William Pitt Scargill

“ There was however even in solitude nothing pleasing for Penelope to meditate upon: but hope is an artist that draws its finest scenes upon the darkest ground. Amidst all the losses which she had experienced, and the pains which she had suffered, and the dreaded anticipations of evils yet to come, still Penelope could think that her father was yet living, and might perhaps soon make his appearance in England, and fulfil those promises of which she had often indirectly heard. ”

“ A merchant, or the son of a merchant, may by means of an imperturbable self-conceit, or by force of commanding impudence, push himself up into the highest walks of life, and look down upon nobility. Though the biographer of a deceased statesman may express his lament that nobility does not admit talent ad eundem, yet there is danger lest nobility should hold its hereditary honors with too light a hand. Lord Smatterton indeed was not guilty of neglecting to preserve upon his own mind, or endeavouring to impress on the minds of others, a due and full sense of his own importance. ”

“ Penelope was glad to be liberated from the interview with her ladyship, and to enjoy for a while the solitude which her apartment afforded. An apartment had been provided for her reception in the town residence of the Earl of Smatterton; and though the ascent to it was rather laborious, yet it had the blessed comfort of affording to the troubled one an opportunity of sitting alone, and shedding a few tears, and communing with her own heart. There are some states of mind in which the sufferer feels most and greatest consolation in being left to the thoughts of solitude. ”

“ The day for Dr Greendale’s funeral arrived. It was Sunday. This arrangement was made in order to give opportunity for the poor and the labouring classes to attend, and pay their last tribute of respect to their benefactor and friend. It was a very fine day, such as often happens in the middle of September; and the day seemed like a holiday. For, such is the nature of the human mind that the attending on any ceremony seems more a matter of amusement than of sorrow. Joy, it appears, cannot be solitary, and sorrow can hardly be social. ”

“ Dr Greendale had been for many years an intimate friend of the family at the castle. The Earl, though a haughty man and of very strong aristocratic feelings, had never regarded the worthy rector with any other feeling than friendship and respect; and the Countess, though not insensible to the charms and fascinations of fashionable life, yet delighted in the moral repose and the sober beauties of the pastor’s character. ”

“ Penelope also praised the very humane and feeling conduct of Lord Spoonbill; but the language which she used, and the manner in which she spoke of his lordship, gave no light upon the subject of suspicion. It was not indeed probable that the son of so proud a nobleman as the Earl of Smatterton should think of allying himself by marriage with the niece of a clergyman, portionless and unconnected. Nor indeed was it likely that a young woman of such excellent understanding as Miss Primrose should be weak enough to imagine an attachment where none existed. ”

“ There were no tears in the eyes, but there was an expression of countenance, which told that tears had been, and there was a stillness of sorrow which intimated that tears had done their utmost, and could no longer relieve.
The young are ever prone to pity, and they most deeply and feelingly commiserate such as seem to be least importunate for sympathy; for despair is the sublimity of grief, and its very unobtrusiveness rivets the attention. An image of sorrow like this is not easily shaken from the mind. ”

“ He wondered that there should be in the world so much cruelty, and such a wanton sporting with each others’ sufferings. The powerful emotions which had been raised in his mind from the first hour that he embarked for England, were of a nature so mingled, and in their movements so rapid, that he hardly knew whether they were pleasurable or painful. There was so much pleasure in the pain, and so much pain in the pleasure, that his mind was rendered quite unsteady by a constant whirl and vortex of emotions. He felt a kind of childish vivacity and womanly sensibility. ”

“ The time is now arrived when the only ignorant and uninformed persons are those who have had the misfortune to be educated at our public schools and universities: for in them there is no improvement. I have myself been witness of the most shocking and egregious ignorance in those men who call themselves masters of arts. They know nothing in the world about agriculture, architecture, botany, ship building, navigation, ornithology, political economy, icthyology, zoology, or any of the ten thousand sciences with which all the rest of the world is intimate. ”

“ Nothing could exceed the kind attentions of the Countess. Every hour was she making enquiries, and all that could possibly be said or done by way of alleviation or consolation did her ladyship say and do for her heart-broken patient. It never for one single moment entered the mind of Lady Smatterton that Miss Primrose could feel the slightest repugnance in the world to the profession which had been chosen for her ”

“ The word great is an epithet too comprehensive to be applicable to a disappointed man. To be a great man, it is necessary that there should be in the mind those powers and that forethought which will guard against frustration and disappointment. Greatness is not in place and in name, it is purely in the mind. I will grant you that Napoleon Bonaparte had great military powers—great legislative powers—great discernment of human character ”

“ At that singularity, or at his own penetration in discovering the curious coincidence, Mr Kipperson smiled. Mr Primrose accepted the invitation and walked into Mr Kipperson’s house, which was near the place where they had met. It was a piece of affectation in Mr Kipperson to call his place of abode a humble roof. True, it was not so magnificent as Smatterton castle, but its owner had been at great pains and expense to make it look quite the reverse of humble. That which had been a productive little garden was converted into a lawn. ”

