Various

“ Almost the first thing that strikes the spectator at an orchid show for the first time, after he has recovered from a sort of shock at the overwhelming beauty of the display—a display out-rivalling the rainbow in its variety and blend of colour—is the quite ludicrous resemblance of many of the flowers to animals, birds, and insects. Bees, spiders, grasshoppers, flies, lizards, and toads are quite common forms of orchid mimicry. ”

“ It does one good to see a man thoroughly appreciating his good luck. The thing is so seldom done. Deverell not only did this, but did it with complete sincerity. Even to-night, though personally most uncomfortable, and tightening his belt after every pipe, he could gaze at the stars with grateful eyes, obscure them with clouds of smoke, watch the clouds disperse and the stars shine bright again, and call himself again and again, and yet again, the luckiest man in the Colony. ”

“ That is commonly reckoned by the stranger or the mere male person the least interesting age of all, but to the mother—and, indeed, to all women and grown girls—it is the most interesting. Then the baby's clinging helplessness, its wide stare of wonder, and its bright, human smile and crow of response to a kind look or tone, suffuse the female heart with an unimaginable delight. What pride is felt in the health and beauty and weight of the baby! ”

“ Yet a well-ordered English home is baby's paradise. There he is not swathed in bandages and rolled in a pillow and crowned with a nightcap; he is kept always clean and sweet, he is lightly but sufficiently clothed, and he is allowed to kick, and crow, and grow strong as much as ever he likes. He is no longer put to bed in a deep wooden cradle set on wooden rockers, but in a light and airy bassinette, which either is stationary or swings lightly upon hooks. ”

“ Besides the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice is by some legal fiction supposed to exercise control over the judicial bench. As a matter of fact, however, the judges are practically under no control whatever save that of public opinion, as represented by the press, which should never hesitate to expose their shortcomings when they come to light. It is the duty of those on whom, by force of circumstances, the public are obliged to rely to safeguard their interests, not to relax their supervision out of deference to the high repute in which our judges are held. ”

“ That lady who twenty years ago saw me fall to the ground outside Trafford Manor, and came to my help, has aided my career in many ways. She spoke of me to her husband, who knows more about music than any other man I am acquainted with. She encouraged me in my hours of depression, of despair. She has done more kindnesses for me than any other woman—but one. I am now a successful man. I am proud to owe all I own of value in the world to her. The one woman I am more indebted to than to her, I owe, in a way, to the lady of the "Faust" waltz also, for her daughter is my wife. ”

“ The close swaddling and padding of baby is found, the more we consider it, to be the fashion among both civilised and barbarous kindreds, and peoples, and tongues, where women are very hard-worked. It is easy to understand how that must be. When the mother digs and plants the soil, and grinds the corn, draws the water and cooks the food for her husband and children—as does the savage woman of every clime—when she spins and brews, and makes and mends, and cooks and cleans, as does the house-wife of almost every degree in almost every country of Europe ”

“ There is only one way in which I can show my gratitude, and that is by ridding you of a servant who can never again look your enemies in the face."
"What new folly is this?" said Henry, sternly. "Do you not understand that I have forgiven you?"
"Therefore I cannot give up Lusigny, and I must acquit myself of my debt to the Captain of Créance in the only way which remains," replied the young man, firmly. "Death is not so hard that I would not meet it twice over rather than again betray my trust." ”

“ A crane is swung out from a high floor, and from the end of the dependent chain hangs a wooden case or cage, violently agitated by the movements of the active inhabitant. He is a black panther, the most savage sort of beast with which Mr. Jamrach has to deal, and, as this one feels himself gradually rising through the air, his surprise and alarm manifest themselves in an outburst strongly reminding the spectator of Mark Twain's blown-up cat "a-snorting, and a-clawing, and a-reaching for things like all possessed." ”

“ While Deverell sat thus, returning thanks on an empty stomach, at the northern edge of the ridge, a man tramped into the pines from the south. The heavy sand muffled his steps; but he stopped long before he came near Deverell, and threw down his swag with an emancipated air. The man was old, but he held himself more erect than does the typical swagman. The march through life with a cylinder of blankets on one's shoulders, with all one's worldly goods packed in that cylinder, causes a certain stoop of a very palpable kind ”

