Corey

“ The clear mind which produced nothing but practical results reflected everything with charming lucidity; and it must have been this which endeared Tom Corey to every one who spoke ten words with him. In a city where people have good reason for liking to shine, a man who did not care to shine must be little short of universally acceptable without any other effort for popularity; and those who admired and enjoyed Bromfield Corey loved his son. ”

“ Youths look not thus upon maidens unless they be inclined toward them. But this hussy Olive Corey did come between Paul and my Ann, and that not of her own merits. There is nobody in Salem Village who would say that Olive Corey's looks be aught in comparison with my Ann's, but I trow Goody Corey hath arts which make amends for lack of beauty. I trow all ill-favored folk might be fair would they have such arts used upon them. ”

“ Yea, Master Hathorne, I am with thee. Verily, this last be enough to make the elect themselves quake with fear. This Martha Corey is a woman of the covenant.
Hathorne. There must be no holding back. The powers of darkness be let loose amongst us, and they that be against them must be up. We must hang, hang, hang, till we overcome!
Parris. Yea, we must not falter, though all the woods of Massachusetts Bay be cut for gallows-trees, and the country be like Sodom. Verily, Satan hath manifested himself at the head of our enemies; the colonies were never in such peril as now. ”

“ If you don't like the India trade, go into something else. Or, take up law or medicine. No Corey yet ever proposed to do nothing." "Ah, then, it's quite time one of us made a beginning," urged the man who was then young, and who was now old, looking into the somewhat fierce eyes of his father's portrait. He had inherited as little of the fierceness as of the nose, and there was nothing predatory in his son either, though the aquiline beak had come down to him in such force. Bromfield Corey liked his son Tom for the gentleness which tempered his energy. ”

“ But it is naturally brought about, through the setting and the preliminaries antecedent to the recognition that here was some one who knew Corey.
Do you anywhere feel that the narrator is a woman? Is the narrator’s delicacy in the smoking car, for example, greater than a man would have felt? Would a man apologize for hearing the story.
Character. The story exemplifies to an unusual degree the unity which results from emphasizing one character. Every other is ancillary to Corey. Even his wife is but a human means for bringing home to his own consciousness the question as to his motives. ”

“ Phœbe. Oh, Uncle Corey, what's the matter?
Giles. The matter is there be too many evil things abroad nowadays for a man to be out after nightfall. When things that can be hit by musket balls lay in wait, old Giles Corey is as brave as any man; but when it comes to devilish black beasts and black men that musket balls bound back from— What! you here, Ann Hutchins? What be you out after dark for?
Ann. I came over to see Olive, Goodman Corey.
Giles. You'd best stayed by your own hearth if you've got one. Young women have no call to be out gadding after dark in these times. ”

“ I do remember my imagination taking me far enough to think that if I were a soldier, and wounded, and had to have a leg or an arm off, I couldn’t think of a man I’d rather have do it than Corey. Oh yes, I believed him; I knew he’d been down there in the Balkans, as he said, and was going back again to-morrow—but I went right on seeing him in Dubuque, practising his quiet, prosperous profession in the same suite of offices his father had used before him. ”

“ Betz.
⁠"Yes, everybody does seem to feel that way. But I'm afraid I found them terribly nice," flared Claire.
⁠"I always say that common people can be most agreeable," Mrs. Corey patronized. Before Claire could kill her--there wasn't any homicidal weapon in sight except a silver tea-strainer--Mrs. Corey had pirouetted on, "Though I do think that we're much too kind to workmen and all--the labor situation is getting to be abominable here in the West, and upon my word, to keep a maid nowadays, you have to treat her as though she were a countess." ”

“ Corey, he said, had gone about covered with medals, two rows, overlapping, on duty and off, all the time. That in itself was queer, especially for an American. Most men wore bars, but Corey had worn the whole thing. And yet, Burke said, he was the least egotistical man he had ever known. And he had seen him wince when other men, passing, had smiled at sight of his decorations. He could never make it out.
There was no wonder in that. Mr. Ewing, who knew Corey well, and had, one might say, something to go on, couldn’t make it out. ”

