Adelaide

“ Stand on Mount Lofty, look up and revel in the sight of an Australian summer night’s sky, the dark but ethereally clear bluish dome overhead, myriads of little stars, blinking at the steady brilliant light of the greater constellations. Look right and left—on all sides the spurs, covered with misty haze, lose themselves as they merge into the plains. Look west towards the city and the sea. There beneath the soft and silvery rays of the moon lies Adelaide and its suburbs, wrapt in the peace and quiet of the night. Its thousands of street lights shine so clear that they seem to lie at your feet. ”

“ On the progress of Melbourne and Sydney it would not enlarge; suffice it to point out the advantages of Adelaide.
It lies between the hills and the sea, a trap for sunbeams; a garden city sweet with almond blossom in spring, tree-shaded in summer. A girdle of parks is about its comely waist, and beyond them lie suburbs, where the houses all have room to breathe. In the towns of the old world the houses are on the top of one another, and the people too. In Adelaide expansion takes place laterally, stretching out always to the encircling range of hills; and the houses are one-storied. ”

“ Adelaide, Adelaide, come to calm the trouble in my soul, come and pardon your august husband, come appease the sorrow which devours me and seeing it even more intense than your own, pity in your heart will replace all the feelings of hatred which you have for the most unfortunate of men. ”

“ Sir David Bruce, with firm and dignified step and gesture, advanced, leading onward by the hand to the bridal altar the lovely Lady Adelaide, her eye beaming with all the radiance of intelligence and of genius, while the deep glow of health and the blush of modesty mantled her beauteous cheek as she approached the sacred altar, the gaze, delight, and admiration of all, high and low, who beheld her. ”

“ With an ardent and sanguine admiration of the beauties of nature, Adelaide too possessed an enthusiastic love of literature, conjoined to a correctly formed and delicately refined taste. Every day her mind expanded, from the literary lore which she imbibed, and gradually, but extensively, her brilliant talents developed their powers. Poetry, painting, and music, principally fascinated, as they are ever wont to do, the feeling and romantic mind of youth. Some of those impressions thus elicited Adelaide was occasionally in the habit of committing to writing. ”

“ But when, after an hour's run in a motor-car over superb roads and through perfectly lovely scenery, you reach the upper slopes of Mount Lofty, and are suddenly bidden to turn and look down upon Adelaide, which lies basking in the golden sunshine, edged by the glittering sea, you recognise that you are in the presence of one of the fairest scenes that earth can afford. ”

“ Apartments long empty were soon rented, and envious neighbors came to gaze in awe upon the Adelaide and its presiding genius, beholding in it the fine essence of New England neatness and in him a small, thin, nervous, insignificant-looking "colored gemman," who gazed past the sides of their faces with cold aloofness. Often, neighbors, passing the impressive entrance, heard from the lower regions of the building the sound of a high chuckle, deepening rapidly to a contralto gurgle, and then broadening out into a long, rich, velvety laugh as smooth as a flowing stream. ”

“ Adelaide, you love me!”
His arms were almost about her, but she kept him off.
“It is impossible, Professor Waite. It can never be,” she replied solemnly.
“Never is a long day. I will not urge you, or hasten you. I will be patient and wait, for you have changed, and you will love me wholly by and by. It is our destiny. God meant us for each other. I cannot
Make thee glorious by my pen
And famous by my sword,
but I can do it with my brush, and I will spend my life painting you, Adelaide. ”

“ And green, the hue of promise, borne by spring.
He passed, and Adelaide is left with nought
But hope, to cheer away the slow wing'd days.
Hope, frail but lovely shadow! thou dost come,
Like a bright vision on our pathway here,
Making the gloomy future beautiful,
And gilding our horizon with a light,
The fairest human eye can ever know.
Fav'rite of heaven! 'twas thine to pledge the cup
Of pleasure's sparkling waters undefil'd ”

