Effingham

“ Effingham tremulously replied,
"Come what may, you shall remain in command here. O Loyd, do not desert us in this the eleventh hour of our anxiety! In heaven's name, stand by us until your good work is accomplished! You have dragged Romaine back from the threshold of death; sustain her until the threatening portals are closed and she is safe!"
She rose as she spoke, with outstretched arms, and he hastened to her to receive her embrace. ”

“ Effingham," coolly observed Aristabulus, "sold last spring for thirty dollars the acre, and was bought for twenty, the summer-before!"
"Chacun à son gout!" said Eve.
"And yet, I fear, this glorious scene is marred by the envy, rapacity, uncharitableness, and all the other evil passions of man!" continued the more philosophical Mr. Effingham. "Perhaps, it were better as it was so lately, when it lay in the solitude and peace of the wilderness, the resort of birds and beasts."
"Who prey on each other, dearest father, just as the worst of our own species prey on their fellows." ”

“ Mr. Effingham laughed, a real hearty laugh, as he shook his head, and said: "Won't do: nothing like enough."
Sir Charles lost his temper, and said: "Stop this infernal tomfoolery, sir! Not enough! Why, d--n it, one would think you had a claim upon me!"
"And suppose I have, Sir Charles Mitford, what then?" said Mr. Effingham, leaning forward in his chair and confronting his companion.
"What then? Why--pooh, stuff! this is a poor attempt at extortion. You don't think to get any money out of me by threatening to tell of my connection with the Albatross crew? ”

“ The exclamation that now escaped the young man was one of delight and surprise.
"That must be my grandmother, with whom you are in such raptures, at present," said John Effingham, laughing--"I was comparing it yesterday with the picture of Eve, which is in the Russia-leather case, that you will find somewhere there. I do not wonder, however, at your admiration, for she was a beauty in her day, and no woman is fool enough to be painted after she grows ugly."
"Not so--not so--Mr. Effingham! This is the miniature I lost in the Montauk, and which I had given up as booty to the Arabs. ”

“ Monday said suddenly, after a long pause.
"It is the general fate; when the moment arrives, we ought to prepare ourselves to meet it."
"I am no coward, Mr. Effingham."
"In one sense I know you are not, for I have seen you proved. I hope you will not be one in any sense. You are now in a situation in which manhood will avail you nothing: your dependence should be placed altogether on God."
"I know it, sir--I try to feel thus; but I do not wish to die."
"The love of Christ is illimitable," said John Effingham, powerfully affected by the other's hopeless misery. ”

“ His sweet Clemence was not loved and valued in her home; she, his darling, his heart’s delight, was looked down upon by those who should have deemed it an honour to sun themselves in her smile! Such was the suspicion which flashed out into words of sudden indignation.
“Mrs. Effingham! and pray who may she be? I see here my niece, your father’s wife, your mother by marriage; but no one whom you or I can either speak or think of as ‘Mrs. Effingham!’”
The most insolent in temper are usually those who have least courage to back their insolence. ”

“ Effingham left Belgrave Square for a short period upon business. It was Clemence’s first separation from her husband since their marriage, and she felt that during his absence all the sunshine of her life would be gone. To have been left quite alone would have been less painful; it was far worse than solitude to be left with her step-daughters and Lady Selina.
The haughty shyness which Arabella and Louisa had at first displayed before Mrs. Effingham had entirely worn away. ”

“ Effingham observed by the fire-light something like glistening moisture on the downcast lashes of his wife; for, laying his hand kindly on her shoulder, he added in a gayer tone, “As long as my watch goes well, Clemence, I do not care to examine the works. I give you unlimited authority. Dissolve your whole House of Commons, if you please it; visit your peers with fine or imprisonment; but don’t bring up appeals to me. A little time—a little judgment—they are all that is wanted; just act for the best, and take things easily.” ”

