Ashurst

“ But none such took note of Marian's childhood. The illumination of love is rather dazzling than searching in the case of mothers of Mrs. Ashurst's class, and she was dazzled. Marian was perfection in her eyes, and at an age at which the inversion of the relations between mother and daughter, common enough in later life, would have appeared to others unreasonable, preposterous, Mrs. Ashurst surrendered herself wholly, happily, to the guidance and the care of her daughter. The inevitable self-assertion of the stronger mind took place, the inevitable submission of the weaker. ”

“ Of course Miss Ashurst and Mr. Horner were by no means unaware of what was going on and they smiled to see how pleasant an atmosphere prevailed in the school all except in the unfortunate Neighborhood Club which they would have gladly disbanded. “It will probably die of its own discontent,” said Miss Ashurst to the principal, “I give it just three months to exist for the girls are dropping out one by one.” ”

“ As they enter the turret, his words ring out plain and stern.
"I tell you Ashurst, I can stand the life I am leading no longer. You cannot understand what it is to see the woman you love—to see your wife—treat you as the very commonest stranger. Good feeling alone, I honestly believe, prevents her from showing me absolute hatred." ”

“ He was a considerable scholar and a hard student to the last; greatly esteemed and loved by all sober persons who knew him, for his extraordinary piety, humility, meekness, self-denial, and integrity. His contempt of the world and contentedness on a very small income were very remarkable. He took for his small tithes just what his parishioners were pleased to give him.' From the register-book of births, deaths, and marriages of the Parish of Arlesey, it is found that Ashurst became vicar between 27 Oct. ”

“ Why not speak of her as Marian, my dear?" said Mr. Creswell.
"She has always been Miss Ashurst to me hitherto, and you know I'm not going to marry her, uncle!" said Maud, almost brusquely.
"What do you think of Miss A. now?" said Gertrude, when the girls were back in their room. "I used to laugh about her being superior! But she has shown herself superior to us with a vengeance! Fancy having her for an aunt, and having to ask her permission to do this and that, and go here and there! Oh my! Why don't you speak, Maud—why don't you say something about all this?" ”

“ His heart was in Marian Ashurst's keeping, his liege love, and in not one single pulsation should it be false to her. All this he had thought out before the interview with Lady Caroline, and his conduct then was exactly as he had prescribed to himself it should be. He took no credit to himself for his coldness and reserve, nor indeed did he deserve any, for he felt as calmly and coldly as he acted. There was but one person in the world with power to make his heart leap, his pulses fill, to rouse his energy with a look—to cloud his hopes with a word. ”

“ Dora is doing the amiable to Sir George Ashurst. Anything so simple or innocent as Dora in her white dress and coral ribbons could hardly be conceived. I am admiring her myself with all my heart, and wondering how it is she does it; and I fancy Sir Mark Gore is doing the same. Once, as she raises the childish questioning blue eyes to her companion's face, and murmurs some pretty speech in her soft treble, I see Sir Mark smile openly. It is only a momentary merriment, however, as directly afterwards he turns to me, suave and charming as ever.
"How becoming white is to your sister!" ”

“ The old lady fell back in her chair, her eyes closed, her hands fluttering nervously before her. Marian ran to her mother and knelt by her side, but Mrs. Ashurst revived almost immediately—revived sufficiently to place her hand round her daughter's neck and to whisper in her ear, "For my sake?"
"I don't understand you, dearest mother!"
"For my sake? You've done this for my sake! that I may be comfortable and happy for the rest of my life, that I may have these things, luxuries"—pointing with her hand round the room. "You've sacrificed yourself! It must not be, listen, Marian—it must not be!" ”

“ Marian Ashurst dearly loved her home. To her concentrative and self-contained nature, local associations were peculiarly precious; the place in which she had lived the life so essentially her own was very dear. The shabby old house, though she perfectly understood its shabbiness, and would have prized the power of renovating and adorning it as thoroughly as any petite maîtresse would have prized the power of adorning her bijou residence with all the prettiness of modern upholstery, was a shrine in her eyes. ”

