Blair

“ It was there in Blair's white face—the dreadful truth. He wore a ribbon on his breast and he leaned on a crutch. For the instant, as father and son faced each other, there was something in Blair's poise, his look of an eagle, that carried home a poignant sense of his greatness. Lane thrilled with it and a lump constricted his throat. Then with Blair's ringing "Dad!" and the father's deep and broken: "My son! My son!" the two embraced.
In a stifling moment more it seemed, attention turned on Red Payson, who stood nearest. Blair's folk were eager, kind, soft-spoken and warm in their welcome. ”

“ Now, Blair has sung, in notes as yet unequalled, one of the cardinal, although one of the gloomiest thoughts and actualities in existence, and his name ought to stand proportionally high. He has, in a solemn yet happy hour, turned aside from the highways, and the byeways too, of the world, and gone a-musing and meditating, like Isaac in the evening fields, and found among these a field of the dead, a place of skulls; and, returning home, has recorded that one brief meditation in verse, and made it and himself immortal. ”

“ Here was an end, in their minds, to the Fairport Guard, and every other species of fun in which Blair had been so long a leader and abettor.
Blair was at first inclined to shrink from his old companions; but as the right spirit grew and strengthened within him, he mingled among them more freely, actuated by the desire to win new citizens for the kingdom of heaven, and to guide46 his wild associates into such paths as would make them a blessing to their native land. ”

“ He gave an angry thrust at Blair, which the lad skilfully avoided, but without a shadow of fear in his fine face. "None of that talk," exclaimed Brimstone. "We say what we please and when we please on board the Molly. Mum's the right word for you. We want no parson just out of petticoats here."
Blair walked quietly away. His precious knife was gone, and he had perhaps but irritated and made more unfriendly one of the very men whom he so longed to influence for good. He had left himself without any defensive weapon among men who reckoned human life as of trifling value. ”

“ Blair’s letter to Jacquelin in reply was more to him than General Legaie’s mention of his name in his report.
Blair was growing up to be almost a woman now. Women, as well as men, age rapidly amid battles, and nearly every letter Jacquelin received from home contained something about her. “What a pretty girl Blair has grown to be. You have no idea how we all lean on her,” his mother wrote. Or Miss Thomasia would say: “I wish you could have heard Blair sing in church last Sunday. ”

“ As for Blair, as I say, if David doesn't put his finger in the pie, Blair isn't hopeless."
"I'm glad you think so."
"I do think so. Blair is young yet; and if she costs him something, he may value her—and I think I can manage to make her cost him something! A man doesn't value what comes cheap; and all his life everything has come cheap to Blair." ”

“ Blair, being now worn out with old age, and his spirits sunk with sorrow and grief for the desolations of the Lord's sanctuary in Scotland, took his last sickness, and entertained most serious thoughts of his near approaching end, ever extolling his glorious and good Master whom he had served. ”

“ You are squeezing the life out of Blair by giving him money. You've always done it, because it was the easy thing to do. Let up on him! Give him a chance. Let him earn his money, or go without. Talk about making him independent—you've made him as dependent as a baby! I don't know my Bible as well as you do, but there is a verse somewhere—something about 'fullness of bread and abundance of idleness.' That's what's the trouble with Blair. ”

“ Austin Ambrose laughed.
"Nonsense! Blair will do nothing of the kind. He will simply repudiate you, and with many apologies, show you the door. But really it would be more merciful to kill you outright, than to leave you the butt of the whole of London! The great heiress, Violet Graham, wrongfully married to Blair Leyton, and discarded for his first and lawful wife!" ”

“ The words had hardly passed from the lips of the British officer, when Blair laid his hand calmly on the railing, and exclaimed, "Now, God helping me, you may tear me limb from limb, and I will be true to my country and my home."
"It's no use. He'll keep his word. You can't force 'im," shouted Hal Hutchings, the tears coursing down his cheeks.68
The wild winds swept through the rigging, and the storm came on with sudden violence. ”

