various authors | editor

“ With the trees and the streams I share my contemplation and my beauty: I am a distant flame and a sword afar off: those whom my eyes have captivated, my tongue has undeceived: and if hope be the food of desire, as I gave none to Chrysostom or to any other person, so neither can his death, nor that of any other of my admirers, be justly imputed to my cruelty, but rather to their own obstinate despair. ”

“ I have riches of my own, as you all know, and covet no man's wealth. I am free, and will not be subjected: I neither love nor hate any man; I do not cajole this one, nor teaze that; nor do I joke with one or discourse with another, but amuse myself with the care of my goats, and the innocent conversation of the shepherdesses belonging to the neighbouring villages. My desires are bounded by these mountains; or if my meditation surpasses these bounds, it is only to contemplate the beauty of the heavens, those steps by which the soul ascends to its original mansion. ”

“ I desire to have fair Iphigenia from you, whom I love above all other ladies living, because I could not obtain her of her father to make her my lawful wife in marriage. Love is the ground of my instant conquest, and I must use you as my mortal enemies, if you stand upon any further terms with me, and do not deliver her as mine own, for your Pasimunda must not enjoy what is my right, first by virtue of my love, and now by conquest. ”

“ His venerable appearance did not inspire my people with any respect, and they insolently addressed him, 'Cursed cadi! thou dog! for what reason art thou going to murder our master? What has he done to thee?' 'My good people,' replied the cadi, 'why should I murder your master, whom I do not know, and who has never offended me? My door is open, you may come in and search my house.' 'You have given him the bastinado,' said the barber; 'I heard his cries not a minute ago.' 'But,' replied the cadi, 'as I said before, in what can your master have offended me, that I should ill-treat him thus? ”

“ Let him who terms me a fierce basilisk, shun me as an evil being; if any man thinks me ungrateful, let him refuse his services when I ask them. If I have disowned any one, let him renounce me in his turn; and let him who has found me cruel, abandon me in distress: this fierce basilisk, this ungrateful, cruel, supercilious wretch, will neither seek, serve, own, nor follow you in any shape whatever. If Chrysostom perished by the impatience of his own extravagant desire, why should my innocent reserve be inveighed against? ”

“ Since then it is essential to every knight to be in love, we may conclude that your worship being of that profession, is no stranger to the passion; and if you do not value yourself upon being as secret a knight as Don Galaor, I earnestly entreat you, in behalf of myself and the rest of the company, to tell us the name, country, station, and qualities of your mistress, who must think herself extremely happy in reflecting that all the world knows how much she is beloved and adored by so valiant a knight as your worship appears to be. ”

“ The blood and spirits of Le Fevre, which were waxing cold and slow within him, and were retreating to their last citadel, the heart, rallied back, the film forsook his eyes for a moment; he looked up wistfully in my uncle Toby's face, then cast a look upon his boy; and that ligament, fine as it was, was never broken!
Nature instantly ebbed again;—the film returned to its place;—the pulse fluttered;—stopped;—went on,—throbbed,—stopped again,—moved, stopped. Shall I go on? No! ”

“ I hope in God he will still mend," continued he; "we are all of us concerned for him."
"Thou art a good-natured soul, I will answer for thee," cried my uncle Toby; "and thou shalt drink the poor gentleman's health in a glass of sack thyself, and take a couple of bottles with my service, and tell him he is heartily welcome to them, and to a dozen more, if they will do him good.
"Though I am persuaded," said my uncle Toby, as the landlord shut the door, "he is a very compassionate fellow, Trim, yet I cannot help entertaining a high opinion of his guest too. ”

“ Heaven, you say, hath given me beauty, nay, such a share of it as compels you to love me, in spite of your resolutions to the contrary; from whence you draw this inference, and insist upon it, that it is my duty to return your passion. By the help of that small capacity which nature has bestowed upon me, I know that which is beautiful is lovely; but I can by no means conceive why the object, which is beloved for being beautiful, is bound to be enamoured of its admirer ”

“ The men of Rhodes being rather constrained thereto than of any free disposition in themselves, with tears in their eyes delivered Iphigenia to Cymon, who beholding her in like manner to weep, thus spake unto her: "Noble lady, do not anyway discomfort yourself, for I am your Cymon, who have more right and true title to you, and much better do deserve you, by my long-continued affection to you, than Pasimunda can anyway plead, because you belong to him but only by promise." ”

“ But, granting the beauty equal on both sides, it does not follow that the desires ought to be mutual; for all sorts of beauty do not equally affect the spectator; some, for example, delighting the eye only, without captivating the heart. And well it is for mankind that things are thus disposed, otherwise there would be a strange perplexity and confusion of desires, without power of distinguishing and choosing particular objects; for beauty, being infinitely diversified, the inclination would be infinitely divided, and I have heard that true love must be undivided and unconstrained ”

“ Don Quixote asking what they had heard of Marcella and Chrysostom, the traveller replied, that early in the morning they had met with these shepherds, of whom inquiring the cause of their being clothed in such melancholy weeds, they had been informed of the coyness and beauty of a certain shepherdess called Marcella, and the hapless love of many who courted her, together with the death of that same Chrysostom to whose funeral they were going. ”

“ Then addressing himself to Don Quixote and the travellers, he thus proceeded: "This corse, gentlemen, which you behold with compassionate eyes, was the habitation of a soul, which possessed an infinite share of the riches of heaven: this is the body of Chrysostom, who was a man of unparalleled genius, the pink of courtesy and kindness; in friendship a very phœnix, liberal without bounds, grave without arrogance, gay without meanness ”

“ Hitherto Heaven has not thought fit that I should love by destiny, and the world must excuse me from loving by election. Let this general declaration serve as an answer to all those who solicit me in particular, and henceforward give them to understand, that whosoever dies for me perishes not by jealousy or disdain, for she who never gave her love, can never give just cause of jealousy; neither ought her plain-dealing to be interpreted into disdain. ”

