Edward Bulwer-Landor

“ On our way back we were met by Zee, who, having found us gone, on her return from the College of Sages, had unfurled her wings and flown in search of us.
Her grand, but to me unalluring, countenance brightened as she beheld me, and, poising herself beside the boat on her large outspread plumes, she said reproachfully to Aph-Lin—"Oh, father, was it right in you to hazard the life of your guest in a vehicle to which he is so unaccustomed? He might, by an incautious movement, fall over the side; and alas; he is not like us, he has no wings. It were death to him to fall. ”

“ One can't live in hotels entirely upon hope. Leaving his bride for a while in a pleasant provincial town, not many hours distant from Paris, Jasper returned to London, intent upon seeing Darrell himself: and should the father-in-law still defer articles of peace, Jasper believed that he could have no trouble in raising a present supply upon such an El Dorado of future expectations. Darrell at once consented to see Jasper, not at his own house, but at his solicitor's. ”

“ I shall be so happy to see him—see him, too, in this house that I owe to him—see him by your side! I think I shall fall down on my knees to him."
And her eyes began to stream.
Lionel kissed the tears away fondly. " That's my own mother now, indeed—now I am proud of you, mother; and how well you look!—I am proud of that too."
"Look well!—I am not fit to be seen, this figure—though perhaps an elderly quiet gentleman like good Mr. Darrell does not notice ladies much. John, John, make haste with those plants. Gracious me! ”

“ Shocking profligate! no fruit could thrive upon such a branch. He squandered all he could squander, and would have left his children beggars, but that he was providentially slain in a tavern brawl for boasting of a lady's favours to her husband's face. The husband suddenly stabbed him,—no fair duello, for Sir Ralph was invincible with the small sword. Still the family fortune was much dilapidated, yet still the Darrells lived in the fine house of the Haughtons, and left Fawley to the owls. ”

“ And you, Zee, will not repeat to any one what the stranger has said, or may say, to me or to you, of a world other than our own." Zee rose and kissed her father on the temples, saying, with a smile, "A Gy's tongue is wanton, but love can fetter it fast. And if, my father, you fear lest a chance word from me or yourself could expose our community to danger, by a desire to explore a world beyond us, will not a wave of the vril, properly impelled, wash even the memory of what we have heard the stranger say out of the tablets of the brain." ”

“ I am liberal. I give you your own time to consider. I don't care if I stay to dine; I dare say Mrs. Poole will excuse my dress."
"Losely, you are such a—fellow! If I do give you the four pounds you ask, will you promise to shift for yourself somehow, and molest me no more?"
"Certainly not. I shall come once every week for the same sum. I can't live upon less—until—"
"Until what?"
"Until either you get Mr. Darrell to settle on me a suitable provision, or until you place me in possession of my daughter. and I can then be in a better condition to treat with him myself ”

“ It was but the visit which he, Jasper Losely, Esquire, thought fit to pay, however unceremoniously and unseasonably, to the house of a father-in-law! At the worst, should he fail in finding Darrell, or securing an unwitnessed interview—should he instead alarm the household, it would be a proof of the integrity of his intentions that he had no weapons save those which Nature bestows on the wild man as the mightiest of her wild beasts. ”

“ I started and beheld Zee standing beside me. "Hush," she said in a whisper; "let no one hear us. Dost thou think that I have ceased to watch over thy safety because I could not win thy love? I have seen Taee. He has not prevailed with his father, who had meanwhile conferred with the three sages who, in doubtful matters, he takes into council, and by their advice he has ordained thee to perish when the world re-awakens to life. I will save thee. Rise and dress." ”

“ I should not have been able to control my passion; we might have parted foes. As it is, I restrain myself with difficulty! That woman, that child, associated thus to tear from me the last affection left to my ruined heart! No! You will not be so cruel! Send this, I command you, to Lady Montfort. See again neither her nor the impostor she has been cherishing for my disgrace. This letter will be your excuse to break off with both—with both!
"Guy Darrel." Lionel was stunned. ”

“ In the afternoon we dined upon cold wild-duck; and as each man sipped his grog in his pannikin, we felt so exceedingly cheerful, that Simon and Meliboeus favoured the public with "Away with melancholy!" and divers other agreeable ditties. The wind however died away, and evening set in as we passed Guildford. The banks of the river had now risen into steep cliffs, which threw a deep gloom over our course. We had furled the sails, and taken to the oars, and as we blindly poked our way, we began to think this kind of work was not quite so agreeable as it had at first appeared. ”

“ Leonard most cordially despised and hated Randal Leslie, and his heart moved to Burley with noble but perilous compassion. In his desire to soothe and comfort the man whom he deemed cheated out of fame, he forgot the caution he had hitherto imposed on himself, and yielded more and more to the charm of that wasted intellect. He accompanied Burley now to the haunts to which his friend went to spend his evenings; and more and more—though gradually, and with many a recoil and self-rebuke—there crept over him the cynic’s contempt for glory, and miserable philosophy of debased content. ”

“ But she rather awed me as angel than moved me as woman, and after an embarrassed pause, I faltered forth evasive expressions of gratitude, and sought, as delicately as I could, to point out how humiliating would be my position amongst her race in the light of a husband who might never be permitted the name of father.
"But" said Zee, " this community does not constitute the whole world. No; nor do all the populations comprised in the league of the Vril-ya. For thy sake I will renounce my country and my people. We will fly together to some region where thou shalt be safe. ”

“ Look you, Jasper; you have worn out this Old World—no refuge for you but the New. Whither went your father, thither go you. Consent, and you shall not want. You can not discover Sophy. You have failed in all attempts on Darrell's purse. But agree to sail to Australasia, and I will engage to you an income larger than you say you extorted from Poole, to be spent in those safer shores. ”

