Various

“ In his turbulent and unsettled ambition, in his vague grapple with the giant forms of political truths, in his bias towards the application of science to immediate practical purposes, this lovely vision of the Muse came in the white robe of the Peacemaker; and with upraised hand, pointing to serene skies, she opened to him fair glimpses of the Beautiful, which is given to Peasant as to Prince—showed to him that on the surface of earth there is something nobler than fortune—that he who can view the world as a poet is always at soul a king ”

“ Many of the villagers fancy, in the stillness of the night, when the clock strikes twelve, that they hear a sound in the schoolhouse, like the sweetest tones of a fiddle. Some say that it is old Hans's instrument, which he bequeathed to the schoolhouse, and which plays by itself. Others declare that the tones which Hans played into the wood and stones, when the house was building, come out of them again in the night. Be this as it may, the children are taught all the new rational methods of instruction, in a building which is still haunted by the ghost of the last fiddler. ”

“ Sometimes, indeed, a short run down into a gentle valley released the horses from the continual tug on the collar, but it was very brief, and the ascent commenced almost immediately. Beautiful views over the scenery round presented themselves at every turn; and Emily, who had all the spirit of a painter in her heart, looked forth from the window enchanted.
Mrs. Hazleton marked her enjoyment with great satisfaction; for either by study or intuition she had a deep knowledge of the springs and sources of human emotions, and she knew well that one enthusiasm always disposes to another. ”

“ Nay, more, she knew that whatever is associated in the mind with pleasant scenes is usually pleasing, and she had plotted the meeting between Emily and him she intended to be her lover with considerable pains to produce that effect. Nature seemed to have been a sharer in her schemes. The day could not have been better chosen. There was the light fresh air, the few floating clouds, the merry dancing gleams upon hill and dale, a light, momentary shower of large, jewel-like drops, the fragment of a broken rainbow painting the distant verge of heaven. ”

“ I arrived in Genoa. I trod the pavement of my ancestral palace. My proud step was no interpreter of my heart, for I deeply felt that, though surrounded by every luxury, I was a beggar. The first step I took in claiming Juliet must widely declare me such. I read contempt or pity in the looks of all. I fancied, so apt is conscience to imagine what it deserves, that rich and poor, young and old, all regarded me with derision. Torella came not near me. No wonder that my second father should expect a son's deference from me in waiting first on him. ”

“ This hotel belonged to the beautiful Felina, the Italian queen of song, who had deigned to descend from a throne to be the Duchess of Palma. The lofty brow which had borne so proudly the diadem of Semiramis and Junia, wore now a duchess's coronet. This was a great self-deprecation; for Europe contained a thousand duchesses, and but one Felina. Worse still, many duchesses would not recognize La Felina as one of the number. She was a duchess by chance; a duchess not by the grace of God, but by the grace of talent and beauty. ”

“ It is no easy matter to arouse the harvest folks, after a hard day's work, from their first sound sleep: there they lie, stretched as unconsciously as the corn in the fields which they have reaped in the sweat of their brow. But wake they must—there is no help for it. The stable-boys are the first on the alert—every one anxious to win the reward which, time out of mind, has been given to the person, who, on the occasion of a fire, is the first to reach the engine-house with harnessed horses. ”

“ They were bitter enough; for she had read, with the clear eyesight of jealousy, all that Marlow's look of surprise and annoyance—all that Emily's look of joy and relief—betrayed.
They might not yet call themselves lovers—they might not even be conscious that they were so; but that they were and would be, from that moment, Mrs. Hazleton had no doubt. The conviction had come upon her, not exactly gradually, but by fits, as it were—first a doubt, and then a fear, and then a certainty that one, and then that both loved. ”

“ Maulear clasped her in his arms and forgot his troubles, as all do who love and are loved.
One morning, about ten o'clock, he had left her to go to the French embassy, whither he was called by important business. The young Marquise had gone into the garden of Cellamare, and sat beneath an arbor of jasmin, reading her favorite poet Tasso. Love of Maulear now interpreted these passionate mysteries, which hitherto she had not understood. Her soul, illumined by the flame enkindled in it, did not admire, as it formerly did, the form and gentle harmony of the poem alone. ”

“ To be a man, free, independent; or, in better words, insolent and domineering, was the hope and prayer of my rebel heart.
My father had one friend, a wealthy Genoese noble, who, in a political tumult, was suddenly sentenced to banishment, and his property confiscated. The Marchese Torella went into exile alone. Like my father, he was a widower: he had one child, the almost infant Juliet, who was left under my father's guardianship. I should certainly have been an unkind master to the lovely girl, but that I was forced by my position to become her protector. ”

