Beckendorff

“ Beckendorff, I thought even he would have gone out of his mind; and when I brought in the white peacock he actually left the room in despair. Pray how do you like Madame Clara and Owlface too? Which do you think the most beautiful? I am no great favourite with the old lady. Indeed, it was very kind of Mr. Beckendorff to bear with everything as he did: I am sure he is not much used to lady visitors. ”

“ Beckendorff’s is a mind that such a woman cannot comprehend. He treats her with contempt, and, if possible, views her with hatred, for he considers that she has degraded the character of his pupil; while she, on the contrary, wonders by what magic spell he exercises such influence over the conduct of her husband. At first Beckendorff treated her and her circle of illuminati with contemptuous silence; but in politics nothing is contemptible. ”

“ Beckendorff. I have seen too many of these affairs not to have been quite aware, the whole time, that it would require very little trouble, and very few sacrifices on the part of Mr. Beckendorff, to quash the whole cabal. By-the-bye, our visit to him was highly amusing; he is a singular man.”
“He has had, nevertheless,” said Sievers, “a difficult part to play. Had it not been for you, the Prince would have perhaps imagined that he was only trifling with him again, and terminated the interview abruptly and in disgust. ”

“ But since his long-agitated career has become calm and tranquil, and Beckendorff, like a guardian spirit, has ceased to be ever at his elbow, the character of the Grand Duke of Reisenburg begins to be understood. His Court has been, and still is, frequented by all the men of genius in Germany, who are admitted without scruple, even if they be not noble. But the astonishing thing is, that the Grand Duke is always surrounded by every species of political and philosophical quack that you can imagine. ”

“ We must pay her every attention. I dare say she is his daughter. You have not forgotten the portrait. Well! we all were gay once. All men have their imprudent day; why should not Beckendorff? Speaks rather in his favour, I think. Well, this girl; his Royal Highness very kindly made the Crown Prince walk the Polonaise with her; very kind of him, and very proper. What attention can be too great for the daughter or friend of such a man! a man who, in two words, may be said to have made Reisenburg. For what was Reisenburg before Beckendorff? ”

“ A clouded flame licks up the offering of our ruined souls, and the sacrifice vanishes in the sable smoke of Death.
But where are his thoughts wandering? Had he forgotten that day of darkest despair? There had that happened to him which had happened to no other man. He was roused from his reverie by the sound of a trotting horse. He looked up, but the winding road prevented him at first from seeing the steed which evidently was approaching. The sound came nearer and nearer; and at length, turning a corner, Mr. Beckendorff came in sight. ”

“ The only course to be pursued is certainly an annoying one; but, so far as I can judge, it is the only mode by which very serious mischief can be prevented. Let me proceed forthwith to Reisenburg with Essper. Placed immediately under my eye, and solemnly adjured by me to silence, I think I can answer, particularly when I give him a gentle hint of the station of Beckendorff, for his preserving the confidence with which it will now be our policy partially to entrust him. ”

“ I should, however, first mention that while Beckendorff has not scrupled to resort to any measures or adopt any opinions in order to further the interests of his monarch and his country, he has in every manner shown that personal aggrandisement has never been his object. He lives in retirement, scarcely with an attendant, and his moderate official stipend amply supports his more moderate expenditure. ”

“ Beckendorff, has such a bad appetite that he can satisfy himself with picking, once a day, the breast of a pheasant; why, if he expect his friends to be willing or even able to live on such fare, the least that I can say is, that he is much mistaken; and so, therefore, my good friend Grey, I think we had better order our horses and be off.”
“No occasion for that, I hope,” said Mrs. Clara, rather alarmed at the Prince’s passion; “no want, I trust, ever here, sir; and I make no doubt you will have dinner as soon as possible; and so, sir, I hope you will not be hasty.” ”