“ Your fashionable people may pity them; but God help them, poor things! In their dark and degraded state they seem to enjoy themselves so much, that I should not like them to be put out of conceit with themselves, or made to repudiate whatever gives them innocent pleasure. Nor are they entirely insensible to the good opinion of great people; for when they learnt that the Polka was thought vulgar at Buckingham Palace, they had serious intentions of denying it admittance into the ball-rooms of Perth ”

“ They had now wound their walk to the opposite side of the lake, and paused near the thick beech-trees, hallowed and saddened by such secret associations to the mournful owner.
"No, my dear Alban," said Darrell, "I cannot summon up sufficient youth and freshness of spirit to re-enter the turbulent arena I have left. Ah! look yonder where Lionel and Sophy move! Give me, I do not say Lionel's years, but Lionel's wealth of hope, and I might still have a wish for fame and a voice for England; but it is a subtle truth that where a man misses a home, a link between his country and himself is gone. ”

“ Oh Sophy—Ay or No?"
"No!" fell from her pale, firm lips—and in a moment more she was at Waife's side, and had drawn him away from George. "Grandfather!—home, home; let us go home at once, or I shall die!"
Darrell has kept his keen sight upon her movements—upon her countenance. He sees her gesture—her look—as she now clings to her grandfather. The blue eyes are not now coldly fixed on level air, but raised upward, as for strength from above. The young face is sublime with its woe, and with its resolve.
"Noble child!" muttered Darrell. "I think I see into her heart. If so, poor Lionel indeed! ”

“ I revoke every offer to aid a life that has existed but to darken and desolate those it was permitted to approach. Starve or rob! perish miserably! And if I pour not on your head my parting curse, it is only because I know that man has no right to curse; and casting you back on your own evil self is the sole revenge which my belief in Heaven permits me."
Thus saying, Darrell strode on—swiftly, but not as one who flies. Jasper made three long bounds, and was almost at his side, when he was startled by the explosion of a gun. ”

“ Sophy would not be punished for sins not her own—Lionel not barred from a prize that earth never might replace. What mattered to them a moldering, old, desolate Manor House—a few hundreds of pitiful acres? Their children would not be Jess blooming if their holiday summer noons were not shaded by those darksome trees—nor less lively of wit, if their school themes were signed in the name, not of Darrell, but Haughton.
A slight nervous knock at the door. Darrell has summoned Fairthorn; Fairthorn enters. Darrell takes up a paper ”

“ The desire of something we have not is the first of our childish remembrances: it matters not what form it takes, what object it longs for; still it is to acquire! it never deserts us while we live."
"And yet, if I might, I should like to ask, what you now desire that you do not possess?"
"I—nothing; but I spoke of the living! I am dead. Only," added Darrell, with his silvery laugh, "I say, as poor Chesterfield said before me, 'It is a secret: keep it.'"
Lionel made no reply; the melancholy of the words saddened him: but Darrell's manner repelled the expression of sympathy or of interest ”

“ Leonard, during these colloquies, had sat apart seemingly absorbed in reading, and secretly stung by Randal’s disregard of his presence. For indeed that young man, in his superb self-esteem, and in the absorption of his ambitious projects, scarce felt even curiosity as to Leonard’s rise above his earlier station, and looked on him as a mere journeyman of Burley’s.
But the self-taught are keen and quick observers; and Leonard had remarked that Randal seemed more as one playing a part for some private purpose, than arguing in earnest ”

“ His bulkiest prose work is his Imaginary Conversations, which was published at intervals from 1824 to 1846. The volumes record imaginary dialogues between all kinds of people on a great variety of subjects. They have Landor’s chief defect, a stony lifelessness; but in style they are stately, strong, and scholarly, with frequent passages of noble description. All his life he continued to issue essays and pamphlets. A collection of them, called Dry Sticks (1858) , as has been noticed, brought upon his head the weight of the law. Landor professed to despise popularity ”

“ Leonard took the newspaper from Burley's hand. The most flattering encomiums preceded the extracts, and the extracts were as stereotypes of Burley's talk.
"Can you doubt the author?" cried Leonard, in deep disgust and ingenuous scorn. "The young man who came to steal your brains, and turn your knowledge—"
"Into power," interrupted Burley, with a laugh,—but it was a laugh of pain. "Well, this was very mean; I shall tell him so when he comes."
"He will come no more," said Leonard. Nor did Randal come again. ”

“ By the by," continued Darrell, who was now throwing the bread to the swans, and had resumed his careless, unmeditative manner, "you were not aware that I have a brother hermit,—a companion be sides the swans and the doe. Dick Fairthorn is a year or two younger than myself, the son of my father's bailiff. He was the cleverest boy at his grammar-school. Unluckily he took to the flute, and unfitted himself for the present century. He condescends, however, to act as my secretary,—a fair classical scholar, plays chess, is useful to me,—I am useful to him. We have an affection for each other. ”

“ Choose with the heart of a man; I know that you will choose with the self-esteem of a gentleman; and be assured beforehand of the sympathy and sanction of your
"Churlish But Loving Kinsman."
After this letter, Lionel felt that, at all events, he could not at once proceed to the old manor-house in defiance of its owner's prohibition. He wrote briefly, entreating Darrell to forgive him if he persisted in the prayer to be received at Fawley, stating that his desire for a personal interview was now suddenly become special and urgent ”

“ In the former, personality is a power; in the latter, it is only a voice. In Landor's eight volumes there are more fine thoughts, more wise apothegms, than in any other discursive author's works in English literature; but they do not tell on the mind. They bloom like flowers in their gardens, but they crown no achievement. At the end, no cause is advanced, no goal is won. This incoherence and inefficiency proceed from the absence of any definite scheme of life, any compacted system of thought, any central principles, any strong, pervading, and ordering personality. ”