Barnard

“ Marjorie flinched; it was a new Barnard confronting her. Gone was the suave courtly lover, and in his place stood the primeval man, his baser passions roused. And she had once believed she cared for him. The thought stung.
“Drop this melodrama, Chichester,” she said cuttingly. “Your conduct has effectually killed whatever affection or respect I had for you.”
“You are wrong; I have been too patient with your whims and fancies. Hereafter I take what I want.” Barnard laughed recklessly. “Women do not usually refuse me; they like masters.” ”

“ There is nothing unusual in the theme, but much in the way in which Barnard has comprehended and expressed it. He has felt it in its elemental significance and set it forth with monumental simplicity. The background of his imagination, and he makes it part of ours, is the nebulous immensity out of which primitive man emerges toward the light. The step is won by putting forth of strength; but tentatively, gropingly, with only partial consciousness of strength ”

“ Alvarez had never spoken to me of acquaintance with any other Englishman than Barnard; I had no reason to believe that he ever held converse with any other. Would it not have been natural too, unless some powerful cause, such as love to Isora, induced silence,—would it not have been natural that Gerald should have mentioned his acquaintance with the Spaniard? Unless some dark scheme, such as that which Barnard appeared to have in common with Don Diego, commanded obscurity, would it have been likely that Gerald should have met Alvarez alone,—at night,—on an unfrequented spot? ”

“ Barnard's friends who could take their freedom on Saturday afternoons, often dropped in for a gossip then, or to ask advice from the farmer's wife, a wise and large-hearted woman whose ruddy apple face beamed with kindness for all the world. "It's easy to be kind to folks, when you're happy yourself," she said; and Mrs. Barnard was happy. She loved her home and her work and her friends. She thought her silent, reserved husband, who had been a soldier, the best man living, and adored her one child, Margaret, known to those whom it concerned as Poppet. ”

“ She stared wonderingly over the baby's little downy head at her brother. “It can't be Barney,” she said out loud to herself. She stood still in the road, staring after him with parted lips. The baby wailed softly, and she hushed it mechanically, her great, happy, startled eyes fixed upon her brother.
Barnabas went on up the hill to Charlotte Barnard's. The spring was advancing. All the trees were full of that green nebula of life which comes before the blossom. Little wings, bearing birds and songs, cut the air. A bluebird shone on a glistening fence-rail, like a jewel on a turned hand. ”

“ Candover, gentle and patient as ever, broke the ice himself as soon as they were alone.
“What’s this I hear,” he began, “about your having been frightened by a madwoman this morning? Barnard tells me he found you cowering behind a chair, and the woman muttering at you in a threatening manner.” ”

“ As Father, the Doctor, and the Professor were great cronies, I presume my teacher knew of the plan long before I did.
Dr. Barnard was a man of perhaps thirty-five, though to me he then seemed much older. He was comparatively a newcomer in the town but, being a Mason, found favour in Father’s sight. A good man with whom to be associated, a student of human nature, kind, easy-going, with a keen sense of humour, he was wide-awake as a physician and, what is especially to the point, he did not take me too seriously, but wisely concealed from me that he did not. ”

“ Barnard was about at the end of his patience when Janet entered the room.
“I am sorry to be late,” she apologized hurriedly. “Duncan’s new motor-car just came this morning, and he asked me to go for a run in it. I expected to be back before you got here,” tossing off her furs and coat as she spoke.
“Let me help you,” and with quick, deft fingers Barnard assisted her to remove her heavy veil. “What a becoming hat!”
[Pg 231]
“Do you think so?” dimpling with pleasure. “Marjorie selected it; she has awfully good taste. Has she been here?” in some anxiety. ”

“ Sir John Barnard was as little ready to reply to banter, as Nugent was inferior to him in reasoning. The citizen, with the most acute head for figures, made that sort of speaking still more unpleasant by the paltriness of his language, as the arrogance of his honesty clouded the merit of it. ”

