Various

“ Humor lightens right to the heart of the matter at once, without by-play. Wit will show you the live sparks rushing red-rustling from the chimney, and prettily dancing away in the dark, a 'moment bright, then gone forever.' But Humor shall give you a pleasanter peep through the lighted window, and show you the fire glowing and ruddy—the smiling heart of home—shining in the dear faces of those you love, who are waiting to overflow in one warm embracing wave of love the moment the door is opened for your coming. ”

“ In all that pertains to the petty businesses which bow us to the routine of this work-day world, I am as it were at home. I am distinctly a mover in the great tide of Action sweeping on around me; yet when I enter into the sanctuary of the Muses, lo! at one wave of the spiritual wand, this 'dim and ignorant present' disappears. I breathe a rarer atmosphere. Visions of childhood throng upon my soul; the blue mountain-tops; the aerial circles of far-off landscapes; the hazy horizon of ocean-waters; the wind-tossed verdure of summer ”

“ It was one of those quiet still nights when there was scarcely a ripple on [79] the water; every star was plainly reflected on its surface, and the moon hung in the sky like a huge globe of silver.
Nick pulled lazily along, thinking at one time of a farmer's daughter with whom he had passed a few love-passages behind the door; then of the ale and cider and apple-brandy; then of the tales of Kidd, with which an old black fiddler had regaled them at intervals during the evening: until he had got the apple-brandy and the farmer's daughter and Kidd and his treasure terribly jumbled together. ”

“ For further examples of senseless platitudes dictatorially expressed, we refer the reader to the work passim. There is nothing more ridiculous than the deliberate sitting-down to write a book of proverbs and reflections. How unlike the genuine flow of the table-talk of some of our best men or the words of wisdom forced, as it were, from the lips of experience. In short, we are sick of pompous mediocrity on stilts: of that placid egotism which complacently assumes the office of guide and teacher, though incapable of aught but the tedious common-place. ”

“ Nick, from a casual loiterer about the place, was gradually become a kind of appendage to it: running of errands, catching a mess of fish, or dropping a few woodcock at Volkert's door; ringing the noses of his pigs, and making himself generally useful. But the great secret of their intimacy was a certain adventure which Nick had met with, many years previously, in which Teunis Van Gelder bore a conspicuous part. It did not speak very well for the old pioneer, but Volkert took a strange pride in the evil odor which hung round the skirts of his ancestor. ”

“ Like his frugal Caledonian brother, he prefers the nook of a vast and substantial edifice to a small isolated tenement; and is content to occupy a floor, and adjust the height thereof to the length of his purse: both space and cash are saved by the arrangement; while a far more uniform, permanent, and effective architecture is secured. Thus each huge dwelling is a world in itself; the ground-floor may be a shop, but ascend the steps and you find the guardian genius of the place, whom if you are a resident or an habitué of the premises, it is well to propitiate. ”

“ Catch a few phrases from the leaf of a courtier's memoirs, the mouth of a neighbor at restaurant or theater, or the bourgeois in a crowd, and an epitome of this mingled levity and talent, this comedy of life, and quickness of apprehension, without seriousness of conviction, is hinted at once. 'They are like me, they regret their mud,' said Madame de Maintenon, watching the restless carp in their pellucid vase; 'il y quelqu'un qui fait encore plus d'ennemis qu'un cheval anglais—ce'st la femme de theatre,' was the observation of a Parisian sage ”

“ Policy no more bids them to kindle the eye with deceitful lustre; no more prompts to semblance, which feeling condemns. They are gone!—'ashes to ashes, and dust to dust;' and when I think of the numbers who thus pass away, I am pained within me; for I know from them that our life is not only as a dream which passeth away, but that the garniture, or the carnival of it, is indeed a vapor, sun-gilt for a moment, then colored with the dun hues of death, or stretching its dim folds afar, until their remotest outlines catch the imperishable glory of eternity. Such is life ”

“ The social economy of Paris is based on a combination of narrow means, with bright conceptions; we see it in the graceful but frail upholstery, the exquisite fit of a plain muslin robe, the bewitching trim of a cheap bonnet, the variety of a two-franc dinner, the bon-mot which atones for inability to read, the absorption over a game of dominoes, the philosophic air with which a cigarette is smoked, and the artistic ruffle of a chemisette; the prolific fun educed from an anecdote, and the slight impression made by a revolution ”