“ Then in a friendly way they began to discuss politics with the calm common-sense of reasonable and peace-loving men, agreeing on the one point that no one would ever be free. And Mont Valerien thundered unceasingly, demolishing with its cannon-balls French houses, crushing out French lives, ruining many a dream, many a joy, many a hope deferred, wrecking much happiness, and bringing to the hearts of women, girls, and mothers in France and elsewhere, sorrow and suffering which would never have an end.
"It's life," said Monsieur Morisot. ”

“ In a street like this, every shop is, more or less, an extraordinary one; but no stranger would expect to find in one of them the largest and most varied collection of arms, curiosities, and works of savage and civilised art brought together for trade purposes in the world, and this side by side with a stock of lions, tigers, panthers, elephants, alligators, monkeys, or parrots. Such a shop, however, will be the most interesting object of contemplation to the stray wayfarer through St. George's-street, and this is the shop famed throughout the world as Jamrach's. ”

“ Across a chair lay another cloak and sword, and on the window seat, beside a pair of saddle-bags, were strewn half-a-dozen such trifles as soldiers carried from camp to camp—a silver comfit-box, a jewelled dagger, a mask, and velvet cap.
The faces of the players, as they bent over the dice, were in shadow. One—a slight, dark man of middle height, with a weak chin, and a mouth as weak, but shaded by a dark moustache—seemed, from the occasional oaths which he let drop, to be losing heavily. ”

“ A little damp straw thrust between the bars and lighted soon makes the lair uncomfortable, and then ensues a scene. Eyes gleam, and teeth gnash from obscure corners, and presently, with a bound and a yell, the powerful beast dashes through the opening into the case, and is secured. It may be easily understood that any little clumsiness or mistake at the critical moment might lead to the case being overturned in the rush, or improperly closed. Then, with a tiger or black panther worked to the highest pitch of frenzy by the fire and smoke, some lively adventures would probably take place. ”

“ He carries his life in his hands, and all for the sake of the chance of finding an orchid with some feature possessed by none other. The collector who would make his mark must be prepared for hazardous marches, for hanging like a sailor by his eyebrows over mighty precipices, or for wading for days in swamps. He must have self-reliance, resource, patience, knowledge, and endurance. ”

“ Behind me I could hear the trembling voices of Madame Badouillet and Madame Maréchal as they whispered to each other, "What is she talking about? What is she saying?" But that mattered little to me.
"At the other end of the chapel, above the altar," I continued, "there is a granary for storing fodder. Once there, you would be all right, but to get there——."
"Speak, speak!"
"You would have to follow a narrow passage, a sort of overhanging cornice, the whole length of the wall—and just over the sleeping soldiers. If they hear the least noise, should one of them wake up——!" ”

“ A great general driving by might fall into some terrible danger from onslaught of enemies, or the breaking of a wheel, and I might chance upon his deliverance, and he, in gratitude, might make a general of me, and send me against the Indians or the Kaffirs. Or a high admiral, being unused to the land, might be met by me wandering about on foot and alone—lost, not knowing where to turn for food or shelter, and I might guide him to both, and he might order that henceforth I was to be Captain of the saucy Arethusa. ”

“ Jamrach was an unusually powerful man—indeed, he is no weakling now, though nearer eighty than434 seventy years of age—and at his scientific grasp the tiger, half choked, let his captive fall, when a couple of heavy blows across the eyes from a crowbar thrust into the naturalist's hands by an attendant thoroughly cowed the great beast, who turned tail and meekly trotted back straight into the lair prepared for him, the door of which stood open for his reception. ”

“ I rarely went beyond the garden-gate, and never into the town. I became a youthful recluse in the boundless realms of fancy. I lorded it over empires and cities of men. Space, the space of the furthest wandering star, was not vast enough to accommodate the realms that rose in mist out of the pages of the poets and romancists.
I was a precocious boy. I knew nothing of boys' games and sports, and all at once I had come out of the cold, arid life at Bracken Glen into the rich and varied lights and colours of poetry. ”