“ Let us be consoled that we are not conspicuously inferior to our neighbours, and chiefly strive, in spite of that mysterious Disappointment—poor human nature—to gain some modest eminence. Let Wilfred Effingham, then, enjoy his undeserved good fortune, comme nous autres, assured that with such companionship he will be stronger to battle for the right while life lasts. ”

“ It is a most melancholy fact, that the close, confined air of a counting-room is deadly poison to a taste for the fine arts, and, but too often, to every thing like liberality of feeling.
Effingham House was neither planned nor executed upon a grand or a mean scale; there was nothing extravagant or penurious, vast or contracted, about it; but it presented a happy combination of the comfortable, the elegant, and the neat. Such houses are very common indeed throughout New England ”

“ Do you imagine, gentlemen, that the souls of the dead are permitted to look back at such ewents of this life as touches their own private concerns and feelings?"
"That would depend, I should think, steward, on the nature of the employment of the souls themselves," returned John Effingham. "There must be certain souls to which any occupation would be more agreeable than that of looking behind them. But, may I ask why you inquire?"
"Because, Mr. John Effingham, sir, I do not believe Captain Truck can ever be happy in heaven, as long as the ship is in the hands of the Arabs! ”

“ O Vincent! how little have outward circumstances to do with real, solid enjoyment! Your presence gives an interest and zest to the pleasures which wealth may procure; but that presence would suffice to make me happy even in the midst of poverty.”
The thoughts of Mr. Effingham had wandered while Clemence was speaking; his eyes were fixed, not upon her, but upon the fire, as if watching the little gas-jets which caught fire for a moment, burned vividly, and then were suddenly extinguished in smoke. ”

“ Death is appalling to those of the most iron nerves, when it comes quietly and in the stillness and solitude of night. John Effingham was such a man; but he felt all the peculiarity of his situation as he sat alone in the state-room by the side of Mr. Monday, listening to the washing of the waters that the ship shoved aside, and to the unquiet breathing of his patient. Several times he felt a disposition to steal away for a few minutes, and to refresh himself by exercise in the pure air of the ocean ”

“ Wenham fancied himself a paragon of national independence, and was constantly talking of American excellencies, though the ancient impressions still lingered in his moral system, as men look askance for the ghosts which frightened their childhood on crossing a church-yard in the dark. John Effingham knew the penchant of the young man, and when he said that he came happily to preserve the equilibrium, he alluded to this striking difference in the characters of their two friends. ”

“ The tone and her expression made Effingham unusually persistent.
"Come," he urged; "we'll sit at the back of the church, and nobody will see us. You need not see Livingston afterwards unless you wish, although I fancy you will want to talk to him when you have heard him. People usually do."
She allowed herself to be persuaded, and they drove up town together to the little church, tucked modestly out of the way in an unfashionable side street. The winter day was drawing to a close, and the church was but dimly lighted. ”

“ How many, instead of resting even on the flower, “loose and easy hence to go,” waiting till the warm sun “exhales it back again,” have dropped from leaf to leaf, lower and lower, till, sinking at length to earth, and mingling with its dust, they are lost for evermore!
About a week after her arrival in Belgrave Square we will glance again at Clemence Effingham. She is in her husband’s quiet study—her favourite retreat. The ruddy fire-light falls cheerfully on the shelves of the well-filled book-case, which occupies almost an entire side of the small but comfortable apartment. ”

“ I have now known Lord Effingham for nearly two years; and I pronounce him incomprehensible, impenetrable; and yet," continued Lady Desmond, passionately, "as mystery has always proved the strongest attraction to man's mind, so I feel irresistibly impelled to gaze into an abyss, I cannot fathom, where everything seems uncertain and obscure; I am undecided whether he is the coldest of egotists, or a man of the strongest, deepest, most passionate feeling. Do you believe in mesmerism, Kate? I begin to do so; how otherwise can I account for the influence that unaccountable man exercises over me ”

“ On the other hand, man-like, Hubert Effingham was of opinion—and, true son of his father, he had the courage of his opinions—that either his sister's mind was hopelessly deranged, her unwarrantable neglect of Drummond giving ample proof of the incipience of the baleful distemper, or else she was making herself a glaring example of that frailty which is imputed to woman. ”

