Bingham

“ Mrs. Bingham knew nothing about the street, but having just concluded a residence in Paris from the French book, that conclusion led at once to a further conclusion, clear as noonday, as to the quality of the people who inhabited Great Ormond Street, and consequently to the final deduction of its locality.
“Did you not say, Mrs. Sweeting, that she buys her coffee whole?” added Mrs. Bingham, as if inspiration had flashed into her. “If you want additional proof that she is French, there it is.”
“Portsmouth,” mused Mrs. Cobb. “You say, Mrs. Bingham, there are a good many officers there. ”

“ Bingham laughed bitterly.
“Oh, you don't get me that way. I know I'm no good at fencing with a man like you. I'll put it to you straight from the shoulder, sir. When a man gets a girl to call him by his Christian name and takes her to the theater, what's one to think? Either he's an out-and-outer or he means to marry her.”
“What!” said Peter, recoiling as though the blow 'straight from the shoulder' had not been merely figurative. “I marry Miss Martha! Why, good Lord, I am—” He stopped. Mr. Bingham's face darkened. ”

“ Bingham, from Philadelphia, who married a rich heiress here, and turned Catholic to get possession of her estate, gave a ball to-day, in honour of the first birth-day of his only daughter, and politely invited our company. We accepted the invitation, and rode to the ball at 9 o’clock. He was twenty-four years of age, and his wife nineteen; has many friends, because his cellar is well filled, and has the talent to spend his money liberally among the people. We found assembled in his rich and tastefully furnished halls the whole fashionable world of Montreal. ”

“ Bingham is prejudiced by my sense of personal obligation to him for his kindness. Yet I doubt not that the universal verdict of every one who went there to study would be that he should be rated as one of the world’s greatest teachers. The South owes much to him for the dignity he gave to the profession of teaching. No man ever left a deeper impress on me. ”

“ Very soon he began to speak of Geoffrey’s speech, saying that it was one of the most brilliant of the session, if not the most brilliant.
“Then Mr. Bingham is a rising man, I suppose?” Beatrice said.
“Rising? I should think so,” he answered. “They will get him into the Government on the first opportunity after this; he’s too good to neglect. Very few men can come to the fore like Mr. Bingham. We call him the comet, and if only he does not make a mess of his chances by doing something foolish, there is no reason why he should not be Attorney-General in a few years.” ”

“ Another woman of the official circle in Philadelphia may be mentioned—Mrs. Bingham. She was the daughter of Thomas Willing, and at the age of sixteen, on October 22, 1780, she married William Bingham, who was United States Senator from Pennsylvania. A few years after their marriage they went abroad and spent some years in France where they brought about them a charming circle of the best of the French capital. ”

“ Bingham, a short, stout, compact young ruffian, of twenty-two or twenty-three, not quite as tall as Bart, but a third more in weight, and who had an ugly reputation as a quarrelsome fellow of many fights, had at first treated Bart with good-natured toleration, and said he would let him go on awhile. With him consorted John Craft, a chap of about his age, but of better reputation. Bingham had broken up a school the winter before, just below in Mantua, and was from the first an object of dread to parents in the new district. ”

“ Bingham's apartments, we found that she had just left home to wait upon Mrs. O'Leary, and consequently, that Miss Bingham was alone. Trevanion, therefore, having wished me a safe deliverance through my trying mission, shook my hand warmly, and departed.
I stood for some minutes irresolutely, with my hand upon the lock of the door. To think that the next few moments may decide the fortune of one's after life, is a sufficiently anxious thought; but that your fate may be so decided, by compelling you to finish in sorrow what you have begun in folly, is still more insupportable. ”

“ The average of the articles was of much better quality than had been expected. The literary and artistic department had rested chiefly on Mr. Bingham, a barrister (subsequently a police magistrate) , who had been for some years a frequenter of Bentham, was a friend of both the Austins, and had adopted with great ardour Mr. Bentham's philosophical opinions. Partly from accident, there were in the first number as many as five articles by Bingham; and we were extremely pleased with them. I well remember the mixed feeling I myself had about the Review ”