“ It is monstrous that in an action to recover a sum of £100 a wealthy and perverse litigant should have the power, on some incidental question of interrogatory, to take his opponent from the master to the judge, from the judge to the Divisional Court, from the Divisional Court to the Court of Appeal, and from the Court of Appeal to the House of Lords.
An evil hardly less grave than the law's expense is the law's delay. ”

“ The orchid importer needs a stout heart and unlimited enterprise, and some of us may well wonder how he manages to make the business pay at all when we think of the ambassadors he employs in nearly every clime, of the funds which he has occasionally to place at their disposal, and of the fact that one loss may involve a sum equal to a fair annual income. On the other hand, if he is the lucky possessor of a variety of value, the plant creates the greatest enthusiasm in orchid circles, and is consequently a source of immense profit. ”

“ And when we consider that it has taken ages of Christian culture and feeling to bring us to our present height of imaginative sympathy with all forms of life, till now we are agreed that no more beautiful, sacred, or divine sight is to be seen under the sun than that of a mother with a child in her arms, then we can understand that, while it is an outrage, a sin, and a crime to destroy a child among the taught of Christendom, it is but a hideous barbarism among the uninstructed of heathendom. ”

“ The General says "Nine-tenths of England's misery is Drink." That is just what the Temperance advocates have been saying for nearly twice thirty years. Their hour of triumph is growing appreciably nearer. It will come so soon as the good, noble, and self-denying men who now deal with the misery which General Booth tells us is the effect of drink, will strike at the drink which is the cause of that misery. When we have done that, we may confidently look forward to an England which shall be as different from the England of to-day, as light is from darkness. ”

“ Our present circuit system undoubtedly leads to a scandalous and deplorable waste of judicial time and public money. For instance, on the South-Eastern Circuit, the largest towns of which are Cambridge and Norwich, there is practically no business whatever; and yet all the paraphernalia and expense of assizes goes on for eleven or409 twelve weeks every year in respect of cases that might be disposed of in London in about a week by one judge. On other circuits, too, time is wasted in an equally reckless manner, the judges on several days being absolutely idle. ”

“ Certainly the man or woman who finds it impossible to love the rose and the violet, the chrysanthemum, and even the simple little primrose which will be so much abroad during this month of April, is lamentably lacking in something. So much is indisputable of flowers in general, and of the subject of this paper in particular. The rose alone excepted, no plant has inspired the abiding love shown for the orchid, and, not even excepting the rose, none has been the object of such enthusiasm. ”

“ A large increase in the general chatter and growl around us announces the approach of an attendant with food. The emus and cassowaries stretch their long necks as far between the bars as possible, and the pelicans and cranes yell agonisingly. A large black panther throws himself against the bars of his cage, and gives voice unrestrainedly. In contrast to these, the domestic cat of the establishment follows the man's heels, with much tender purring and a sharp eye to any stray fallen morsel. ”

“ Well, to say nothing of its exquisite and unique charm as a mere spectacle, Darwin gave many reasons, and the Darwinian mind, we believe, has actually sought to show that the orchid is the missing link between animal and vegetable nature. The student will find lots to support this fascinating theory, and to induce him to think that if the other missing link—that between the man and the animal—is discoverable, we shall have completed the chain of nature starting with man and ending with the garden cabbage. ”

“ The judicial system in this country is the most expensive in the world. Our judges, it is true, are men of the highest integrity, and the confidence of the public in their incorruptibility is absolute. In this respect, no doubt, we compare favourably with many foreign nations. But the public have a right to look for something more than a strictly honourable bench, and it is desirable to inquire what we get in return for the enormous annual outlay on our judicature. ”

“ It is quite conceivable that there may be a dearth of legal talent on any political side, and that a moderate man maybe chosen as the chief law-adviser of the Crown in consequence. Indeed, such a state of things has happened before now. It by no means follows, therefore, that the Lord Chancellor is necessarily a man of transcendent legal ability. It is probable, in fact, that, as a rule, he is not so good a lawyer as the judges who receive half his salary. ”

“ A ridge of pines—a sandy ridge, where camping properly equipped would have been perfect luxury—rose against the stars a few hundred yards ahead. But Deverell took off the saddle on the spot, and carried it himself as far as that ridge, where he took off the bridle also, hobbled the done-up beast with a stirrup-leather, and turned him adrift. ”