“ Or how beautiful Nella was when she said this. Wild, and strange, and inspired, as though she saw far in advance some beautiful solemn coming promise, too great for words. Then graceful as a cloud she sank down into the chair, and covered her forehead with her hands. And there was not one present who did not regard her with respect and love. She is a wonder, this Nella. One who in stormy times would be one of the women of the Nation and of History. ”

“ We passed one whole delightful year together in the Third Avenue boarding-house. I felt my own mind growing, becoming richer in all sorts of knowledge, freer and clearer in every field of thinking, with each succeeding day. And as for Miss Brentnall, she was so kind as to say, and I knew she sincerely meant it, that to her, all lonely in the world, our friendship was in all respects inestimable. At the end of the year, Miss Brentnall was taken ill. ”

“ That is the way to make men.'
'Foolish Queerleigh! Foolish able editor! Knowest thou not that there was a stuff in thee, and a spirit that has made thee an exception to the general rule? Few men, perhaps, with thy lack of advantages, would make themselves as able as thou art. But with the advantages thou lackedst, many might. Beside, clever as thou art, able editor, writer, thinker, thou art not a learned man. No disgrace. How shouldst thou be? The thing for thee to be ashamed of is, that thou shouldst decry what thou hast not. ”

“ The bells of the eight mules pulling the diligence were jingling; the postillion on the right leader had settled himself in his saddle; the arriero had hold of the reins; the mayoral jumped into his seat in the Imperial; and the zugal, holding his calañes hat tight on his head, sprung out of the door of the diligence-office, uttering fearful yells and cracking his whip with the ferocity of a mad monkey; when—creak, bang, slide, slip! and we were launched on our journey to Madrid. ”

“ They go along like men without hope, as if life were a penalty, and the only expiration of their term of condemnation were to arrive with death. Ah! if these poor people could but see an American mechanic, with his bright eye, erect head, and proud and cheerful carriage, they would understand the value of liberty at a glance, and increase their hours of toil till they could earn enough to enable them to escape into an atmosphere where they may breathe and live.'
Such are the thoughts which we love to see entertained by observant Americans travelling abroad. ”

“ Nick had been passing an evening many years since at a husking-frolic. Like most persons who are good for nothing else, he was in his element there. He was a lusty dare-devil fellow then, ready for a fight or a frolic, and full of that rash yet jovial recklessness which makes friends of the men and plays the very deuce among the other sex. The party had been merry, and when the time came for breaking up, their merriment had become boisterous. ”

“ You will think the reason whimsical perhaps; but, merely because she was not beautiful, I felt as if she would not be taken away from me. 'Only the beautiful die, only the beautiful,' I kept saying to myself all day, in the shop or at the work-table. In the evening, when I came back to the house, I found that two things had occurred. Miss Brentnall's pulse had become feebler, and she did not seem to me so plain as before. ”

“ If the composer's soul never mirrored the extremest depths of Nature, or if the present performer has in his own soul no complete expression for the strain, there is yet enough. The child's eyes sparkle over cheeks whiter than snow, his quivering lips part, he shivers at each roll of harmony, he stands with self-forgetful, outstretched hands, and, as it closes, every pulse thrills beneath the surge of the silver thunders. ”

“ But listen to him, please, in a few segregated passages:
'The influence of healthy Wit and Humor is a benign one, if it comes to us at times, and kindly makes us forget sad thoughts and cankering cares; makes the oldest feel young and fresh, and turns the wrinkles of our sorrow into ripples of laughter. Shakspeare, who mirrored our whole humanity, did not leave the laugh out of its reflected face. He tells us, 'Your merry heart goes all the day;' and he knew how much the merry heart may have to carry. ”

“ To frequent from childhood to manhood, and from manhood to old age, the same unchanging scenes; to sit year in and year out on the same dusty sidewalks, in front of the same crowded and noisy cafés, playing the same eternal dominoes, seeing pass the same throng of similar people, each as like the other in his diversity as a big pea is like a little pea, as a double clover is like a single clover, or a wilted cabbage is like a fresh one ”