“ These doors are our way of 'being aware' of life. The psychology of man is in its infancy. And remember"—here Bingham leaned over the table and rested his eyes on May—"it is man studying himself! That makes the difficulty!" Bingham was serious now, and he had slipped from slang into the academic form in which his thoughts really moved.
"And we don't even know whether our ways of perceiving are the only ways," said the Warden.
"Anyhow," said Bingham, turning to him, "the ghosts you 'feel,' and which you and I don't believe in, belong to the old Oxford, the Oxford which is gone." ”

“ Bingham leads us to some notice of her and her environment, as an aid to our perception of the real culture and brilliance found in the higher social circles of colonial Philadelphia and New York. One of the most beautiful women of the day, Mrs. Bingham, added to a good education, the advantage of much travel abroad, and a lengthy visit at the Court of Louis XVI. Her beauty and elegance were the talk of Paris, The Hague, and London, and Mrs. Adams' comment from London voiced the general foreign sentiment about her: "She is coming quite into fashion here, and is very much admired. ”

“ Marshall heard him instancing the Fuggers, of Augsburg, and the Loredani and Morosini, of Venice, and the Medici and Tornabuoni, of Florence, and many other names alien and all unfamiliar—merchants, most of them, it seemed, who had perpetuated their name and fame by improving the precise moment when their town, like plaster-of-Paris, was taking its "set."
"Make your impression while you may," concluded Bingham. "This is the time—this very year. The man who makes his mark here to-day will enjoy a fame which will spread as the fame of the city spreads and its power and prosperity increases. ”

“ The "Bingham" monument (1625) was formerly in the Magdalene Church, whence it was removed to the west side of this transept when the church was destroyed. An arched recess, [95] flanked by consoles, contains a half-length coloured effigy of the deceased, in gown and ruff. Below this is a panel, surmounted by arches and supported by pilasters, enclosing a tablet, with the inscription to John Bingham, Sadler to Queen Elizabeth and James I. The spandrels of the arch above the figure contain the arms of the City of London and the Sadlers' Company. The family arms surmount the whole. ”

“ Bingham, and if possible bring him down to Bryngelly. In a moment every detail of the plot became clear to Elizabeth’s mind, and then she spoke.
“You must not go to Mr. Davies, father,” she said; “he is a hard man, and would only refuse and put you in a false position; you must go to Mr. Bingham. Listen: he is rich now, and he is very fond of you and of Beatrice. He will lend you a hundred pounds at once. You must go to London by the early train to-morrow, and drive straight to his chambers and see him. It will cost two pounds to get there and back, but that cannot be helped ”

“ The blunder does not appear to have been recorded in the books of the university, but the sad fact remains that Oxford drove from her walls one of her most distinguished sons, on charges of which he was perfectly innocent. Bingham was not left quite destitute; as soon as he resigned his fellowship he was presented by the well-known Dr. Radcliffe, without any solicitation, to the living of Headbourn-Worthy. It was worth only 100l. a year, but it had the advantage of being close to Winchester, where Bingham could make use of the excellent cathedral library founded by Bishop Morley. ”

“ There was enough evidence in Subdivision Eleven, according to Bingham, to void the Tory returns on six different counts; but the house-cat sold by Peter Finnigan to Mr Winter for five dollars would answer all practical purposes. It was a first-rate mouser, Bingham said, and it would settle Winter. They would have plenty of other charges "good and ready" if Finnigan's cat should fail them, but Bingham didn't think the court would get to anything else; he had great confidence in the cat. ”

“ Brower smiled, though neither of the others seemed conscious of any secondary meaning in this simple question. "Thank you, no," replied Bingham. "I am moving on to an appointment, and am a little late as it is." He looked down on Marshall with an expression of friendly solicitude, and shook hands with him in a long, slow clasp. "Good-night; you are entitled to better care than you are giving yourself." And he moved down the footpath towards the front gate. ”