“ True enough, there are people who, if they heard the tale, might maintain that he could hardly have accomplished a more striking divergence from type. I’ll have to confess I thought so myself—at the first; certainly I thought so all the while I listened, long afterward, to the quiet, though somewhat nasal, and thoroughly puzzled voice of the gentle old man from Dubuque, who seemed, as he recounted the story, to be seeking in me some solution of Corey’s phenomenon. ”

“ Phœbe sticks a pin into the doll.
Phœbe. This pin be for Uncle Corey, and this pin be for Olive, and this pin for Aunt Corey, and this pin for Aunt Corey, and this pin for Aunt Corey. Pins! pins!! pins!!! (Dances.) In truth, Nancy, 'tis rare sport being a witch; but I stuck not in the pins very far, lest they be too sorely hurt.
Nancy. Is there any other whom you desire to afflict?
Phœbe. I fear I know not any other who has angered me, and I could weep for 't. Stay! I'll afflict Ann, because she hath the cape ”

“ Corey's bosom.
A verdict was passed of greater or less severity, according to individual temperament. Mr. Podgers was quite impersonal, but positive, as befitted an upholder of pure faith. Mr. Campbell, for obvious reasons, was even more positive. Mr. Corey was frankly personal. Judge Wolcott was the most regretful. Yet even he could not overlook what he termed Imrie's "ingratitude." He felt that the young man should be "disciplined," though he was vague as to the method. It was finally decided, upon the suggestion of Mr. Campbell, that Mr. Podgers should write the clergyman a note. ”

“ Corey? I do remember them now. Poor Don Dudenant, isn't it a pity he's such a fool? His father is really a very decent old bore."
[286] "I," observed Mrs. Corey, in prim horror, "regard the Dudenants as extremely delightful people. I fancy we must be thinking of different families. I mean the Manhattan Dudenants, not the Brooklyn family."
"Oh, yes, I meant the Manhattan family, too—the one that made its fortune selling shoddy woolens in the Civil War," caressed Claire. ”

“ Roy shrugged his shoulders. He had an irritating way of avoiding arguments, Jeannette noticed, by lapsing silent. She considered the matter for a moment further, but decided it was not worth pressing.
“What kind of a man is Mr. Corey?” she asked.
“Oh, Corey? Corey’s a peach. He’s a dynamo of energy, and has all sorts of enthusiasm. He’s got the most magnetic personality I’ve ever seen in my life. He’s going to make a whale of a big business out of that concern. Every Wednesday we all lunch together,—that is, the men in the editorial and book departments,—and we go to the Brevoort ”

“ And it seemed to have been the merest chance which had led him, the year of his graduation from medical school, to take his first trip away from his native State. He had “put himself” through college, and had come out with all the school had to give, wanting more. It was doubtful if Corey had ever read a novel through in his life, but the college library yielded up treasures in scientific and medical books whose plots he remembered as easily as boarding-school girls remember the plots of Laura Jean Libbey. ”

“ Corey, looking absently at her husband's brown velvet coat, in which he was so handsome. No man had ever grown grey more beautifully. His hair, while not remaining dark enough to form a theatrical contrast with his moustache, was yet some shades darker, and, in becoming a little thinner, it had become a little more gracefully wavy. ”

“ Hathorne. Did you teach the child to stick in these pins wherewith to torment folk?
Martha. It availeth me naught to say no, your worship.
Mercy (screams) . Oh, a sharp pain shoot through me when I look at the image! 'Tis through my arms! Oh!
Hathorne (examining the doll) . There is a pin in the arms.
Ann. I feel sharp pains, like pins, in my face; oh, 'tis dreadful!
Hathorne (examining the doll) . There are pins in the face.
Phœbe (sobbing) . No, no! Those are the pins I stuck in for Aunt Corey. Don't let them hang me, Aunt Corey.
Parris. That is sufficient. She has confessed. ”