“ Partly because I felt assured that, as she said, we should some time or other meet again.
'When the Flicker died, I felt that this only thing hitherto left to love me, could never reäppear. The kind heart of the woman would beat again; the kind heart of the bird no more forever. And strangely enough, the whole sorrow that I had passed through for Miss Brentnall's loss revived, and I went about my day's work bearing the weight of a two-fold melancholy. ”

“ Nature craves pleasure as much as food. I am only a woman, consequently I have been barred as in a cage my life long; but I have good strong eyes, and I have seen something through those bars. I tell you that, with all the suffering on earth—bereavements, poverty, hunger, disease and oppression, that which goads man most is the craving for pleasure, for recreation, or 'distraction.' Teachers and parents close their eyes to the existence of this terrible power, and moralists either treat it as an evil or try to feed it on gruel. ”

“ We are still extant; the beams of our spirit still shine from our eyes; yet there are many who, since last my sentences came to yours, have drooped their lids forever upon things of earth. Numberless ties have been severed; numberless hearts rest from their pantings, and sleep, 'no more to fold the robe o'er secret pain.' All the deceits, the masks of life, are ended with them. ”

“ For I have seen so much of it, that it only looks to me like a grimmer kind of father, coming to wake his over-slept son and tell him that unless he leaps from his feather-bed, and that right suddenly, the time for every thing good in life will have gone by. I fear good-fortune, because I am not sure that I shall use it well. ”

“ In the earlier history of nations and literatures, when life is strong and thought is unperplexed, we get writers full enough in force, and direct enough in expression, to touch nature at most points. Hence the earlier great writers reach the depths of tragedy, and the breadths of humor. In their times they see the full play of the outward actions in which Life expresses itself: all those striking contrasts of life ”

“ Mark how the liquid sounds melt into melody in the lines which ensue:
'You must know, reader, that there lieth, some three miles or so from Brotherly Love—a city of this continent, a delectable city—a place of burial, 'Laurel Hill' by name. On a sweeter spot the great sun never threw the day-spring of the morning, nor the blush of the evening west. There the odors and colors of nature profusely repose ”

“ More than any body else in the world.'
'I took Miss Brentnall's poor, parched hand, but could not answer. 'Orloff—kind as you are to me—in the bottom of your heart, you know that I have the most repulsive face you ever saw. Say yes, Orloff. You do know it. I have been sure of it, since I was a little girl, six years old, thirty-four years ago, yesterday. I was never sorry for it, more than a moment at a time, until a year ago. And now you may tell me you see it, without hurting me at all. Pride is past. Say that my face is the most unlovely in the world. ”

“ This posture elevated her chin. I was about to say something, but just then I saw under that chin another crimson mark, the slenderest of slender lines, as if the finest knife-point dipped in blood had been drawn clear across the throat by a nervous hand. I durst not say to myself what I was reminded of by that. Not even to think of it at all. I half-feared that I had become insane, rubbed my forehead, and kept repeating: 'Oh! it is only her bonnet-strings tied too tightly, that is all!'
'I would not trust myself with questioning her then. ”

“ Liquorice-water, the caricature of an abbe, an omelette scientifically fried, a fancy clock; a woman in front of Tortoni's letting off swallows from a basket, at two sous a flight; a bird-cage, a flower-stand, a plaster bust, a lap-dog, a fan, a little glass of Otard, a cake of scented soap, an opera-glass, a pan of charcoal, a wax candle, or a parrot, an elegant coiffure, a geranium leaf, or a bit of sugar—where on earth, but in Paris, do such things weigh so much in the scale of diurnal experience, felicity, and even fate? ”

“ His is a good likeness; mine isn't. They tell Sam that bronze suits his style of face; I live in mortal fear that some body'll call us both a couple of gas-blowers; and so avail myself of this chance to head them all off, by originalling it myself. Remember, good folks, it has been done.
Well, there were the girls: Amelia, Bertha Sue, Little Sugar, and one or two others, not forgetting the immortal Nella Satanella, all sewing and snipping things with scissors, or knitting and hauling in the runaway worsted balls, every once in a while, with a jerk, as if they were children wandered off. ”