Cole

“ Cole was at last sent back to his rectory, he went under strict instructions from Pembroke to keep his misfortune to himself. But alas for poor Cole! What stung him most was that Madame Koller should have seen him in that condition—for the two hard slaps that she had given him had by no means cured his infatuation. On the contrary, her strong nerves, her fierce temper, her very recklessness of conventionality, irresistibly attracted his timid and conservative nature. ”

“ Cole started along the side of the hill, walking slowly and carefully, his screen generator under his arm. Probably in the confusion he could find enough food and equipment to last him indefinitely. He could wait until early morning, then circle back toward the ruins and load up. With a few tools and his own innate skill he would get along fine. A screwdriver, hammer, nails, odds and ends—
A great hum sounded in his ears. It swelled to a deafening roar. Startled, Cole whirled around. A vast shape filled the sky behind him, growing each moment. Cole stood frozen, utterly transfixed. ”

“ Cole alone had an inkling of his errand; asking then for her, he easily made a beginning of acquaintance by bespeaking some millenary ware, when as I sat without lifting up my eyes, and pursuing the hem of a ruffle with the utmost composure, and simplicity of industry, Mrs. Cole took notice that the first impressions I made on him ran no risque of being destroy'd by those of Louisa, and Emily, who were then fitting at work with me. ”

“ But never told what kind of good Was in Alexis and Evander. And Old King Cole, with many a puff That haloed his urbanity, Would smoke till he had smoked enough, And listen most attentively. He beamed as with an inward light That had the Lord's assurance in it; And once a man was there all night, Expecting something every minute. But whether from too little thought, Or too much fealty to the bowl, A dim reward was all he got For sitting up with Old King Cole. ”

“ Cole, by the way, could not have given me a greater mark of her regard than in managing for me the choice of this young gentleman for my master of the ceremonies: for, independent of his noble birth and the great fortune he was heir to, his person was even uncommonly pleasing, well shaped and tall; his face marked with the small-pox, but no more than what added a grace of more manliness to features rather turned to softness and delicacy, was marvellously enlivened by eyes which were of the clearest sparkling black ”

“ They had met by the yellow barn.
“Well, no,” answers Cole, when he could get a word in, “I don’t think that any murderer is at North Villa; do not see one about, but there’s a baby.” “A baby!” shrieks Miss Timmens, as she pushed back the bunches of black curls from her thin cheeks with their chronic redness, “a baby!” “Yes, a baby,” says Cole, “a new baby.” “Good mercy!” cries she, “a baby! a black baby! Is it a boy or a girl, Mr. Cole?” “It’s a boy,” says Cole. “Good mercy! a black boy!—what an extraordinary sight it must be!” Cole says nothing to this; only looks at her as meek as a lamb. ”

“ Cuddle crossed his arms on his breast, and exclaimed, “And is it, indeed, my friend Jack Cole?”
“Don't you know me, when I speak even?” growled old Cole, “or d'ye think somebody has borrowed my voice?”
“'Tis Jack, himself!” cried Cuddle; “honest Jack! and I did not see him!—These glasses I cannot help stigmatizing as an egregious nuisance.”
“Well, Mr. Cole, what say you, will you join us?” inquired Homer.
“No, sir,” replied Cole; “sing by yourself; one ass at a time is bad enough; but three braying together, are insupportable.” ”

“ With an ease that made even Tom’s eyes open in wonder, and the lad was accustomed to Cole’s exhibitions of tremendous strength, the giant slave hoisted the chest upon his back, and motioned to his master to go before him and open the doors. It was a dead weight and sufficient to crush an ordinary man; but Cole carried it downstairs, through the wide hall, out into the garden, and thence to the orchard, where he lowered it to the ground with scarcely a labored breath.
“Cole,” said Tom Deering in astonishment, “I believe you are a second cousin to an elephant! You’re growing stronger every day!” ”

“ Cole appears to have early cultivated a taste for the wildest of adventures, and with a ferocity and cruelly almost fiendish, the taking of human life, when it interfered with his plans appears to have been no more to him than the use of hard words among ordinary men. ”

