Berkley

“ Berkley's face became ashen.
Colonel Arran said: "Is there punishment more terrible than that for any man?"
Presently Berkley drew his chair closer.
"I wish you to know how mother died," he said simply. "It is your right to know. . . . Because, there will come a time when she and—you will be together again . . . if you believe such things."
"I believe."
For a while the murmur of Berkley's voice alone broke the silence. Colonel Arran lay with eyes closed, a slight flush on his sunken cheeks; and, before long, Berkley's hand lay over his and remained there. ”

“ The brilliant, ominous flies whirled overhead or drove headlong against the window-panes, falling on their backs to kick and buzz and scramble over the sill; slippered attendants moved softly along the aisle with medicines; once the ward-master came and looked down at Colonel Arran, touched the skin of his face, his pulse, and walked noiselessly away. Berkley's story had already ended.
After a while he said: "If you will get well—whatever I am—we two men have in common a memory that can never die. ”

“ And, before Berkley was aware of what he was about, the negro lifted him and laid him on the cot.
"Now," he chuckled, "I'se gwine shave you." And he fished out a razor from the rear pocket of his striped drill overalls, rubbed the weapon of his race with a proud thumb, spread more soap over Berkley's upturned face, and fell deftly to work, wiping off the accumulated lather on the seat of his own trousers.
Berkley remembered seeing him do it twice; then remembered no more. A blessed sense of rest soothed every bone ”

“ Across the foot of his couch lay folded an invalid's red hospital wrapper; beside his bed stood the slippers. After a few moments he rose, stepped into the slippers, and, drawing on the woolen robe, belted it in about his thin waist. Then he limped out to the veranda.
In the dusk the bird sang timidly. Berkley could just make out the outlines of the nearer buildings, and of tall trees around. Here and there lights burned behind closed windows; but, except for these, the world was black and still; stiller for the deadened stamping of horses in distant unseen stalls. ”

“ By the time that Sir William Berkley and his party arrived, the Recluse had disappeared; every one was so much absorbed by the instant and pressing calls for assistance and sympathy from the suffering females, that the time of his departure was entirely unnoticed. ”

“ He took an active part in the scientific and other useful institutions of Bombay, and evinced always an especial interest in the Mechanics' Institute, where a ' Berkley gold medal ' was founded in his name. In 1855 he became a magistrate; in 1857 a commissioner of the Bombay Municipal Board, and in 1858 a member of the Senate of Bombay University. His health failing, Berkley came in 1856 to England, but revisited India to see his cherished work on the Bhore Ghât fully developed. ”

“ Officers walked their lean horses beside the column. One among them drew bridle near him, calling out:
"Have you the right time?"
Berkley looked at his watch.
"Midnight."
"Thank you, friend."
Berkley stepped to the curb-stone: "What regiment is that?"
"Eighth New York."
"Leaving?"
"Going into camp. Yorkville."
Berkley said: "Do you want a damned fool?"
"The companies are full of fools. . . . We can stand a few first-class men. Come up to camp to-morrow, friend. If you can pass the surgeons I guess it will be all right." ”

“ Berkley; "he is quite as anxious to see you as you are to see him."
"I tell you what, Mab," said Mr. Berkley, "Fred is a pretty important member of society since he got into college; you ought to hear him talk about 'the men of our class;' it makes me feel old."
"Oh! he'll get over that," laughed Marion. "I suppose he feels particularly grand, because he's younger than most of his class." ”

“ His late valet's arm twitched instinctively toward the salute he dared not offer; he glanced stealthily right and left before answering:
"I am doing very well, sir, thank you."
"I told you to cut out the 'sir,' didn't I?"
"Yes, sir—beg pardon——"
Berkley eyed him. "You've got your chance," he said. "Your rank and mine are equal. ”

“ It was the battle flag of the Confederacy flashing the answer to the Northern cheer.
CHAPTER V "Burgess!"
"Sir?"
Berkley sat up in bed and viewed his environment with disgust.
"These new lodgings would make a fair kennel, wouldn't they,
Burgess?—if a man isn't too particular about his dog."
The servant entered with a nasty smirk. "Yes, sir; I seen a rat last night."
"He's not the only one, is he, Burgess," yawned Berkley. "Oh, hell! I've got to dress. Did you paint that bathtub? I guess you did, the place reeks like a paint shop. Anyway, it kills less desirable aromas. Where's the water?" ”