“ The King and indeed everybody else agreed with Johnson, the after time did not, and surely no human being now-a-days reads the once famous Rhetoric and the once famous Sermons. Blair was vain about everything. Finical about his dress, he was quite a sight as he walked to service in the High Kirk. “His wig frizzed and powdered so nicely, his gown so scrupulously arranged on his shoulders, his hands so pure and clean, and everything about him in such exquisite taste and neatness.” ”

“ One hardly knows whether to smile or be provoked to see Blair, once the admired preacher of the coldest and tritest of sermons, looking down as from an eminence upon Barrow, and, while admitting ‘the prodigious fecundity of his invention,’ complaining of his ‘genius often shooting wild and unchastened by any discipline or study of eloquence,’ and of his style being irregular and incorrect ”

“ But after that, for days, they talked of household economies, and with Cherry-pie's help Elizabeth managed to pare down those estimates which had so diverted her uncle and Mrs. Richie. With such practical preoccupations no wonder she was unconscious of the change in Blair. Suddenly, like a stone flung through the darkness at a comfortably lighted domestic window, she saw, with a crash of fright, a new and unknown Blair, a man who was a complete and dreadful stranger.
It was dusk; she had come in to see Nannie and talk over that illuminating suggestion: why not live on the principal? ”

“ Every morning, with varying unpunctuality, Blair came into her office at the Works where she had had a desk placed for him. He was present, because she insisted that he should be, at the regular conferences which she held with the heads of departments. She made a pretense of asking his advice, which was as amusing to Mr. Ferguson and the under-superintendents as it was tiresome to Blair. For after his first exhilaration in responding to Mrs. Richie's high belief in him, the mere doing of duty began gradually to pall. ”

“ Given three good-natured young men, a satisfactory guide, a stretch of Labrador wild, and no cares of any sort, it is not surprising that the happy days and weeks followed one another into the maw of Time, until the date of departure for home drew near.
"I'd like to stay here forever," declared Blair, as he filled his pipe and stretched luxuriously before the fire. "Civilization has lost all charm for me."
"Go away with you!" scoffed Peter Boots, "that's a fine, ambitious spirit to show, and you a rising young author,—or about to become one." ”

“ And, Blair, I should like you to go over her [25] clothes after breakfast. I must arrange for Miss Jenkins to come at once for a few days' sewing. Be sure she drinks plenty of milk with her porridge, and be careful she doesn't get into draughts just at first, as she's accustomed to a warmer climate."
Blair was a power in the household. She managed her nursery with the tactics of a general, reducing small rebels to a state of submission with admirable skill, and keeping order among her noisy little crew with a firm though just hand. ”

“ It gradually dawned on Blair that some gossip was rife anent a midnight marriage between his friend Daren Lane and Mel Iden. Blair was deeply shocked. Then his emotions, never calm, grew poignant. He listened. What he heard spoken of Daren and Mel made his blood boil. Sweet voices, low-pitched, well-modulated, with the intonation of culture, made witty and scarcely veiled remarks of a suggestiveness that gave rise to laughter. Voices of men, bland, blase, deriding Daren Lane! Blair listened, and slowly his passion mounted to a white heat. ”

“ In any case, Alexander Blair is striving to conceal some scandal, the nature of which I have no wish to guess. By the way, I should have added that he suspects a third person, an artist, resident not far from his place, of being his son’s assailant.”
“Francis Sedgwick.”
“You know the man?”
“It is on his behalf that I am acting,” replied Kent.
“My informant, however, inclines to the belief that Alexander Blair is wrong: that Wilfrid Blair killed the woman and then inflicted mortal wounds upon himself. Perhaps you would better see my informant for yourself.” ”

“ In March 1575, the Laird of Blair engaged with his friends, tenants, and servants, to ‘ride, gang, and assist with the said lord, in all kind of leeful conventions.’ It was with such satellites that a great man of that age, if to be tried on any criminal charge, appeared at the place of law, professedly that he might be sure of fair-play, but in reality with the effect of overbearing justice. It was with such assistants that two or three lords were sometimes enabled to take possession of the government, and for a time rule all at their pleasure. ”