“ I mean, that the monks pray to God for their fellow-creatures in peace and safety: but, we soldiers and knights put in execution that for which they pray, by the valour of our arms, and the edge of our swords; living under no other cover than the cope of heaven, set up in a manner as marks for the intolerable heat of the sun in summer, and the chilling breath of frosty winter: we are therefore God's ministers, and the arms by which he executes his justice upon earth ”

“ It demonstrates to me, that you this day will encounter a great danger; not indeed of losing your life, but of an inconvenience which will remain with you all your days; you ought to be obliged to me for advertising you to be careful of this misfortune; I should be sorry that it befell you.'
"Judge, gentlemen, of my vexation, of having fallen in the way of this chattering and ridiculous barber; what a mortifying delay for a lover, who was preparing for a tender meeting with his mistress! ”

“ She has demonstrated, by clear and undeniable arguments, how little, if at all, she is to be blamed for the death of Chrysostom, and how averse she is to comply with the desires of any of her admirers; for which reason, instead of being pursued and persecuted, she ought to be honoured and esteemed by all virtuous men, as the only person in the universe who lives in such a chaste and laudable intention. ”

“ But if I could be possessed of her, I should grow more glorious than the common condition of a mortal man, and have her I will, or lose my life in the adventure." Being thus resolved, he prevailed with divers young gentlemen, his friends, making them of his faction, and secretly prepared a ship furnished with all things for a naval fight, setting suddenly forth to sea, and hulling abroad in those parts by which the vessel should pass that must convey Iphigenia to Rhodes to her husband. ”

“ I would only infer from what we suffer, that it is without doubt more troublesome, more battered, more famished, more miserable, ragged, and lousy; for, the knights-errant of past times certainly underwent numberless misfortunes in the course of their lives: and if some of them came to be emperors by the valour of their arms, considering the blood and sweat it cost them, in faith, it was a dear purchase ”

“ In the first place, when thou madest an offer of my services to Le Fevre, as sickness and travelling are both expensive, and thou knewest he was but a poor Lieutenant, with a son to subsist as well as himself out of his pay, that thou didst not make an offer to him of my purse; because had he stood in need, thou knowest, Trim, he had been as welcome to it as myself." "Your Honour knows," said the Corporal, "I had no orders." "True," quoth my uncle Toby,—"thou didst very right, Trim, as a soldier—but certainly very wrong as a man. ”

“ Many novels, gracious ladies, do offer themselves to my memory wherewith to begin so pleasant a day as it is her highness's desire that this should be, among which plenty I esteem one above all the rest, because you may comprehend thereby not only the fortunate conclusion wherewith we intend to begin our day, but also how mighty the forces of love are, deserving to be both admired and reverenced. ”

“ When my uncle Toby had turned everything into money, and settled all accounts betwixt the agent of the regiment and Le Fevre, and betwixt Le Fevre and all mankind, there remained nothing more in my uncle Toby's hands than an old regimental coat and sword ”

“ The old lady left me, and as I reflected with anxiety on all the obstacles she had represented to me, the fear that she would not succeed possessed me, and increased my disease. She returned the following day, and I soon read in her countenance that she had no favourable intelligence to announce. She said, 'My son, I was not mistaken; I have more to surmount than merely the vigilance of a father; you love an insensible object, who delights in letting those burn with unrequited passion who suffer themselves to be charmed with her beauty; she will not allow them the least relief ”

“ I enchanted him; and when I had done, 'Ah,' he would exclaim, 'you are an inexhaustible fund of science; no one can approach the profoundness of your knowledge.' 'My dear sir,' I used to reply, 'you do me more honour than I deserve. ”

“ We all rose, and to do honour to the master of the house, we begged the young man to sit with us on the sofa. He was just going to sit down, when, perceiving a barber, who was one of the company, he abruptly stepped back, and was going away. The master of the house, surprised at this, stopped him. "Where are you going?" said he; "I bring you here to do me the honour of being present at an entertainment I am going to give my friends, and you are scarcely entered before you want to go away!" ”

“ When he saw that I was really exasperated with him, 'Sir,' said he, 'do not be angry; we are going to begin directly.' In fact, he washed my head, and began to shave me; but he had not made four strokes with his razor when he stopped to say, 'Sir, you are hasty; you should abstain from these gusts of passion, which only come from the devil. ”

“ But fortune, who was so favourable to Cymon in granting him so pleasing a conquest, to show her inconstancy, so suddenly changed the inestimable joy of our jocund lover into as heavy sorrow and disaster. ”

“ In the meantime we may depend upon it, Trim, for our comfort," said my uncle Toby, "that God Almighty is so good and just a Governor of the world that, if we have but done our duties in it, it will never be inquired into whether we have done them in a red coat or a black one." ”

“ For first of all, as I have heard, by the piercing solicitudes of love, from a senseless creature they made thee to become a man endued with reason. Afterward, by adverse fortune, and now again by wearisome imprisonment, it seemeth that they are desirous to make trial whether thy manly courage be changed or no from that which heretofore it was, when thou hast won a matchless beauty and lost her again in so short a while. Wherefore if thy virtue be such as it hath been, the gods can never give thee any blessing more worthy any acceptance than she whom they are now minded to bestow on thee ”

“ Vivaldo, who was a person of discretion, and a great deal of archness, in order to travel agreeably the rest of the road which they had to go, till they should come to the place of interment, wanted to give him an opportunity of proceeding in his extravagance, and in that view said to him, "Sir knight-errant, methinks your worship professes one of the strictest orders upon earth, nay, I will affirm, more strict than that of the Carthusian friars." ”