Dr. Sandford

“ Sandford perfectly knew how to influence the sentiments and sensations of all human kind, but yet he had the forbearance not to "draw all hearts towards him." There were some whose hatred he thought not unworthy of his pious labours; and in that pursuit he was more rapid in his success than even in procuring esteem. It was an enterprise in which he succeeded with Miss Milner even beyond his most sanguine wish. ”

“ Sandford came to the top of the stairs and listened with apparent apathy, while the maddened woman poured out her rage. He stood a moment like one in a dream, and then slowly came down.
"There is your cane," said Marcia, fiercely, pointing to the umbrella-stand.
"I give you fair warning," said Greenleaf, calmly, "that you will never strike more than one blow. No man shall assault me but at the risk of his life."
"What is the need of this fury?" asked Mr. Sandford. "I don't want to quarrel with a pauper. You are well rid of him. ”

“ There was something in these last words, in the tone and firmness with which they were delivered, that the heart of Sandford rested upon with content—they bore the symptoms of a menace that would be executed; and he parted from his patron with congratulations upon his wisdom, and with giving him the warmest assurances of his firm reliance on his word. ”

“ But Sandford, who never felt resentment but against those in whom he saw some virtue, calmly replied,
“My Lord, the Duke of Avon was a gentleman, a man of elegance and breeding; and what have you to offer in recompense for your defects in qualities like these?”
“My wealth,” replied he, “opposed to her indigence.” Sandford smiled, and answered,
“Do you suppose that wealth can be esteemed, which has not been able to make you respectable? What is it makes wealth valuable? Is it the pleasures of the table? the pleasure of living in a fine house? ”

“ She embraced Miss Woodley! hung upon Sandford! and to Mr. Rushbrook, who from his conscious love only bowed at an humble distance, she held out her hand with every look and gesture of the tenderest esteem.
When Lord Elmwood joined them, he welcomed them all sincerely; but Sandford the most, with whom he had not spoken for many days before he left the country, for his allusion to the wretched situation of his daughter.—And Sandford (with his fellow-travellers) now saw him treat that daughter with an easy, a natural fondness, as if she had lived with him from her infancy. ”

“ Sandford was confidentially informed that I was only waiting in London to receive between four and five thousand pounds—part of Uncle Passgrove’s legacy—and then intended to immediately hasten back to canny Yorkshire. To have seen the villain’s eyes as I incidentally, as it were, announced my errand and intention! They fairly flashed with infernal glee! Ah, Sandford, Sandford! you were, with all your cunning, but a sand-blind idiot to believe the man you had wronged and ruined could so easily forget the debt he owed you! ”

“ I thank you for the honour you have done me; but my heart is given elsewhere."
"Right!" spoke Lord Sandford, in his resonant and emphatic tones. He had dropped the curtain behind him, and now came forward several paces. His face was not easy to read, but he held his head proudly, and looked the lovers straight in the eyes. "I would not have it otherwise, Lady Geraldine; for you have chosen well. You have chosen such an one as you must needs choose. Like will seek like; virtue, fidelity, purity, and honour must fly upward, will not be dragged downward. ”

“ Daisy."
"Daisy, you must not go," said Dr. Sandford looking round. He was just moving away to see some one else, and was gone in a minute.
"The doctor is all very well when one is sick," said Preston; "but I never heard he had a right to command people when they are well. ”

“ He flung himself down on the sofa, and lay like a man dead or disabled; like a man, he said to himself, who had been drunk overnight, who had come out of dissipation and vice with eyes that sickened at the light of day. And this was John Sandford, who never in his life before, having unbroken health and an energetic disposition and boundless determination to get on, had spent a morning in this way. ”

“ Sandford's breath came quick and his eyes opened wider. His muscles all at once seemed charged with electricity. He dashed down-stairs, half-a-dozen steps at a time, and pounced upon unlucky Number Two, who, with the captivated Biddy, was leaning at the parlor-door, listening to the conversation above. Seizing the officer by the throat, Sandford shouted huskily,—
"Robber! thief! Give up that money! How dare you? ”