“ Poker, sir?"
"I—ah—believe so," said Berkley, lying back in his chair and closing his eyes. "Go ahead and rub hell into me—if I'll hold any more."
The pallor, the shadows under eyes and cheeks, the nervous lines at the corners of the nose, had almost disappeared when Burgess finished. And when he stood in his evening clothes pulling a rose-bud stem through the button-hole of his lapel, he seemed very fresh and young and graceful in the gas-light.
"Am I very fine, Burgess? Because I go where youth and beauty chase the shining hours with flying feet. ”

“ There's not much hope when it's a belly-whopper. Too bad, ain't it? He was a bully old boy of a colonel; we all said so in the dragoons. Only—to hell with those lances of yours, Berkley! What cursed good are they alongside a gun? And I notice your regiment has its carbineers, too—which proves that your lances are no good or you wouldn't have twelve carbines to the troop. Eh? Oh, you bet your boots, sonny. Don't talk lance to me! It's all on account of those Frenchmen on Little Mac's staff——"
"For God's sake shut up!" said Berkley nervously. "I can't stand any more just now." ”

“ He tip-toed up to it, stood for a moment on the sill, then entered softly and with the expression of one approaching a sanctuary. Phebe had removed all suggestion of disorder, but she could not remove the subtle reminders of a girlish presence, which were suggested by the pictures on the wall, the books on the table, by the little slippers peeping from under the foot of the lounge. An end of ribbon fluttered out from behind the door of the small wash-closet, which stood partly open. Berkley gently lifted the satiny end and laid it against his cheek, then to his lips. ”

“ Are you prepared to face the serious consequences of being a hero?"
"Yes, sir," said Burgess.
"You merit well of the republic! The country needs you. Here's half a dollar. Do your duty unflinchingly—at the nearest bar!"
Burgess took the coin with a smirk.
"Mr. Berkley, the landlady sent word that times is hard."
"Bless her soul! They are hard, Burgess. Inform her of my sentiments," said Berkley cordially. "Now, my hat and cane, if you please. We're a wonderful people, Burgess; we'll beat our walking-sticks into bayonets if Mr. ”

“ And if he did, how long d' ye think the walls of the gaol at Jamestown would keep him from the rabble—and the nearest tree? No, no, William Berkeley does but his duty. And yet—and yet—"
He began to pace the rocks again, frowning heavily, and pulling at the curls of his periwig. "You are a brave man," he said at last, stopping before Landless and speaking with energy, "and from my soul I wish I could save you. ”

“ Berkeley, a town in Gloucestershire, famous for its cattle.
Berkeley, George, bishop of Cloyne, born in Kilkenny; a philanthropic man, who conducted in a self-sacrificing spirit practical schemes for the good of humanity, which failed, but the interest in whom has for long centred, and still centres, in his philosophic teaching, his own interest in which was that it contributed to clear up our idea of God and consolidate our faith in Him, and it is known in philosophy as Idealism ”

“ Berkeley, it’s we ourselves who want to see you; not to show you off as a curiosity to all the rest of London. We have silly people enough in the evenings; but if you’ll come to lunch with us alone one day, we shall have an opportunity of talking to you on our own account.’
Lady Hilda was tall and beautiful, and Lady Hilda spoke, as she always used to speak, with manifest sincerity. Now, it is not in human nature not to feel flattered when a beautiful woman pays one genuine homage; and Arthur Berkeley was quite as human, after all, as most other people. ”

“ Being by his mother a nephew of Roger Mortimer, earl of March, the paramour of Queen Isabel, Maurice Berkeley married Elizabeth, daughter of Hugh Despenser, the younger of Edward II.’s favourites and the intruder in Berkeley Castle. With his son and heir Thomas of Berkeley, one of the commissioners of parliament for the deposing of Richard II. and a warden of the Welsh marches who harried Owen of Glendower, the direct male line of Robert fitz Harding failed, and but for the settlement of the estates Berkeley would have passed from the family. ”