“ Corey. "I sent my note to Mrs. Lapham an hour ago." Her courage rose at the trouble which showed in Corey's face. "But don't be annoyed by it, Tom. It isn't a family dinner, you know, and everything can be managed without embarrassment. If we take up the affair at this point, you will seem to have been merely acting for us; and they can't possibly understand anything more." ”

“ We're pushing the paint everywhere." He flattered himself that he did not lug the matter in. He had been warned against that by his wife, but he had the right to do Corey justice, and his brag took the form of illustration. "Talk about training for business--I tell you it's all in the man himself! I used to believe in what old Horace Greeley said about college graduates being the poorest kind of horned cattle; but I've changed my mind a little. You take that fellow Corey. He's been through Harvard, and he's had about every advantage that a fellow could have. ”

“ Where be the black man now, jades?
Hathorne (angrily) . Marshal!
Corwin (interposing) . Nay, good Master Hathorne, let Goodman Corey keep his standing. The maid looks near swooning, and albeit his manner be rude, yet his argument hath somewhat of force. In truth, he and the black man cannot occupy one place. Mercy Lewis, see you now this black man anywhere?
Mercy. Yes, your worship.
Corwin. Where?
Mercy. Whispering in your worship's ear.
Parris. May the Lord protect his magistrates from the wiles of Satan, and maintain them in safety for the weal of his afflicted people! ”

“ Corey? Mr. Mavering, let me introduce you to Mr. Corey.” The old man rose and stood with the little group.
Dan's face shone with flattered pride and joyous triumph. He bubbled out some happy incoherencies about the honour and pleasure, while at the same time he beamed with tender gratitude upon Mrs. Brinkley, who was behaving with a gracious, humorous kindliness to the aliens cast upon her mercies. Mrs. Frobisher, after a half-hour of Boston society, was not that presence of easy gaiety which crossed Dan's path on the Portland pavement the morning of his arrival from Campobello ”

“ The good humour of “Old Corey” generally ensured him plenty of custom. I have oftentimes been a loser with him, but never a winner. I believe that no one in all Purton knows from whence he is, although every body is acquainted with him.
There was a large show on the place, at which the rustics were wont to gaze with surprise and admiration. The chief object of their wonder was our “punch.” They could not form the slightest idea how little wooden figures could talk and dance about; they supposed that there must be some life in them. ”

“ These things continually happen in novels; and the Coreys, as they had always promised themselves to do, made the best, and not the worst of Tom's marriage.
They were people who could value Lapham's behaviour as Tom reported it to them. They were proud of him, and Bromfield Corey, who found a delicate, aesthetic pleasure in the heroism with which Lapham had withstood Rogers and his temptations--something finely dramatic and unconsciously effective,--wrote him a letter which would once have flattered the rough soul almost to ecstasy, though now he affected to slight it in showing it. ”

“ The account of this interview, given by Putnam and Cheever, indicates that Martha Corey was a sensible, enlightened, and sprightly woman, perfectly free from the delusion of the day, courteous in her manners and bearing, and a Christian, well grounded in Scripture.
The two brethren returned forthwith to Thomas [ii.42] Putnam's house. Ann told them that Goody Corey had not troubled her, nor her spectre appeared, in their absence. She was not inclined to afford them an opportunity to apply the test of the dress. Both the women showed great acuteness and caution. ”

“ For a person of more than eighty-one years of age, this must be allowed to have been a marvellous exhibition of prowess; illustrating, as strongly as any thing in human history, the power of a resolute will over the utmost pain and agony of body, and demonstrating that Giles Corey was a man of heroic nerve, and of a spirit that could not be subdued. ”

“ A man's qualities are sifted as closely in Boston as they doubtless were in Florence or Athens; and, if final mercy was shown in those cities because a man was, with all his limitations, an Athenian or Florentine, some abatement might as justly be made in Boston for like reason. Corey's powers had been gauged in college, and he had not given his world reason to think very differently of him since he came out of college. He was rated as an energetic fellow, a little indefinite in aim, with the smallest amount of inspiration that can save a man from being commonplace. ”