“ Those unwritten words might be of terrible moment to him, for, as all men have their ambition in one or another corner, John Sandford had his—to be looked up to and to be respected. He was wealthy, but he remembered enough of the old days to know that mere wealth would bring but outward respect, and that character was the real power there, in that land where he craved for power. For power was what he really loved; he loved to feel that his will was law, and till his poor half-sister married he had made her feel this, as he tried to make every one else feel it. ”

“ Sandford, though experienced in the cruelty and ingratitude of the world, yet could not without difficulty brook this severity, this contumely, from a man, for whose welfare, ever since his infancy, he had laboured; and whose happiness was more dear to him, in spite of all his faults, than that of any other person. Even Lady Matilda was not so dear to Sandford as her father—and he loved her more that she was Lord Elmwood’s child, than for any other cause. ”

“ You are no stranger to my lord of Marlborough—that I will warrant."
"I did see him once, my lord; and there are some persons whom once to see and hear is always to remember. The impression of a great personality is not easily effaced."
Lord Sandford's bold eyes were roving over Grey's face and figure in a way that was disconcerting, but he would not flinch or abase his gaze. ”

“ He tried to act as a curb-stone broker, as an insurance agent, as an adjuster of marine losses and averages, as an itinerant solicitor for a life-insurance company, as an accountant, and in various other situations. All in vain. He was shunned like an escaped convict; the motley suit itself would hardly have added to his disgrace. No one put faith in him or gave him employment,—save in a few instances, for charity's sake. Few men can brave a city; and Sandford, certainly, was not the man to do it. ”

“ The man who feels that he is looked down upon grows more diminutive in his own estimation, until he shrinks into the place which the world assigns him. So Sandford shrunk, until he crept through the streets where once he had walked erect, and earned a support as meagre and precarious as the more brazen-faced and ragged of the great family of mendicants, to which he was gravitating. ”

“ Sandford, I wish I knew who of all these people in the ward need me most."
"You are doing all you can for all of them."
"If I had that knowledge, though, I might serve them better - or with more judicious service."
"No you could not," said the doctor. "You are twice as judicious as Miss Yates now; though she is twice as old as you. You do the right thing in the right place always." ”

“ Sandford knew the hearts of women, as well as those of men, though he had passed little of his time in their society--he saw Miss Milner's heart at the first view of her person; and beholding in that little circumference a weight of folly that he wished to eradicate, he began to toil in the vineyard, eagerly courting her detestation of him, in the hope he could also make her abominate herself. ”

“ Sandford stared--Rushbrook proceeded: "It is her----"
"Nay, stop where you are," cried Sandford; "you are arrived at the zenith of perfection in a woman, and to add one qualification more, would be an anti-climax." ”

“ Sandford was surprised—he was taken unawares, and the greeting touched his heart. “After all, perhaps it isn’t that,” he said to himself.
“What a piece of luck that you should have come in just then! Why, that’s Sir William Bloomfield—just the very man for you to know.”
“Why for me more than another? I know his name, of course,” said Mr. Sandford, “and he seems pleasant; but I’m too old for new friends.”
“Too old; stuff and nonsense! You’re always a-harping on that string. He’s just the man for you, just the man,” said Daniells, rubbing his hands. ”

“ There was a laugh from the group of men standing by.
"Oh, Sandford is my lady's favourite! They say he is a kinsman; and he amuses her vastly, and gives her all the homage her heart desires. But Lord Romaine may have something to say to that. Sandford is going the pace that kills, and is playing old Harry with his fortune and estate. And as for my Lady Geraldine—well, 'tis said the pretty little Puritan will look at none of us. ”