“ For this reason Cole has wielded, more than most of our artists, a powerful influence outside of his art with a people which, with all its volatility, yet maintains the traditions of a deeply religious ancestry. It was in this many-sidedness of his genius, that brought him into contact with widely varied sympathies, that Cole's chief power consisted; for if we look at his work from the art point of view alone, we are impressed with its inequality, the lack of early art influences which it exhibits, and an attempt sometimes at dramatic force which occasionally lapses into mere sensationalism. ”

“ Settled with feathery feet and quivering sense,
Till the white, gleaming robe seemed stuck with eyes.
It was the grinning glitterer, white and wise,
[Pg 69] King Cole, who said, "Madam, the Court is here,
The Court, the Prince, the Queen, all drawing near,
We here, the vanguard, set them on their way.
They come intent to see your circus play.
They ask that all who wish may enter free,
And in their princely hope that this may be
They send you these plump bags of minted gold." ”

“ It is not dexterity, technique, knowledge, that impresses us in studying the works of Cole, so much as character. One feels that in them is seen the handwriting of one of the greatest men who have ever trod this continent. ”

“ Cole acting admirably the good old prating gossip, who lets every thing escape her, when her tongue is set in motion, cook'd him up a story so plausible of me, throwing in every now and then such strokes of art, with all the simplest air of nature, in praise of my person and temper, as finish'd him finely for her purpose, whilst nothing could be better counterfeited than her innocence of his ”

“ Cole, the reserve of which he saw I had made, was a proof and encouragement to him.
But, alas! how easily in the enjoyment of the greatest sweets in life, in present possession, poisoned by the regret of an absent one! But my regret was a mighty and just one, since it had my only truly beloved Charles for its object. ”

“ So Joe left us, but not to forget us, or be forgotten. On each anniversary of my birthday I find a bunch of magnificent roses on my breakfast table—“With J. and R. Cole's respectful duty,” and I know the sender is a fine, strong young market-gardener; but sometimes I look back a few years, and instead of the lovely roses, and the big, healthy giver, I seem to see a faded dusty bunch of wild-flowers, held towards me by the little hot hand of a tired child with large blue eyes, and I hear a timid voice say, “Please'm, it's J. Cole; and I've come to stay with yer!” ”

“ We had a nurse, an artilleryman, whose name was Cole, but unlike “Old King Cole,” he was not a “jolly old soul.” He growled and grumbled constantly, and in these days we would call him a “kicker.” One day I started from the tent with more than I could carry, a glass of cherry preserves fell, the glass was broken and contents spilled. The next day, Cole was sent with me to assist in carrying our dinner. As we passed the cherries still lying in the dust, Cole growled out, “Just look at them good cherries; you ought to be made get down and lick ’em up.” ”

“ Cole.
“We will be friends, nevertheless,” she said with [Pg 32] a captivating smile. “I will visit your church in the morning, and you will return to luncheon with me, and we will have a little game of billiards afterward.”
Mr. Cole’s delicate face grew ashy. He, John Chrysostom Cole, playing billiards on Sunday! What would his mother say—and what would the bishop say! Olivia looked a little shocked because of course Madame Koller must know better. Not so the Colonel. He laughed heartlessly at Mr. Cole, and began to think Eliza Peyton was a more amusing person than he had fancied. ”

“ Chappell printed the words of the song of Old King Cole in several variations, and pointed out that The Pleasant Historie of Thomas of Reading, or the Six Worthie Yeomen of the West of 1632, contains the legend of one Cole, a cloth-maker of Reading at the time of King Henry I, and that the name "became proverbial owing to the popularity of this book." "There was some joke or conventional meaning among Elizabethan dramatists," he says, "when they gave the name of Old Cole, which it is now difficult to recover." ”

“ With us, he was making his first trip across. From London I learned he went to Capetown, South Africa.
The greatest character on board was old Cole. In [Pg 45] all my life I have never seen a man his equal in many respects. Medium in size with brawny arms and an over-developed muscular neck, he reminded one of a huge beast, muscles superbly developed and mind untrained. Cole was some forty years of age, and a boaster from the word "Go." At the early age of ten he ran away from his parents in Norway, and secured passage on a sail boat bound for Odessa on the Black Sea. ”

