a grave, but, at a little space beneath the ground, strike upon a rock, as if the earth refused to receive the unnatural son into her bosom. ”

“ Gregor must have been a newcomer in Kinesma, or he would not have tried the experiment. In an hour from the time it was announced, Prince Alexis appeared in the bazaar with a short whip under his arm.
He dismounted at the booth with an ironical smile on his face, which chilled the very marrow in the merchant's bones.
"Ah, Gregor, my child," he shouted, "you have already forgotten my commands. Holy St. Nicholas, what a bad memory the boy has! Why, he can't be trusted to do business: I must attend to the shop myself. Out of the way! march!" ”