“ And by many a fireside is told the story of the heavy doom that fell on all who carried their schemes therein and sought to know its secrets. But the birds nest in its deep shades. Every year the laurel blooms anew. And Adelaide, looking with pensive eyes upon it from her home, happy once more, can still forecast the coming of that fair spring when the morning stars shall sing together in the vernal dawn of a new heaven and a new earth, and this mortality shall put on immortality. ”

“ The cloudy, hazy distances, a certain crispness in the air, as on a fine March day at home, the grass that grows freely everywhere, and suburbs with such names as Knightsbridge, all deepened the sense of familiarity. We shall always see Adelaide in imagination as we looked down on her that early spring day, with all her orchards a delicate pale pink mist of almond blossom, and the soft grey distances that felt like home. ”

“ Though Adelaide's senior by many years, she had so youthful, so buoyant an expression, albeit chastened by the atmosphere of purity and sanctity in which she moved, that you could not connect the idea of age with her frame at all. Adelaide felt that she had obtained a friend, a sister, a guide for the future, and a friendship was quickly cemented between the two that ended but with life. ”

“ I have lived through the period of repressed childhood, and witnessed the dawn of a new era which has made the dwellers in youth's "golden age" the most important factor in human development. I have watched the growth of Adelaide from the condition of a scattered hamlet to that of one of the finest cities in the southern hemisphere; I have seen the evolution of South Australia from a province to an important State in a great Commonwealth. ”

“ The Duchess of Tyrconnel warmly embraced with tender and intense affection her old, her once young, her still kind-hearted friend, while their tears, united, trickled down in comminglement on the cheeks of each beloved friend; while Adelaide, whose heart was ever responsive to every impulse of affection or affliction, wept a flood of tears. ”

“ This country about Adelaide is a level plain for 200 miles around the seashore, girt by hills like those at Maysville on the Kentucky side. In the early morning, as I look at those hills and the lovely plains silvered with light, all is so much like home that my heart rises in my mouth, and I could almost say poetry! Adelaide seems to have been laid out for about 200,000 people, but only about 30,000 have come; so the spaces between the houses have been made into lawns and fragrant gardens. It is truly a rural place. ”

“ Oh, my Adelaide, imperishable let this happy, too happy hour remain, and ever marked and stamped by a holy communion of heart and mind! Your taste shall be mine, your liking shall be my liking, your joy be my joy, and your sorrows (if ever they come) shall be all mine own!—thy disgrace would become my disgrace, and mine would be attended with yours! But now I only look upon the happy obverse of the medal, when I pause on your beauty, your accomplishments, your virtue, and your religion! for without the latter a woman is a monster, and man little less than a demon. ”

“ Such was the revolutionary whirlwind during which Frederick and Mersburg entered Venice and went to an inn fairly close to the hotel which Adelaide occupied.
It is sad to look for one that you love, to look with so much care and difficulty and to have that person so near and yet not to be able to go and throw oneself in her arms because of not knowing that she is near. ”

“ There are many beautiful drives around Adelaide—at least, as beautiful as is possible when the scenery is marred by a barrenness of soil, a lack of greenness in the grass, an absence of wild flowers, and a dull uniform and sombre tint upon all the trees. ”

“ All the time he was writing and tearing up papers and burning them, and packing bags and portmanteau, he was thinking of Adelaide.
"Dear little woman! I wonder if she is asleep. She hasn't left things to the last as I have done. Altogether too tidy for that. While I am fussing about in this musty room—what a cosy nest we shall come home to after the honeymoon!—there she lies, with a smile on her pretty mouth, dreaming of me. Your health, my darling!" ”

“ Adelaide alone sallied forth from the ducal towers of Tyrconnel Castle, with deep determination to fulfil the spell of the charmed ball. The moon with pearly radiance shone forth on her fearless enterprise; enthusiastic in this adventure as in every thing which she thought, said, or did, she now boldly advanced to commence the solemn charm; and with firm and unshaken step she proceeded to the accomplishment of her nocturnal visit; while intently she looked around, [Pg 208] fully to be assured that no human eye gazed upon the orgies which she was about to perform. ”