“ Fortunately for Penelope, the Countess was not one of those unreasonable persons who ask questions [Pg 204] for the sake of answers, but one of those, who are not a small number, who ask questions purely for the sake of asking them, and by way of shewing their own very great condescension in deigning to ask so particularly concerning what interests their inferiors. It is however not good policy that the models of politeness should, in their manifest heedlessness of answers to their questions, so decidedly testify to their own insincerity and heartlessness. ”

“ Mrs Greendale could not imagine what Mr and Mrs Darnley could see in Penelope to make them so partial to her, and she thought that a young man of such talents and prospects might make a far better match than with a young woman whose only portion was her pride, and a few useless accomplishments; for in this point of view did she regard her niece, or, to speak according to her own most frequent manner of expression, Dr Greendale’s niece. ”

“ With a very great effort to suppress a very deep sigh, Penelope replied: “I shall be most happy to use my best exertions to gratify your ladyship, but I fear that before so many persons who are total strangers to me, and without any previous scientific instruction, I may disappoint the expectations which your ladyship’s kindness has excited.”
“Oh dear no, my dear, I beg you will not entertain any such notion; we shall have a very small party indeed, and of the amateurs, I can assure you that there is not one that is half so well acquainted with the science of music as you are. ”

“ The poet says, ‘a little knowledge is a dangerous thing;’ and, for my own part, I can see no great liberality in this parsimonious and stinted mode of dealing out knowledge; for unless you teach the lower classes all that is to be taught, you make, or more properly speaking keep up, the distinction.”
Mr Kipperson was not best pleased with these remarks; he saw that his fellow-traveller was one of those narrow-minded aristocratic people, who are desirous of keeping the mass of the people in gross ignorance, in order that they may be the more easily governed and imposed upon. ”

“ To the mind which can spare time from the intensity of its own feelings, and the selfishness of its own concerns, to think of others—to think, not merely to talk morality and sentiment about them, but to realise the emotions and agitations of thoughts which harass the human breast, there is in the thought of a day dawning in a great city a deep and serious fulness of interest. ”

“ Providence is wiser and kinder than moralists and essay-writers; and Providence has given to the young that brightness of hope, the pleasures of which are far [Pg 38] greater than the pains of disappointment. The very disappointments of maturer life bring with them some pleasurable alleviation, in the eloquence and pathos with which we sigh and lament over the deceitfulness of the world’s promises; and thus there is a double good derived from a single evil. For youth is pleased as it looks forward to manhood, and manhood is soothed and instructed as it looks backward to youth. ”

“ Colonel Crop re-echoed the unprintable exclamations of the great unpaid, but Lord Spoonbill did not seem to heed the sport, or more properly speaking the want of sport. It is very provoking to be in a passion with anything that thwarts our humour, and it is still more provoking to find another, who ought to be in a passion with the same object, regard the matter with total indifference and unconcern. Thus provoked was the worthy and exemplary magistrate Sir George Aimwell. ”

“ Penelope herself was very much pleased; for though she had often endeavoured to persuade herself that she did not heed Mrs Greendale’s ill-humours, yet she could not help feeling the difference between good-humour and moroseness. It is not pleasant to be always within hearing even of the snarling of a dog, or the creaking of a rusty hinge, and far less pleasant is the language and [Pg 46] tone of human censoriousness. The young lady was not only pleased with her aunt, but she also regarded Lord Spoonbill with some degree of approbation. ”

“ We wish it were in our power to present to our readers an analysis of those views which Lord Spoonbill took of the principles of honor. We are not equal to a task so truly philosophical: we can only say that his lordship did descend to the meanness of intercepting a letter, and did call and think himself a man of honor. If any of our readers think that this is very paradoxical and altogether improbable, we congratulate them on their ignorance. ”

“ We must indeed do the father of [Pg 253] Penelope the justice to say that, with all his failings, he was sincere, candid, and downright. He never suffered any misunderstanding to exist where it could possibly be cleared up. He was plain and direct in all his conduct.
We need not say that Mr Kipperson was in good spirits. He always was so. He was so very happy that by this last journey to London he had saved the nation from being starved to death by a superabundance of corn. What a fine thing it is to be the cleverest man in the kingdom! ”

“ Lord Spoonbill took infinite pains to render the change of scene agreeable to the young lady. The weather was, for the time of year, cheerful and bright, and though cold, not intensely so: and in spite of the numerous hints which the Earl gave him of the impropriety of such excessive condescension, the heir of Smatterton would accompany the plebeian dependent in the chariot, and point out to her the various beauties of the surrounding scenery. A person who can see has a great advantage over one that is blind. Such advantage had Lord Spoonbill over Penelope Primrose. ”