“ It was hard for Blair to understand the nervous fear of drowning which had taken possession of poor Hal. Fairport boys could swim almost as soon as they could walk. They knew nothing of the helpless feeling of one who has the great deep under him, and is powerless to struggle in its waves. ”

“ Blair's originality is proved by the fact, that many poets since have been either indebted to or inspired by his manly, noble verse. A great original, although he seldom steals himself, is the innocent cause of much theft in others, and his writings tempt, like the unbolted gate of a bank, to plunder. ”

“ As a student of the Established Church, he had the prospect of a better manse, and a larger and surer stipend, than Blair would ever possess.
This revelation threw Blair into a fever of excitement; and various feelings within him struggled for the mastery: Indignation at being [Pg 137] jilted for such a worthless rival; shame at having been inveigled into tying himself to such a mercenary flirt; determination to do his utmost to free himself ”

“ According to Blair’s contention through life, Clay had confided to him in advance that, if such a contingency as did develop should arise in the congressional caucus, he would throw his support to Adams, and that he had protested against the plan. Whether true or not, that event marked the end of Blair’s interest in the political ambitions of the man from Ashland. From 1823 to 1827 he played a conspicuous part as one of the principals in the famous fight between the New and the Old Courts which all but reduced the State to a condition bordering on anarchy. ”

“ Blair was not popular with the Union people of the North. The public distrust is strikingly illustrated by the following anecdote from the reminiscences of Henry Ward Beecher: "There was some talk, early in 1864, of a sort of compromise with the South. Blair had told the President he was satisfied that if he could be put in communication with some of the leading men of the South in some way or other, that some benefit would accrue. Lincoln had sent a delegation to meet Alexander Stephens, and that was all the North knew. ”

“ The loss of Blair, and the failure of the siege of Fort William, were followed by other misfortunes. Fatal mistakes in the vain endeavour to retrieve a sinking cause ensued. In the midst of his adversity, the young and gallant adventurer, for whom so much blood was shed, supported his spirits in a wonderful manner, and acted, with a heavy heart, the part of the gay and prosperous. He gave balls at Inverness, and even danced himself, which he had declined doing when in the midst of his prosperity at Edinburgh. ”

“ True to his principles he would not become a juggler with futility.
The turn of the tide in his favor put the matter in a new light. All the enemies of Blair renewed their attack on a slightly different line. One of those powerful New Englanders who had come to Lincoln's aid at such an opportune moment led off. On the second day following the news of Atlanta, Henry Wilson wrote to him, "Blair, every one hates. Tens of thousands of men will be lost to you, or will give you a reluctant vote because of the Blairs." ”

“ Blair, who was in London in 1649, was sorely vexed with ‘the most illegal, irreligious, and wicked proceedings and actings of the sectarian army;’ one of their crimes being the attempt ‘to ruin religion by their toleration.’ Continuation of the Autobiography of Mr. Robert Blair, Minister of St. Andrews, p. ”

“ She will have a white population of barely five millions against twenty-two millions—and her ports will be closed by our Navy—"
Blair interrupted and leaned close.
"And let me add, that as our leader you will not only command the greatest army ever assembled under the American flag, backed by a great Navy—but that your victory will be but the beginning of a career. From your window you see the White House and the Capitol. The man who leads the Union armies will succeed Mr. Lincoln as President."
Lee's protest was emphatic.
"I aspire to no office, Mr. Blair. I'm fifty-four years of age. ”

“ Blair,” urged Kent. “You must overlook anything that seems strange this evening. Everything seems to be widdershins. Perhaps because it is St. Patrick's Day. I do believe that woman in the kitchen is at the bottom of it all. These stuffed eggs are positively uneatable! If I were not crippled with this lumbago I would go down and fire her out of the house.”
“Let me do it for you!” cried Blair, half rising from his seat.
“Nonsense! I'm not going to sacrifice our good talk on antiquities so easily. I want very much to tell you about the Battle of Wolverhampton. ”