“ Then turning to Lady Adelaide Bruce, he said: "I will sing the loves of Sir Trystan and the beautiful Isoud! they were young and noble; they were likewise comely too, lovely lady: but they were unfortunate in their loves. Grant, O heaven, that such a fate may never betide the Lady Adelaide or Sir David!" ”

“ There are numerous impostors, but still they are the exceptions, whilst the real sufferers form the rule.
Ere the beggars dispersed, Adelaide returned to the breakfast parlour. And is this proud and brilliant beauty the gentle, placid Adelaide? A vivid, perhaps a feverish glow, mantled her cheeks, and gave her eyes a dazzling lustre, that was almost as repelling as it was beautiful. The dignity of her carriage approached to majesty. ”

“ Moreover, my friend," continued the prince, "I confess that what struck me most is that tower on which one read: 'She is here!' Ah, Count, it is of Adelaide that the mirror spoke. She has, without doubt, left one prison only to enter another. Let's hasten to look for her, and may Saxony not see us again until we bring her back."
"But what road should we take?" asked Mersburg. Besides, this tower which frightens you so much no longer has her since you have seen two people leave it, supposing that she was one of the two. It would seem that she is now free." ”

“ The duchess and Lady Adelaide, &c. drove through the squares and principal streets of Brussels, they visited the park l'Alle Verte, &c.; and then drove to Soignies Forest: Adelaide was highly delighted, and with much liveliness and enthusiasm, she said:—"Fair Brussels! renowned in days of ancient chivalry, aye, full many a joust, tilt, and tournament, hast thou witnessed within thine princely walls, when kings and mighty paladines sought valour's prize and beauty's smile, while trumpets brayed the victor's fame, and damsels gave the guerdon to the brave! ”

“ There is not even a laughing pretense here that Adelaide was a real woman; but real women, even in this era of woman, often fail to remember what pure attractions to man, are their silences and their minor tones.
Just a fortnight—but what a tearing it was to leave her! Old Mother Nature must have writhed at this parting—groaned at the sight of the boy staring back from the high stern of the Truxton, at the stars lowering over the city and the woman, Adelaide. Possibly she retained something from the depth of his individuality.... Bedient would not have said so ”

“ That is what the locomotive from the East would say about the car service at Adelaide, which links up the spreading homesteads of the periphery with the nucleus of handsome buildings, official, municipal, educational, commercial, at the centre of the city. Adelaide is a city within a park, surrounded by a garden suburb, and that is as good a definition as one can find of it. It is handsome within its city limits, taking a pride in its big buildings, the University standing among lawns, its handsome private houses, its broad streets, its general air of competence ”

“ Hcar me, said Adelaide, Heaven has made us acquainted to be a mutual support to each other's woes! mine is a burthen under which my heart sinks down even to dispondency. Whoever you be, if you are unhappy, you are compassionate—I believe you are worthy the confidence I shall repose in you; but you must promise me that the promise will be reciprocal Alas! said Fonrose, my woes are of a nature perhaps never to be relieved! Meet me to-morrow, said Adelaide, at the foot of this hill, under the spreading oak, where you heard me moan. ”

“ Frederick was greatly upset to lose sight of the woman he believed to be Adelaide and at the same time his jealousy was stimulated at the thought that all these men were so much impressed by her that they followed her around.
"My friend," he said to Mersburg, "do you believe there is a more curious situation in the world?"
"I don't see it as such," said Mersburg with the greatest sangfroid. "This woman is not Adelaide. Let's question these people and we will see if I am mistaken." ”

“ While women usually see jealousy as a fault which they pardon in the ones they love, Adelaide was not the type of person who could be anything but displeased with such an emotion.
Louis of Thuringia, a relative of Frederick, who had just brought to his cousin the wife he would willingly have picked for himself, was twenty-seven years old. He had the most pleasant face imaginable. He had both ease and nobility in his carriage, pleasing qualities in his mind, sweetness in his character, an ardent heart, an extreme penchant for love and all things of the heart. ”