“ And palmer though I be, I yet will prove Sir Barnard recreant and traitor upon his body, and thereto I cast down my glove." Then Sir Barnard took up the glove, and Sir Guy being furnished with armour and a sword and shield and spear, they did battle together. And in the end Sir Guy overcame and slew Sir Barnard, and demanded of the duke to restore Sir Thierry to his possessions, which being granted, he went in search of the banished man, and having found him in a church making his prayer, brought him straightway to the duke, and thus they were made friends. ”

“ We have seen your Barnard: a most modest, intelligent, compact, hopeful-looking man, who will not revisit you without conquests from his expedition hither. We expect to see much more of him; to instruct him, to learn of him: especially about that real-imaginary locality of "Concord," where a kindly-speaking voice lives incarnated, there is much to learn.
That you will take to yourself a wife is the cheerfulest tidings you could send us. It is in no wise meet for man to be alone ”

“ By arduous work and much self-denial Barnard was winning a deserved reputation in his profession, but his impetuous temperament chafed at the slowness with which he accumulated money. He was [Pg 106] constantly seeking unscrupulous get-rich-quick schemes and other short cuts to wealth, but with heart-breaking regularity they came to nothing. He had met Marjorie Langdon two years before and had fallen madly in love with her, had persuaded her to engage herself to him, and with a caution which he inwardly despised, had made her promise not to tell Madame Yvonett of their mutual attachment. ”

“ But Providence, who had intended that the guilt of Sir Barnard should become completely manifest, directed a fisherman to the spot, who conveyed Sir Guy in safety to the palace, and related this miraculous incident to the emperor. The monarch having determined that the punishment of the steward should be inflicted by the champion whom heaven had thus marked out for the purpose, the battle recommences, and Sir Barnard, already half vanquished by the reproaches of his own conscience, is overpowered and slain. ”

“ Beneath the same pavement, resolved into kindred elements, though when in chemical union so different a totality, lie the remains of that illustrious patriot, Sir John Barnard, who passed a long life in opposing the encroachments on liberty of the ministers of the first and second of the Guelphs. His statue in the Royal Exchange, London, would attest his worth, if the same area was not disgraced by another, of the infamous Charles the Second, thereby confounding virtue and vice. ”

“ There appeared to be some mystery in his acquaintance with Don Diego, which that personage carefully concealed; and once, when I was expressing my surprise to have so often missed seeing his friend, the Spaniard shook his head gravely, and said that he had now learnt the real reason for it: there were circumstances of state which made men fearful of new acquaintances even in their own country. He drew back, as if he had said too much, and left me to conjecture that Barnard was connected with him in some intrigue, more delightful in itself than agreeable to the government. ”

“ He despised poverty as before he had despised low birth.
Exaggerated reports of Janet Fordyce’s reputed wealth, which she was to inherit on coming of age, reached Barnard and aroused his cupidity. In the past his affection for Marjorie had barred that all too frequently traveled road to “Easy Street,” a marriage for money; but he met Janet at a time when his finances were low, and the idea was not so distasteful as formerly; particularly when the girl, beside her wealth, had charm, youth, and a lovable disposition. But Barnard, like many another man, was tempted to play with fire. ”

“ In this county Sir Barnard himself had some interest: for he had some lands there: and Hector prevailed on a common friend to write in a very urgent style to the Baronet, requesting his aid. How could so great a lover of his country as Sir Barnard, indignant too as he felt himself at the apostacy of the Earl, refuse a request by which his own patriotic purposes might be forwarded?
At length parliament was dissolved; and the whole kingdom was immediately in a tumult. Driving, rioting, and uproar began. God help the poor post-horses, hostlers, and chambermaids! ”

“ Such translations as were ready for publication were edited for private circulation, along with some of Barnard's original poems, by Archdeacon Wrangham, the editor of Langhorne's ‘Plutarch.’ The title of this volume, published in 1829, is ‘Fifty Select Poems of Marc-Antonio Flaminio, imitated by the late Rev. Edw. Will. Barnard, M.A. of Trinity College, Cambridge,’ and a short memoir by Archdeacon Wrangham is prefixed. Mr. Barnard had also projected a ‘History of the English Church,’ and collected many valuable materials for the work. ”