“ Ashurst had always been a small-framed, delicate-featured woman, but in these last few months she seemed to have shrunk away almost to nothing. The light steel frame of her spectacles looked disproportionately heavy on her thin nose, and her sunk pallid face, with the complexion of that dead white colour so often seen in old women, was almost lost in the plaits and frills of her neat cap. Though the day was fine and bright outside, the old lady evidently felt the cold; she wore a thick twilled woollen shawl thrown over her shoulders, and her cosy arm-chair was in the full view of the fire. ”

“ Munch, after all. Old Dr. Munch, who had been Mr. Ashurst's immediate predecessor, was as bad a specimen of the old-fashioned, nothing-doing, sinecure-seeking pedagogue as could well be imagined; a rotund, red-faced, gouty-footed divine, with a thick layer of limp white cravat loosely tied round his short neck, and his suit of clerical sables splashed with a culinary spray; a man whose originally small stock of classical learning had gradually faded away, and whose originally large stock of idleness and self-gratification had simultaneously increased. ”

“ Ashurst, who sat propped up by pillows in a large easy-chair in her sitting-room, gazing out of the window, looking at nothing, but enjoying everything with the tranquil serenity of old age. For several years past there had not been much life in the old lady, and there was very little now; her vital powers, never very strong, had been decaying slowly but surely, and Dr. Osborne knew that the time was not far distant, when the widow of his old friend would be called away to rejoin the husband she had so dearly loved, in the Silent Land. ”

“ Ashurst could not understand the existence of the volcano under the placid surface. Only gushing, giggling, blushing girls fulfilled her idea of loving women, or women lovable by men. Marian was so "odd," and "strange," so determined, so strong-minded, that she never seemed to think of love-making, nor indeed, her mother thought, had she been ever so much that way disposed would she have had any time for it.
And now Marian was going to be married? Years rolled away, and the old lady saw herself in the same condition, but how differently circumstanced. ”

“ How thoroughly natural to be able to throw herself so entirely into the work before her, to take evident interest in what would be to others the driest detail, mere husk and draff of soulless business! He knew nothing of Marian Ashurst, less than nothing. That dry detail, and those soulless figures were to her more interesting than the finest fiction, the most soul-stirring poetry. For they meant something much better than fiction; they meant fact—wealth, position, everything. ”

“ Sir Henry Ashurst, in a Dedication of the Life of Nathaniel Heywood, the Puritan Vicar of Ormskirk, written by his brother Oliver, to this Lord Hugh, speaks of his "exemplary piety and zeal for our holy religion in such a degenerate and licentious age, and the countenance he gave to serious piety, wherever he found it, among all the different parties into which we are so unhappily broken," but the occasional references to him in Henry Newcome's autobiography, leads us to doubt the justness of the Presbyterian writer's panegyric. ”

“ He and six others were appointed by the king, in April 1689, commissioners of excise, but in the following September all were dismissed excepting Edwin and Sir Henry Ashurst, and other wealthy citizens were appointed in their room. Edwin continued to hold the office, to which a salary of 1,000l. was attached, until April 1691. Edwin took a prominent part in the military affairs of the city. ”

“ And now that Tom, who had hitherto been only a negative nuisance, had developed into a positive enemy, it was doubly necessary that they should take precaution not to outstay their welcome. Yes, they must go! Give up all the comforts and luxury, the fine airy rooms, the bedroom fires, the carriage drives, the good living, the wine, and attention, all of which combined had done Mrs. Ashurst so much good, and rendered her stronger and sounder than she had been for years—all these must be given up. And they must go away to poky stivy lodgings, with dirt and discomfort of every kind. ”

“ Clara came into the school-room late, and slipped into her seat after the exercises had begun. Miss Newman left the drawing on the board and made no reference to it, using a smaller board for what was necessary. She was far less attractive than Miss Ashurst, and had a dry little way with her, which many of the girls thought oldmaidish, but she was a good teacher, if not a very beautiful one. When the girls returned from recess, in place of Miss Newman at the desk stood Mr. Horner, his eyes fairly snapping with indignation, and his eyebrows looking fiercer than ever. ”