“ It was quite a different method that Cole, the captain of the Corinthians, pursued. Cole had no great strength or skill as an oarsman, but he was most painstaking; and when he was not himself actively pulling weights or rowing, he was standing by, watching and criticizing and trying to teach the others—even the most unpromising. But when Sheldon had had enough of the weights and the rowing-machines, he would pick out some one—usually Edward—and say, “You run the rest of the squad to-day.” ”

“ Cole's counsels, exclusive of cloaths, some jewels, some plate, I saw myself in purse for a long time, to wait without impatience for what the chapter of accidents might produce in my favour.
Here, under the new character of a young gentlewoman, whose husband was gone to sea, I had mark'd me out such lines of life and conduct, as leaving me at a competent liberty to pursue my views, either of pleasure or fortune, bounded me nevertheless strictly within the rules of decency, and discretion: a disposition in which you cannot escape observing a true pupil of Mrs. Cole's. ”

“ Both the Coles said together. Mrs. Cole
Added: “You can judge better after seeing.—
I want you here with me, Fred. Leave him here,
Brother Meserve. You know to find your way
Out through the shed.”
“I guess I know my way,
I guess I know where I can find my name
Carved in the shed to tell me who I am
If it don’t tell me where I am. I used
To play—”
“You tend your horses and come back. ”

“ Cole we can discover no humility on account of the imperfections of his character—no utterances of a mind delighting in communion with the great Supreme—no reference to a Mediator, by whom the guilty and the worthless are reconciled to the offended Sovereign—no ardent anticipations of a state of changeless purity and glory ”

“ Cole's drawing-room, smiling her brightest, because she so desperately needed the situation, and wearing her best dress. Now she was all in pieces; she had had to leave her little village early in the morning to catch the village bus; she had waited at wayside stations, as in Glebeshire only one can wait; the world had dripped upon her head and spattered upon her legs. She had neuralgia and a pain in her back; she had worn her older dress because, upon such a day, it would not do to travel in her best; and then, as a climax to everything, she had left her umbrella in the train. ”

“ Here comes Cole now!" they shouted. "We've got him. Cole! They're all right!"
A grim, white-faced young man sat beside the chauffeur, and in the tonneau were two pallid, distracted women, who stood up as the car slackened speed, calling and holding out their arms to their children. The crowd made way, and before the car stopped, abreast of the other, the children, with terrified shrieks of, "Oh, mother! The 'nappers! The nappers got us!" ”

“ Mr. Chandler, drawing his hand from his brother, held it towards the Squire. At that moment, a suppressed stir was heard outside, and an eager voice. Tom had arrived: having run all the way from Islip.
“Where’s papa?—where’s he lying? Is he hurt very much?”
Cole appeared, marshalling him in. A well-grown young fellow for sixteen, with dark eyes, a fresh colour, and a good-natured face; altogether, the image of his father. Cole took a look down at the mattress, and saw how very much nearer something was at hand than it had been only a few minutes before. ”

“ Cole herself, and introduc'd into her bed-chamber, where, in an old fashion'd bed of her's, I lay, fully undress'd, and panting, if not with the fears of a real maid, at least with those perhaps greater, of a dissembled one, which gave me an air of confusion and bashfulness that maiden modesty had all the honour of, and was indeed scarce distinguishable from it, even by less partial eyes than those of my lover, so let me call him, for I ever thought the term cully too cruel a reproach to the men, for their abus'd weakness for us. ”

“ Cole an' Mr. Cole. I thought I'd like to hear. Now I'll be going back up the mountain. Violetta an' Rosalinda are pulling fodder and mother is ploughing for wheat. I do the spinning mostly. You've got lovely china asters, Mrs. Cole. They have a flower they called magnolia down 't Richmond—like a great swe [Pg 585] et white cup, an' they had pink crape myrtles. I liked it in Richmond, for all the death an' mourning. Thunder Run's so far away. Good mahnin', Mrs. Cole. Good mahnin', Mr. Cole."
The slight homespun figure disappeared around the bend of the road. Sairy sewed in silence. ”