“ As to morals, as a science, Sir Barnard on many occasions would affect to treat it with that common-place contempt which always accompanies the supposition of the original and unconquerable depravity of man; of the verity of which the Baronet had a rooted conviction. In this hypothesis he was but confirmed by his burgage-tenure voters, by the conduct of the members he had himself returned, and by certain propensities which he felt in his own breast, and which he seriously believed to be instinctive in man. ”

“ The evolution of this group very fairly illustrates the balance of impulses in Barnard’s work. He is by natural instinct a sculptor; one whose imaginings inevitably shape themselves in form. On the other hand he is a thinker of thoughts and a dreamer of dreams that press for utterance, and he finds the utterance in plastic expression ”

“ Don’t you remember when Clara Barnard went to visit in New York, three years ago, how much attention she received? And you know Clara is Bangor, to the soles of her shoes. Ask William Platt—so long as he isn’t native—if he doesn’t consider Clara Barnard refined.
Apropos, as they say here, of refinement, there’s another American in the house—a gentleman from Boston—who’s just crammed with it. His name’s Mr. Louis Leverett (such a beautiful name I think) and he’s about thirty years old. He’s rather small and he looks pretty sick; he suffers from some affection of the liver. ”

“ But this is only to refer back to a mythological type the perennial characteristics of the birth of passion in a youth. It seems to me quite one with the philosophic bent of Barnard’s mind that he should have comprehended both intentions in his “Pan.” It is as if he had analysed himself and then exorcised his vagrant desires by imprisoning them in bronze. As an artist he takes his opportunity in the recumbent figure of enforcing the sensuous charm of the long, sinuous limbs, and once more indulges in the luxuriousness of firm, soft fleshiness ”

“ Barnard succeeded Sumner as head master of Eton in 1764. and raised the numbers of the school from three hundred to five hundred. He received a canonry of Windsor in 1761, and in 1764 became provost of Eton. He was also rector of St. Paul's Cray, Kent. He died 2 Dec. 1801. A tablet to his memory, with an inscription, is in Eton College chapel. Barnard, according to Hardinge, was a man of coarse features and clumsy figure, but with a humour and vivacity which, but for his physical disadvantages, would have made him the equal of Garrick; and he ruled his boys chiefly by force of ridicule. ”

“ Johnson was then in the library. His Majesty said he was at leisure, and would go to him: upon which Mr. Barnard took one of the candles that stood on the King's table, and lighted his Majesty through a suite of rooms, till they came to a private door into the library, of which his Majesty had the key. Being entered, Mr. Barnard stepped forward hastily to Dr. Johnson, who was still in a profound study, and whispered him, "Sir, here is the King." Johnson started up, and stood still. ”

“ As his medical practice increased, and calls on his time grew more frequent, Barnard complained good-humoredly that he had too much professional business to allow himself as much leisure for scientific diversion as his craving passion required. ”

“ I will claim his connivance as a proof of his confidence, and as an essay of my own genius of intrigue." I did so; the priest, perhaps delighted to involve me so deeply, and to find me so ardent in his project, consented. Fortunately, as I before said, Barnard was an underling,—young, unknown, and obscure. My youth, therefore, was not so great a foe to my assumed disguise as it might otherwise have been. Montreuil supplied all requisite information. I tried (for the first time, with a beating heart and a tremulous voice) the imposition! it succeeded ”

“ And now Tom Barnard's wife had come almost at the last moment of his stay and begged that he would not refuse to see her. What on earth could she want?
A boy with a telegram had just entered and was at the open door as the captain reached the hall. Under the gas lamp without Cranston saw the carriage standing by the curb—a livery team, not the beautiful roans that had caught his trooper eye the first Sunday of his leave when he went to church with mother and Meg. The message was sharp and clear enough in all conscience:
"We march at once. ”