“ Dodge, in his undying desire to lay everything before the public, as becomes his high vocation, and as in duty bound, has read; and misconstruing some of the phrases, as will sometimes happen to a zealous circulator of news, he has drawn the conclusion that I am to be made a happy woman as soon as we reach America, by being converted from Miss Eve Effingham into Mrs. John Effingham."
"Impossible! No man can be such a fool, or quite so great a miscreant!" ”

“ Yes, I say you can do it. Write to him to-day--now, this very hour-and tell him Lizzie Ponsford has been with you; that she holds the bill which he employed that poor wretch Effingham to get for him; that Effingham cheated him from first to last--from the time of the Albatross till the day he went to the bottom of the sea with the Pocahontas. Tell him he shall have it placed in his hands on the day he returns to London. Your letter will reach him when he has learned the faithlessness of the woman for whom he has betrayed you. ”

“ Hitherto Paul had regarded John Effingham with distrust and awe, but he found him a man so different from what report and his own fancy had pictured, that the reaction in his feelings served to heighten them, and to aid in increasing his respect. On the other hand, the young man exhibited so much modest good sense, a fund of information so much beyond his years, such integrity and justice of sentiment, that when they separated for the night, the old bachelor was full of regret that nature had not made him the parent of such a son. ”

“ Lord Effingham vowed the earl-marshal’s office had been strangely neglected, but he had taken such care for the future that the next coronation would be regulated in the most exact manner imaginable. The number of peers and peeresses present was not very great; some of the latter, with no excuse in the world, appeared in Lord Lincoln’s gallery, and even walked about the hall indecently in the intervals of the procession. My Lady Harrington, covered with all the diamonds she could borrow, hire, or seize, and with the air of Roxana, was the finest figure at a distance. ”

“ Effingham’s vulgar relations, advanced towards the door to have a nearer view of the meeting, and so came in for her share of it.
“Ah! one of your daughters, Clemence?” cried her old uncle, and he immediately bestowed on the astonished Louisa a fatherly salute. “Fine, well-grown girl,” he continued in his loud, cheerful voice; “must make you feel quite old, my darling, to have children as tall as yourself! But let us have a little of the fire, for it’s blowing great guns to-night, and I’ve had my feet half frozen off on the top of the omnibus!” ”

“ Clemence found him in his study, and with a few words to explain where and how she had discovered it, she placed the poisonous work of the infidel author before him.
Mr. Effingham had been a careless, although an affectionate father. With his family, as with his household, he had been content to believe that all was right, if he saw nothing very glaringly wrong. He had been imbued deeply with the idea that making money was the main business of man’s life; and the regulation of his establishment, the education of his children, the training of immortal souls, he had quietly left to others. ”

“ Clemence struggled to throw off her depression, made earnest resolutions, breathed silent prayers, and determined not yet to despair even of conquering hatred by the power of gentleness, and prejudice by the strength of patience.
“There goes one of Fortune’s favourites!” remarked Lady Praed to her daughter, as, driving through Belgrave Square, she recognized Mrs. Effingham; “young, lovely, rich, with good health, good establishment, good position—she has everything that the world can give. ”

“ As this was the usual language of John Effingham, neither of his listeners thought much of it, though Mr. Effingham more decidedly expressed an intention to cut off even the slight communication with the offender, he had permitted himself to keep up, since they had been on board.
"Think better of it, dear father," said Eve; "for such a man is scarcely worthy of even your resentment. He is too much your inferior in principles, manners, character, station, and everything else, to render him of so much account ”

“ Effingham, delighted at the success of his scheme; "that's just as it should be. It's all very well for those swells to live on here, and go on their daily round. They've got the best of it, so far as they know; but they haven't seen as much as we have. They don't know the pleasure of--well, of pitting your wits against somebody else who think themselves deuced sharp, and beating them, do they?"
"No," said Miss Gillespie, with her crispest little laugh; "of course they don't." ”