“ The fame of success remains, when the motives of attempt are forgotten; and the casual reader of her history may perhaps be surprised to be reminded, that the expedition which was commanded by the noblest of her princes, and whose results added most to her military glory, was one in which while all Europe around her was wasted by the fire of its devotion, she first calculated the highest price she could exact from its piety for the armament she furnished, and then, for the advancement of her own private interests, at once broke her faith and betrayed her religion. ”

“ If the world was always merry—if folks did nothing but work and dance, there would be no need of schoolmasters—no need of learning to write and read—no parsons—and (by your worship's pardon) no magistrates. The whole world is a big fiddle—the strings are tuned—Fortune plays upon them; but some one is wanted to be constantly screwing up the strings; and this is a job for the parson and magistrate. ”

“ Riccabocca so reluctant a wooer."
"Very true," said the Captain; "the Italian does not shine as a lover. Throw a little more fire into him, Pisistratus—something gallant and chivalrous."
"Fire—gallantry—chivalry!" cried my father, who had taken Riccabocca under his special protection—"why, don't you see that the man is described as a philosopher?—and I should like to know when a philosopher ever plunged into matrimony without considerable misgivings and cold shivers. Indeed, it seems that—perhaps before he was a philosopher—Riccabocca had tried the experiment, and knew what it was. ”

“ Just when the world is to be the theatre of a new Sesostris, the dreamers of France tell you that the age is too enlightened for war, that man is henceforth to be governed by pure reason and live in a Paradise. Very pretty reading all this to a man like me, Lenny, who can admire and smile at it. But to you, to the man who has to work for his living, to the man who thinks it would be so much more pleasant to live at his ease in a phalanstere than to work eight or ten hours a day ”

“ Faithful to my oaths, and to our principles, I am always ready to keep and to defend them. Acting, henceforth, alone, I shall do as I please, and be accountable to myself alone. Now, Signori, adieu! I shall leave Italy, and perhaps Europe, in search of a country, the institutions of which recognize the true principles of national happiness. Wherever, though, I may be, I will be mute as to your secrets, and devoted to your principles. You had just now a chief in Count Monte-Leone. He is so no more, but is still your brother. ”

“ La Felina was an Italian, and those of that nation who receive affronts avenge them. She was not long at a loss. Her vengeance, however, could not easily be attained, for she had to do with a rich and powerful society, which had, as it were, formed a coalition to insult a woman, by rejecting her with disdain and contempt.
The renown of La Felina as a singer had long excited the curiosity of Paris. Her admirable voice, her dramatic talent, her wonderful beauty, made the great artiste to be envied in every theatre in Europe. ”

“ Torella rejoiced that my minority would afford an opportunity for repairing my fortunes. Juliet and I had been affianced beside my father's deathbed—Torella was to be a second parent to me.
I desired to see the world, and I was indulged. I went to Florence, to Rome, to Naples; thence I passed to Toulon, and at length reached what had long been the bourne of my wishes, Paris. There was wild work in Paris then. The poor king, Charles the Sixth, now sane, now mad, now a monarch, now an abject slave, was the very mockery of humanity. ”

“ As the deer recoils by instinct from the tiger, as the very look of the scorpion deters you from handling it, though you never saw a scorpion before, so the very first line in some ribald profanity on which the Tinker put his black finger, made Lenny's blood run cold. Safe, too, was the peasant boy from any temptation in works of a gross and licentious nature, not only because of the happy ignorance of his rural life, but because of a more enduring safeguard—genius! Genius, that, manly, robust, healthful as it be, is long before it loses its instinctive Dorian modesty ”

“ He was not worthy even of the earnest devotion which the poor orange-girl, of all his favorites, alone manifested to the last.
Poor Nell! the sympathy which every right-thinking woman feels it a Christian duty to give to her and her class, far from extenuating vice, is only a call upon the virtuous to be more virtuous, and to the pure to be more pure. No one would plunge into crime, merely for the sake of being redeemed therefrom; no one take the sin, who looked first at the shame, hideous and enduring as it must be—however overshadowed by the broad wings of mercy ”

