Various

“ I will fight with thee the King of the South; do not kill her, my good daughter, my only child!'
They hear him not; a darkish light is creeping along the walls, the lamps are dying out, loud talking is heard on the gallery, the half-drunken bridegroom comes leaping and reeling on, rushes into the chamber, suddenly seems transfixed to the floor, puts his hand to his sword, but not finding it at his side, looks back, calls aloud, but no one follows him. Horror, like living death, paralyzes the old man. ”

“ An idea, to be effective, must be organized; an institution, to be effective, must have breathed into it the breath of life, must be vivified with an idea. It is only thus, in and through institutions, that ideas can exert their proper influence upon society.
This is, indeed, the American principle of reform. The thorough conviction of it in the hearts of the American people has thus far saved us from the anarchy of radicalism, which is ever agitating new ideas; and is now destined to save us from the bolder-faced anarchy of revolution, seeking to overthrow our institutions. ”

“ But even while they pray, the truth creeps into their courtyards, glides like a serpent on their castle walls, writhes over the threshold, and, seating herself upon a coffin, chants the death song of delusion, and as she sings, the last star falls from the sky, and eternal night becomes the name of the world.
Behold! No glittering haze or golden woof remains in the hands of the old man from the dying glow of his long Indian summer. Hearken! his daughter's tears are falling fast on the burning embers of his soul. The laughter of the careless husband blasts his ear. ”

“ It is simply, therefore, the question of anarchy that we have to deal with. Therefore, we say that the North is fighting for the idea of government.
We are not seeking to perpetuate oppressive power. On the other hand, the rebellion is a flagrant attempt to organize oppression. We are seeking to perpetuate power, it is true, but a power which has stood for nearly a hundred years, and must continue to stand, if it stand at all, as a bulwark against oppression. We are vindicating our right to be, as a nation. We are proving our title to rank among the powers of the earth. ”

“ Would you sacrifice yourself for a pair of stockings? Have you not patriotism enough to offer yourself upon the altar of your country? If I were a man, I would enlist in a moment, though I had ten thousand a year, and a wife and seven children.'
I will confess to you, gentle reader, that I was not such a craven as I appeared. The fires of patriotism were smouldering in my bosom, and I needed only a spark from Kate's hand to light them into life and action. Kate rose and left the room, her cheek glowing with spirit, and I sat and fanned the chair where she had sat, for a few moments. ”

“ Contempt for you has passed away forever. Let the dead past bury its dead. American women solve the riddle of woman's destiny. Vast is her field and heritage: all who suffer belong to her. Her heart is the strength of love and charity; her mind, justice and the rights of all who bear the human form; her soul, God's temple among men, in which dwell the angels of Purity, Sacrifice, and Devotion. Love to God and man is her creed, self-abnegation her crown, faith her oriflamme, strength her gift, life her guerdon, and immortality her portion. ”

“ The Government looks to you as its best aid, for moral sanction is its living soul; it looks to you for higher life, for, unless the heart of love is the throbbing life-pulse of Government, it sinks into a dull, lethargic mechanism. Far above the din of faction, the red tape of cabinets, the rivalry of generals, the strife of politicians, shines the resolve, and pulses the determination of woman, that mankind shall be free. For this, the dusky nation bless her as she moves ”

“ The institutions protect it; it sanctifies the institutions. In its unchecked power, like the lightning, it annihilates and overwhelms man. Unchecked, it becomes a reckless license, disgracing history and its own fair name with such scenes as the French Revolution, and causing the martyred defenders of its sacred majesty to cry out, in bitter agony of disappointment: 'O Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!'
In fact, the liberty that is valuable is the liberty that is regulated by law; just as the law that is valuable is the law that has the spirit of liberty. ”

“ It marks agriculture as the first and highest calling for the development in the highest degree of the nation and of mankind.
Every man may have his plot of ground, in the cultivation and adornment of which he may realize the pleasure which accompanies the calling of amateur farmer, horticulturist, or florist, in which he is in constant communication with nature and her beauty. 'In it there is no corruption, but rather goodness.'
How kindly nature seems to have dealt with some of the old farmers who even now tread the broad earth, beloved and reverenced by all who know them! ”

“ If so, is it at all necessary that the moral virtues of the founders of society should be duly educated, cultured into the soul, leaving the impress on generation after generation, of honor, of order, of manliness, of thrift? The condition of the farmers is the postulate by which the sagacious economist will foretell the future prosperity of the nation they represent. This is what the American farmer should have presented to him from every stand-point. It is lamentable that this vocation should be so sadly represented by the most of those who are engaged in it. ”

“ The sun is fully up now, drinking the dews from the leaves, and lighting up the waves of the lake with splendor. Large beaked boats with heraldic banners are rocking in the coves. Fastening the roses he had gathered for his child in his bosom, he walks to the shore, with fever burning more and more vividly in his face. No one ventures to suggest a return to the castle. Accustomed to obey the unbending will of their lord, they still pay homage to it, though it is no longer a thing of this world. Dark as midnight seems the day dawn to them; their own brains seem seething into madness. ”

“ The United States stands at the political zenith; the confederate States at the political nadir. The Southern confederacy denies the truth of our system, and asserts that political equality is a fiction and foolishness. To it, indeed, political equality is a stumbling block; for the confederate constitution bases itself openly and unblushingly on the principle of property in man. It has been blasphemously announced that this is the stone which the builders of our government refused, and that it is now become the headstone of the corner of a divinely instituted nation. ”