“ Bowing in a ceremonious and courtly manner to his Highness, Mr. Beckendorff, in a weak but not unpleasing voice, said that he was “honoured by the presence of Mr. von Philipson.” The Prince answered his salutation in a manner equally ceremonious and equally courtly; for having no mean opinion of his own diplomatic abilities, his Highness determined that neither by an excess of coldness nor cordiality on his part should the Minister gather the slightest indication of the temper in which he had attended the interview. You see that even the bow of a diplomatist is a serious business! ”

“ Within only these last two years my career has, in so many instances, indicated that I am not the master of my own conduct; that no longer able to resist the conviction which is hourly impressed on me, I recognise in every contingency the preordination of my fate.”
“A delusion of the brain!” said Beckendorff, quickly. “Fate, Destiny, Chance, particular and special Providence; idle words! Dismiss them all, sir! A man’s fate is his own temper ”

“ Waltzes in sets speedily followed the Polonaise; and the unknown, who was now an object of universal attention, danced with Count von Sohnspeer, another of Beckendorff’s numerous progeny, if the reader remember. How scurvily are poor single gentlemen who live alone treated by the candid tongues of their fellow-creatures! The commander-in-chief of the Reisenburg troops was certainly a partner of a different complexion from the young lady’s previous one. The crown Prince had undertaken his duty with reluctance, and had performed it without grace ”

“ Beckendorff, sir, if the house were on fire. No one can enter the room when he is asleep.”
“Then how can you possibly know when he is awake?”
“I shall hear his violin immediately, sir.”
“Well, well! I suppose it must be so. I wish we were in Turriparva; that is all I know. Men of my station have no business to be paying visits to the sons of the Lord knows who! peasants, shopkeepers, and pedagogues!”
As a fire was blazing in the dining-room, which Mrs. Clara informed them Mr. ”

“ The Caliph, not satisfied with seeing, wished also to hear Nouronihar, and eagerly turned to catch the sound of her voice. At last, he distinguished her whispering to one of her companions behind the thicket from whence she had thrown the jasmine: "A Caliph, it must be owned, is a fine thing to see; but my little Gulchenrouz is much more amiable: one lock of his hair is of more value to me than the richest embroidery of the Indies. I had rather that his teeth should mischievously press my finger, than the richest ring of the imperial treasure. Where have you left him, Sutlememe? ”

“ Benkóvsky? May I inquire?"
"You may, about him! He's rather black of complexion, rather sweet, and rather taciturn. He has little eyes, a little mustache, little lips, little hands and a little fiddle. [Pg 361] He loves tender little songs, and little cheese patties. I always feel like rapping him over his little snout."
"Well, you don't love him!" exclaimed Ippolít Sergyéevitch, feeling sorry for Mr. Benkóvsky at this humiliating description of his exterior. ”

“ One can entangle himself in barbarism, in idées fixes; and many pictures of Beckmann's show signs of entanglement. Relentlessly, he says what is there, and he adds nothing, not even the baroque twist which permitted a Rubens to tear his Saint's tongue from his throat with the tongs in such a manner that our mouth waters with raptures over the texture. Also graphaphones, wooden legs, signboards, would be adapted to still lifes. He opposes himself to such adaptation. Occasionally he devotes himself to a fair. It is the only concession he allows himself. ”

“ In general effectiveness Hofer's discipline stands higher than that of Beckmann. Richer possibilities hold him back from all impasses. It remains for the future to show whether he can summon Beckmann's intensity in dealing with a definite content. Up to a certain degree he has moved the other way from Beckmann, beginning in specifically German channels, in the vicinity of Böcklin, and arriving with the help of Marées from the narrow into the open. Beckmann was in Paris a few months and was able to get very little from this outer sphere ”

“ I look into the jumbled stores of the middle distance of memory, and Beckenham seems to me a quite transitory phase. But really they were there several years; through nearly all my married life, in fact, and far longer than the year and odd months we lived together at Wimblehurst. But the Wimblehurst time with them is fuller in my memory by far then the Beckenham period. There comes back to me with a quite considerable amount of detail the effect of that garden party of my aunt’s and of a little social misbehaviour of which I was guilty on that occasion. It’s like a scrap from another life. ”