“ Roger, poor boy, makes no headway at all. He knows the law; he has a good practice; he leases and collects for me—and buys and sells. But he is getting to be almost ashamed to come here to see me about it."
"I know," assented Bingham; "a kind of camorra. Get a shyster; fight the devil with fire. What can a gentleman do in a justice's court? If the rats are behind the wainscot, don't stick your own hand into the hole. Hire somebody else." ”

“ It is but fair to say, however, that Marshall & Belden always saw that their sugar was as saccharine as a specified price would permit, and that their coffee-roasters met the lowered standard of cheap purchasers as well as the apparatus of any rival did.
Yes, everything was running smoothly, and Bingham felt that he might venture a slight trespass upon the friendliness and tolerance of his last client.
He looked at Marshall for a moment with a slow and cautious smile. "Yes, the young people are holding up their end; but how about the 'old man' himself?" ”

“ Captain Bingham’s next appointment was in 1798, to the Prince George, a second rate, bearing the flag of Sir William Parker, on the coast of Spain. He afterwards accompanied that officer, in the America, of 64 guns, to Halifax, and from thence proceeded to the West Indies.
On the 13th Dec. 1800, the America struck upon the Formigas rocks, and received so much damage as to render her unfit for any other service than that of a prison-ship, into which she was subsequently converted. ”

“ All who escaped instant death were recaptured. Bingham sent a warrant to hang all the prisoners who had taken part in the attempt, and hanged they accordingly were—Burkes, O’Connors, and O’Flaherties from the best houses in Connaught. To mutinous soldiers Bingham showed as little mercy. Some recruits in Captain Conway’s company made a disturbance at Roscommon, and Bingham ordered that the mutineers should be brought to the gallows, as if for execution, and then spared. ”

“ Those already mustered were so sure of the next day's company; and these, when they rode in, carried the same air of buoyancy, of man-like hardihood and child-like trust.
A new, big dream was stirring round Blake's heart. Six days ago he had lain awake and heard two sentries talk of Miss Bingham, of the coquetry she practised still in Knaresborough, and his old wound had opened. He had staunched the bleeding with prompt skill; and now his heart was aching, not for fripperies over and done with, but for the thing that Oxford was to see, if all went well. ”

“ In the dusk the horse glowed like a living jewel that holds the light when the sun has gone. Night fell, and the golden hide became a shimmer in the dark, as the outlaw moved restlessly to and fro in his prison. Then, of a sudden, with the unexpectedness and unreason of a dog’s wolf-howl at the rising moon, there rose from the gloom of the corral a shrill, wild neigh that shattered the peaceful silence of the night.
Haig left the fence, and walked swiftly to the barn.
“Farrish!” he said shortly. “We’ll break Sunnysides to-morrow. Tell Pete and Curly not to ride away in the morning. ”

“ I can sustain the memory of Fort Fisher if he and his present associates can sustain him in shedding the blood of a woman tried by a military commission and convicted, in my judgment, without sufficient evidence!"
To which Mr. Bingham replied: "I challenge the gentleman, I dare him anywhere, in this tribunal or any tribunal, to assert that I spoliated or mutilated any book. Why, sir, such a charge without one tittle of evidence is only fit to come from a man who lives in a bottle, and is fed with a spoon!" ”

“ None of the three capitals of the country have produced another social leader of the cleverness, audacity, and regality of Mrs. William Bingham. During the eight years of the domination of the Federalists, of whom her husband was one of the leaders, there was no public character of the first order who did not come under the influence of her fascination. By birth, environment, nature, and training she was fitted to play a conspicuous part in the social life of any capital in the world. The daughter of Willing, the partner of Robert Morris, she was the favored of fortune. ”

“ In Hans Place reside the Binghams. Mr. Bingham is a civil engineer, and dabbles generally in building operations. He is a man of about middle height, spare, and active; very careful as to his attire, and of a mild conciliatory address; a pleasant, well-informed man.
Mrs. Bingham, the sister of Captain Bradshaw, is the picture of good temper. Short and stout, as such women generally are, devoted to 120her husband and children, having no thought, no care, no object in life unconnected with the narrow circle of her own family. Not a clever woman—that is, not a clever woman of the world. ”