“ He sees the blue night-sky, and a single star sparkling upon it, and as he looks upon the star, he takes a sword from under his cloak, draws the steel from the scabbard, and, still gazing upon the star, sharpens it on his whetstone. Thus, with widely opened eye, yet seeing, hearing nothing, the somnambulist, wrapped in deep, magnetic sleep, strides on in the moonlight, possessed by a power of which he is not conscious, which may stain his hands with blood, or hold him back from the verge of an abyss. Passion drinks its glow from the rays of the sun ”

“ Unhappy maiden! thou vanishest like a thought which cannot shape itself in any language known on earth, a dream of early love! Thou wouldst not lose thy snowy wings, and they bear thee on the whirlwind's track, where the mists fly, the clouds sail, the sound of harps dies, the leaves of autumn drift, the breath of sighs vanishes! Martyr to thine own dream of plighted faith, they bury thy fair form in ancestral earth; perchance the sculptured marble presses on thy faultless brow, for on its snow they grave the hated foreign name borne by thy alien husband! ”

“ America gladly tenders her most gracious homage to these devoted men, and hastens to add her leaf to the chaplet which binds their brow. It is to their persistent efforts, to their unshaken faith, that 'agriculture has become elevated to the dignity of a science.'
This vocation of farming in good earnest, with success and profit, is not fun, but downright work. It is work, but no more persistent, constant, studious, or thoughtful than that which is demanded by any of the other callings in life, none of which has or can have such delightful compensations as this. ”

“ Hark! loud voices pledge a noisy health in one of the distant rooms—he shudders, but perhaps she hears no longer; heavy footsteps tramp along the gallery—the light of torches flickers in the morning breeze.
'O God, thou wilt surely give the victory to my country!' cries the chieftain, as he carries the benumbed and half-lifeless form of the bride within the wedding chamber.
The drunken companions of the long revel reel and totter along the galleries of the castle; the bridegroom hastens to his bride with the dawn of day. ”

“ Despots would have exultingly announced that 'man is incapable of self-government;' while the heroes and patriots in other countries, who, cheered and guided by the light of our example, had struggled in the cause of popular liberty, would have sunk despairingly from the conflict. This is our real offence to European oligarchy, that we will crush this foul rebellion, extinguish the slavery by which it was caused, make the Union stronger and more harmonious, and thus give a new impulse and an irresistible moral influence and power to free institutions. ”

“ She beckons the old man on—on, to the arched door, up to the loophole in the wall looking into the bridal chamber of the ladies of the castle—there the dead form stops, and beckons him to draw near and look within.
O God! close by the wedding bed and before the great mirror, he sees his daughter in the arms of an armed man; he knows the flashing eye and broad brow of the exile; he hears her familiar voice, sweet, sonorous, and penetrating as the tones of the harmonica. A glittering blade is in the hand of the man ”

“ He will force me to the court of the King of the South. I must there bear my part amid strange faces, surrounded by falsehood and pride, and learn to smile on those I loathe. He will lead me to the court that he may boast of my beauty, that he may show his king he has gathered the pale flower of the ancient House. And what will be the course of the king, what that of the prince, my husband? Look at the old, and learn! They curse in old age what they worshipped in youth; they love what they once scorned. ”

“ Out of doors he spends the greater portion of his life. His intelligent eye takes in the beautiful objects of land and sky, sea and mountain; his refined ear, by practice and cultivation, delights in the exquisite harmony of the birds, the music of the wind, the murmuring of the sea, the sighing amid the forests;—the beauty of the flowers, springing in the utmost profusion at his feet—peeping at early spring from beneath the lately fallen snow, an earnest that life yet remains under the clods of apparently exhausted nature—their continued offerings through the long and sultry days of summer ”

“ The foreign prince inherits the ancient castle with all its treasures, the glories of the honored name, the entire Past of a noble race. He buries the bodies of his virgin wife and haughty father-in-law with funereal pomp and honor; but orders the corpse of the exile to be roughly thrown into unhallowed ground. In the very hall in which he had spent the first night of his bridal, surrounded by gay revellers, pledging full cups of ruby wine, with light jests flying from reckless lip to lip—he spreads, with the same comrades, the solemn Feast of the Dead. ”

“ The hot rain of stars forever falling there dies out with dull moan, while the glad waves and white foam laugh as the ruined wrecks toss helplessly in the strong winds; but the aged heed it not: they have grown into one with the rock of the past, they build air castles over the roaring depths, they look upon the waves, as they surge into each other, as stable altars of peace and happiness. They command their sons and daughters to vow faith in the light of the past, but ere the oath is fully spoken, the altar is under other skies, encircled by other horizons! ”

“ The old man cannot bear these chill and fatal words. His brain reels, his hopes die, he falls at the foot of the grave, his soul rests for the moment with the ghosts of his ancestors. When he awakes to consciousness, the pale face of his child is bending tenderly over him, her caresses call him back to life. Hark! again he hears the sounding strophes of the wedding song; the chanting maidens cross the threshold; slowly singing, they surround the bride with snowy circle; nearer and nearer they cluster round her—she throws herself for refuge in the old man's arms! ”