“ Lady Blanche, reclining in a low fauteuil, is conversing earnestly with Sir Mark Gore, who stands beside her. Seeing me, she smiles softly at him and motions him to a chair near her. As I move past her trailing skirts a sudden thought of Mons. Rimmel comes to me—the delicatest, faintest perfume reaches me. She runs the fingers of one white hand caressingly across her white arm; her every movement is an essence—a grace.
Dora, in her favorite white muslin and sweet demure smile, is holding Mr. Powell and Sir George Ashurst in thrall. ”

“ Lewis Ashurst Majendie, Esq., M.A. Oxon., some time M.P. for Canterbury, died on 22nd October 1885, aged fifty. He had married, in 1869, Lady Margaret Lindsay, daughter of the twenty-fifth Earl of Crawford and Balcarras, and had two sons, minors. ”

“ KONRAD WALLENROD.
An Historical Poem.
BY
ADAM MICKIEWICZ.
TRANSLATED FROM THE POLISH INTO ENGLISH VERSE
BY
MISS MAUDE ASHURST BIGGS.
“Dovete adunque sapere come sono due generazioni da combattere... bisogna essere volpe e leone.” ”

“ As to the validity of the latter act, the Court followed the decision in In re Rahrer, supra, in relation to the Wilson Act.
The Ashurst-Sumners Act as to interstate transportation of convict-made goods has substantially the same provisions as the Webb-Kenyon Act as to intoxicating liquors and finds support in similar considerations. The subject of the prohibited traffic is different, the effects of the traffic are different, but the underlying principle is the same. ”

“ I felt sorry for it because nearly everybody hates snakes, and Cousin Ben said this one was perfectly harmless.”
“I draw the line at snakes,” returned Celia. “I suppose you feel sorry for Miss Newman.”
“Yes, I do; she is so unpretty.”
Celia laughed. “That is a delicate way of putting it, I am sure. Well, I am glad she has one friend; no doubt she needs it. Most of the girls aren’t so ready to say nice things of her as they were of Miss Ashurst.”
“I know it,” replied Edna, “and that is one reason Dorothy and I stand up for her. ”

“ There is only one striking difference: the special protector of Assyria, Asshur, the god of the land, stands at the head of the gods in the place of El of the Babylonians. He it is after whom the land and the oldest metropolis is named, whose representatives the oldest princes of Assyria appear to have called themselves. The name of Asshur is said to mean the good or the kind; [62] which may even on the Euphrates have been an epithet of El, which on the Tigris became the chief name of the deity. ”

“ But another difference between the Ashur-cult of the north and the Marduk-cult of the south must also be noted. Ashur was worshipped in temples erected all over the Assyrian empire, whereas Babylon was the place “where men ought to worship” Marduk, just as in later times Jerusalem was the only authorized centre for the worship of Jehovah. But in spite of the universality of his presence, Ashur had a principal seat of worship, the locality of which was the same as that of the then centre and capital of the empire, Ashur, Calah, Nineveh or Khorsabad as the case might be. ”

“ II. The Assyrian Empire arose from the small country Asshur, about 25 square miles in extent, lying east of the Tigris and north of the lower Zab. Its capital was the city Asshur, now called Kileh Sherghat, 60 miles south of Nineveh. The city rose to power in the 14th century B.C., when, under Tukulti-ninib, Babylon was captured and the Babylonian empire became the Assyrian. Afterward Nimrud, 20 miles south of Nineveh, became the capital. ”

“ But by the side of Ashur these great gods pale, and in the course of time the tendency becomes more marked to regard them merely as formal members of a little court with few functions of their own, beyond that of adding by their presence to the majesty and glory of Ashur. One receives the impression that in Assyria only a few of the gods invoked by the kings at the side of Ashur exert any real influence on the lives of the people; and such as do, gain favor through possessing in some measure the chief attribute that distinguished Ashur,—prowess in war. ”

“ In one instance only in later times, in Assyria, which had become exclusively Semitic, do we find the idea of one supreme god, who was national and not local, and who overshadowed all other gods, as Jahve in the later days of the Jewish monarchy, and in the conception of the Hebrew prophets, did the gods of the surrounding nations. Assur, the local god of the city of Assur, the first capital of Assyria, became, with the growth of the Assyrian Empire, the one supreme god, in whose name wars were undertaken, cities destroyed, and captives massacred or mutilated. ”