“ Gulchenrouz in the meanwhile was filled with amazement at not finding his cousin; nor were the dwarfs at all less surprised; but Sutlememe, who had more penetration, immediately guessed what had happened. Gulchenrouz was amused with the delusive hope of once more embracing Nouronihar in the interior recesses of the mountains, where the ground, strewed over with orange blossoms and jasmines, offered beds much more inviting than the withered leaves in their cabin, where they might accompany with their voices the sounds of their lutes, and chase butterflies in concert. ”

“ Nothing which painted with hand-me-down gestures the monumental sorrow of defeat: no fallen warriors, no lions riddled with bullets. Humbled mankind had no time for edification. Berlin maintained its tempo and lost its substance. The senseless idiocy of mechanization, the human absurdity of humans, animals, things which are nothing but instruments of commerce—all this formed itself, deformed itself, into pictures. The narrowness made faces crooked and legs twisted; tragi-comedies of things jammed together arose. Beckmann went straight through Berlin. Perhaps he is coming out beyond Berlin. ”

“ The Caliph had nothing to offer in reply; he wished his mother a prosperous journey, and ate on till he had finished his supper. At midnight the camp broke up, amidst the flourishing of trumpets and other martial instruments; but loud indeed must have been the sound of the tymbals to overpower the blubbering of the Emir and his long-beards, who, by an excessive profusion of tears, had so far exhausted the radical moisture, that their eyes shrivelled up in their sockets, and their hairs dropped off by the roots. ”

“ I declare her my wife, and the glory of your race shall extend from one generation to another."
"Alas! my lord," said Fakreddin, as he plucked off the honours of his beard, "cut short the days of your faithful servant, rather than force him to depart from his word. Nouronihar, as her hands evince, is solemnly promised to Gulchenrouz, the son of my brother Ali Hassan; they are united also in heart, their faith is mutually plighted, and affiances so sacred cannot be broken."
"What then!" replied the Caliph, bluntly, "would you surrender this divine beauty to a husband more womanish than herself? ”

“ Nouronihar was not altogether so content, for though she felt a fondness for Gulchenrouz, who, to augment the attachment, had been left at full liberty with her, yet she still regarded him as but a bauble, that bore no competition with the carbuncle of Giamschid. At times she indulged doubts on the mode of her being, and scarcely could believe that the dead had all the wants and the whims of the living. ”

“ Becker, indeed, once coquetted with the thought of patronising him; but the project had no sequel, and it stands alone. In every other juncture of history the German attitude has been the same. Choose whom you will to be king; when he has failed, choose whom you please to succeed him; when the second fails also, replace the first: upon the one condition, that Mataafa be excluded. ”

“ Beckford himself, surrounded by five or six dogs; two more grooms with whips close the procession. If in the course of the ride one of the dogs is refractory, the whole train halts, and castigation is immediately applied with the whips; this course of education is continued through the whole ride. Mr. Beckford formerly wrote a very singular, but most powerful romance, in French: it was translated into English, and greatly admired. A high tower plays a conspicuous part in that also: the dénouement is, that the Devil carries off everybody. ”

“ It was said that no less than 100 of the clergy were charged with homicide.
[47] This, according to Fitz-Stephen, was the first cause of quarrel with the king. p. 215.
[48] See throughout this epistle of Arnulf of Lisieux, Bouquet, p. 230. This same Arnulf was a crafty and double-dealing prelate. Grim and Roger de Pontigny say that he suggested to Henry the policy of making a party against Becket among the English bishops, while to Becket he plays the part of confidential counsellor.—Grim, p. 29. R. P., p. 119. Will. Canterb., p. 6. Compare on Arnulf, Epist. ”