“ Upon the subject of this marriage, Sandford met his patron, without having determined exactly what to say, but rested on the temper in which he should find him.
At the commencement of the conversation he said, "Rushbrook begged for time."
"I have given him time, have I not?" cried Lord Elmwood: "What can be the meaning of his thus trifling with me?"
Sandford replied, "My Lord, young men are frequently romantic in their notions of love, and think it impossible to have a sincere affection, where their own inclinations do not first point out the choice." ”

“ Then Grace, feeling that it lay with her to show how little the purport of Mr. Sandford's words affected her, said in a light tone,
"Do you ever see people here, Mr. Sandford?"
"See people!" he echoed; "you can see plenty of people whenever you look out of the window. See people! why it would be a pleasanter place if there were not so many to see." ”

“ Saying this, he went hastily and beckoned to the coachman; the carriage drove up, the door was opened, and Lord Margrave, ashamed to be exposed before his attendants, and convinced of the inutility of remaining any longer where he was, departed.
Sandford was soon joined by the ladies; and the conversation falling, of course, upon the nobleman who had just taken his leave, Sandford unwarily exclaimed, "I wish Rushbrook had been here."
"Who?" cried Lady Matilda.
"I do believe," said Miss Woodley, "that young man has some good qualities." ”

“ What more do you want than Lord Sandford offers? Does a countess's coronet not satisfy you? Do you desire to be a duchess, and take precedence of your own mother?"
And Lady Romaine brought her ivory fan down upon her daughter's shoulder with a tap that was almost like a blow. Tears of vexation and disappointment stood in her eyes. In her hand held an open letter, across the bottom of which the word "Sandford" could be easily read, traced in a large and firm hand.
Before Geraldine had found words in which to reply, Lady Romaine had burst out again more petulantly than ever. ”

“ Sandford liken me to Egyptian glass. [Pg 185]
CHAPTER IX. SHOPPING. IT was settled that I should wait a day or two in New York to get my wardrobe arranged, and then begin my school experience. But when we got to New York, we found Mrs. Sandford's sister so ill as to claim her whole time. There was none to spare for me and my wardrobe. Mrs. Sandford said I must attend to it myself as well as I could, and the doctor would go with me. He was off duty, he reported, and at leisure for ladies' affairs. Mrs. Sandford told me what I would need. A warm school dress, she said ”

“ Even that humble hope was sometimes denied him, while Sandford set forth the impropriety of troubling Lord Elmwood on such a subject at present; and while the Viscount’s penetration, small as it was, discovered in his fair one, more to discourage, than to favour his wishes. Plunged, however, too deep in his passion to emerge from it in haste, he meant still to visit, and wait for a change to happier circumstances, when he was peremptorily desired by Mr. Sandford to desist from ever coming again. ”

“ Lord Elmwood having come to this resolution, was more composed than he had been for several days before; while the horror of domestic wrangles--a family without subordination--a house without oeconomy--in a word, a wife without discretion, had been perpetually present to his mind.
Mr. Sandford, although he was a man of understanding, of learning, and a complete casuist, yet all the faults he himself committed, were entirely--for want of knowing better. ”

“ But poor Sandford was not the Stage-Villain by Choice, but from Necessity; for having a low and crooked Person, such bodily Defects were too strong to be admitted into great or amiable Characters; so that whenever in any new or revived Play there was a hateful or mischievous Person, Sandford was sure to have no Competitor for it: Nor indeed (as we are not to suppose a Villain or Traitor can be shewn for our Imitation, or not for our Abhorrence) can it be doubted but the less comely the Actor's Person the fitter he may be to perform them. ”

“ Sandford had an acute and piercing tone of voice and very distinct articulation. He was an adept in giving point to what seemed worthy of note, and slurred over as much as possible the rhyme in Dryden's tragedies. Cibber held that he would have made an ideal Richard III, and he avowedly modelled his performances on what he thought Sandford would have done. Tony Aston, in his ‘Brief Supplement,’ describes Sandford as round-shouldered, meagre-faced, spindle-shanked, splay-footed, with a sour countenance, and long thin arms ”