“ The farther off the age is from the realization of such projects, the more these poor philosophers have indulged them. Thus, it was amidst the saddest corruption of court manners, that it became the fashion in Paris to sit for one's picture, with a crook in one's hand, as Alexis, or Daphne. Just as liberty was fast dying out of Greece, and the successors of Alexander were founding their monarchies, and Rome was growing up to crush in its iron grasp all states save its own, Plato withdraws his eyes from the world, to open them in his dreamy Atlantis. ”

“ They proved that his had never been a policy of peace at any price. He had besieged Antwerp without the consent of England; he had sent an army to Ancona, though Metternich had declared that a Frenchman in Italy would be war in Europe. His government had always acted boldly and firmly, and had been respected. Why, only a few weeks before February, the great powers of Europe had asked of France to settle with her alone, and without consulting England, some of the questions which might compromise the equilibrium of Europe. Such was the consideration in which France was then held. ”

“ It is the attribute of the poet to seem always living, always a friend. Leonard felt as if some one very dear had been suddenly torn from his heart. He tried to console his mother; but her emotion was contagious, and he wept with her.
"And how long has she been dead?" he asked at last, in mournful accents.
"Many's the long year, many; but," added Mrs. Fairfield, rising, and putting her tremulous hand on Leonard's shoulder, "you'll just never talk to me about her—I can't bear it—it breaks my heart. I can bear better to talk of Mark—come down stairs—come."
"May I not keep these verses, mother? ”

“ At length, when the impression was most favorable, John Ayliffe rose to go—I know not whether he did so at a sign from Mrs. Hazleton; but I think he did. Few men quit a room gracefully—it is a difficult evolution—and he, certainly, did not. But Emily's eyes were in a different direction, and to say the truth, although he had seemed to her more agreeable that evening than he had been before, she thought too little of him at all to remark how he quitted the room, even if her eyes had been upon him. ”

“ A vague fancy has long been floating in my brain, that it might be so some day. She is too young to marry yet; and it will be sad to part with her when the time does come; but you have my consent to seek her affection if she can give it you. She must herself decide."
"Have you considered fully," asked Marlow, "that I have neither fortune nor rank to offer her, that I am by no means——"
Sir Philip waved his hand almost impatiently. "What skills it talking of rank or wealth?" he said. "You are a gentleman by birth, education, manners. You have easy competence. ”

“ As may be imagined, these movements aroused the jealousy of the court and merchants of Lisbon. They trembled lest their commercial monopoly should be encroached upon, and every care was taken to keep the rest of Europe in ignorance of the details of the trade, and of the discoveries and conquests of their agents in the East.
Of course nothing could be more injurious to a Portuguese of the time than to be suspected of a design to aid with advice or information the schemes of foreign rivals. Unluckily for James Botello such a suspicion lighted upon him. ”

“ Multiplying her cares for and attention to her guests, appearing to notice neither the cold politeness of the one nor the rudeness of the other, the Duchess increased her amiability and politeness to all who approached her. The ice was broken. The men could not resist her charms, and many women followed their example. The dazzling luxury of the hotel, the admirable pictures, the majestic beauty of the Duchess, produced such an effect on this society, composed of the most illustrious persons of Paris, and of all who were famous at the epoch, that the success of La Felina was complete. ”

“ The evidence which I shall be able to deduce from the arts of Venice will be both frequent and irrefragable, that the decline of political prosperity was exactly coincident with that of domestic and individual religion. I say domestic and individual; for—and this is the second point which I wish the reader to keep in mind—the most curious phenomenon in all Venetian history is the vitality of religion in private life, and its deadness in public policy. Amidst the enthusiasm, chivalry, or fanaticism of the other states of Europe, Venice stands, from first to last, like a masked statue ”

“ Look at her now, as, released from those kindly arms, she stands, still clinging with one hand to her new mamma, and holding out the other to Riccabocca—with those large dark eyes swimming in happy tears. What a lovely smile!—what an ingenuous candid brow! She looks delicate—she evidently requires care—she wants the mother. And rare is the woman who would not love her the better for that! Still, what an innocent infantine bloom in those clear smooth cheeks!—and in that slight frame, what exquisite natural grace! ”

“ He got down from the cart, and entered a neighbor's cottage. All the folks pressed up to the old fiddler, tendering words of comfort, and promising that they would all help him to rebuild his cottage.
"No, no!" replied Hans; "'tis all well. I have no home—I'm one of the cuckoo tribe that has no resting-place of its own, and only now and then slips into the swallow's nest. For the short time I have to live, I shall have no trouble in finding quarters wherever I go. I can now climb up into a tree again, and look down upon the world in which I have no longer any thing to call my own. ”