“ It will surprise many readers to find with what authenticity some of our great packs can carry back their history to bygone centuries. Of these the Berkeley bears the palm, for did not a Lord of Berkeley so far back as the fourteenth century establish a metropolitan pack with kennels at Charing Cross? His descendants had so fostered and spread their hunting that in 1770 the then Lord Berkeley held all the country from London to Berkeley Castle, in Gloucestershire, a distance of 124 miles, with kennels at Cranford, Gerrard’s Cross in Bucks, Nettlebed in Oxon, and at Berkeley Castle. ”

“ Thus in the forty-fourth year of his life, in deep devotion to his Ideal, and full of glowing visions of a Fifth Empire in the West, Berkeley sailed for Rhode Island in a "hired ship of two hundred and fifty tons."
The New England Courier of that time gives this picture of his disembarkation at Newport: "Yesterday there arrived here Dean Berkeley, of Londonderry. He is a gentleman of middle stature, of an agreeable, pleasant, and erect aspect. He [Pg 31] was ushered into the town with a great number of gentlemen, to whom he behaved himself after a very complaisant manner." ”

“ The King probably called Berkeley his enemy because he was a member of the Opposition. Berkeley died a few years after his marriage with Lady Suffolk, but she survived him for more than twenty years. She lived, in dignified retirement, at her villa at Marble Hill, and retained, until the end of her life, the charm of manner and amiability, which had won her many friends. Horace Walpole used to visit her in her old age, and gleaned from her much material for his famous Memoirs. She died in 1767, in her eightieth year, having survived George the Second seven years. ”

“ The first great point, then, on which Berkeley differed from the ordinary philosophical doctrine, and sided with the vulgar, is that he contended, with the whole force of his intellect, for the inviolable identity of objects and the appearances of objects. The external world in itself, and the external world in relation to us, was a philosophic distinction which he refused to recognise. ”

“ His idealism is the purest which the British Isles have produced. Platonic as were Cudworth, Norris, Henry More, in cast of thought less scholastic than Taylor of Norwich,—who was an exotic, rather, transplanted from Alexandrian gardens,—Berkeley's thinking is indigenous, strong in native sense and active manliness. His works are magazines of rare and admirable learning, subtleties of speculation, noble philanthropies. They deserve a place in every scholar's library, were it but to mark the fortunes of thought, and accredit the poet's admiring line:—
"To Berkeley every virtue under heaven." ”

“ Berkeley remained in America till the autumn of 1731. He bought a farm of ninety-six acres and built a small house, still standing, which he called Whitehall. Here he read and meditated ; a projecting rock near the sea is shown as the place where he wrote much of 'Alciphron,' and a chair in which he sat in the ' natural alcove ' is still preserved. The descriptions of scenery in ' Alciphron ' clearly represent his impressions. Berkeley saw something of the intelligent and educated colonists; he helped to found a philosophical society at Newport ”

“ Berkeley,’ said Lady Hilda Tregellis, as she sat on the centre ottoman in Mrs. Campbell Moncrieff’s drawing-room with Arthur Berkeley talking lightly to her about the nothings which constitute polite conversation in the nineteenth century. ‘Just one evening, any day after the next fortnight? We should be so delighted if you could manage to favour us.’
‘No, I’m afraid I can’t, Lady Hilda,’ Arthur answered. ‘My evenings are so dreadfully full just now; and besides, you know, I’m not accustomed to so much society, and it unsettles me for my daily work. ”

“ Enter BERKELEY, who gives a paper to LEICESTER.
K. Edw. Such news as I expect.—Come, Berkeley, come, And tell thy message to my naked breast. Berk. My lord, think not a thought so villanous Can harbour in a man of noble birth. To do your highness service and devoir, And save you from your foes, Berkeley would die. Leices. My lord, the council of the queen command That I resign my charge. K. Edw. And who must keep me now? Must you, my lord? Berk. Ay, my most gracious lord; so 'tis decreed. K. Edw. [Taking the paper.] By Mortimer, whose name is written here! ”