Elgin

“ BRUCE, JAMES, eighth Earl of Elgin and twelfth Earl of Kincardine (1811–1863) , governor-general of India, second son of the seventh earl of Elgin [q. v.] , was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, where in 1832 he took a first class in classics, and was shortly afterwards elected a fellow of Merton. It is a curious coincidence that one of the examiners on the latter occasion was Sir Edmund Head, who many years afterwards succeeded Elgin as governor-general of Canada. ”

“ Elgin, one of the finest of our northern towns, occupies the centre of a richly fossiliferous district, which wants only better sections to rank it among the most interesting in the kingdom. An undulating platform of Old Red Sandstone, in which we see, largely developed in one locality, the lower formation of the Coccosteus, and in another, still more largely, the upper formation of the Holoptychius Nobilissimus, forms, if I may so speak, the foundation deposit of the district,—the true geologic plane of the country ”

“ Across the streets, and at all available points, the stars and stripes waved proudly in the air, and altogether the scene was most beautiful and imposing. I walked the whole length of the route before the procession moved, and the coup d'oeil was perfect. The military portion looked remarkably well; but when the open carriage appeared in which rode Lord Elgin and his friends, the representative of Great Britain was greeted with such shouts and by such waving of handkerchiefs from the windows by crowds of elegantly dressed females, as I am sure his lordship can never forget. ”

“ Lord Elgin was completely prostrated by the effort, and it may be said that from the exhaustion consequent on this adventure he never rallied. But he returned to his camp, and continued his march on horseback, until, on the 22nd, an alarming attack obliged him to be carried, by slow stages, to Dhurmsala. There he was joined, on the 4th of November, by his friend and medical adviser, Dr. Macrae, who had been summoned from Calcutta, on the first alarming indications of his illness. ”

“ Brian, a relative of hers, who is the dryest, boniest person you can imagine, but at the same time the slyest woman I have ever seen. She also brought with her a kind of protector, a Mr. Thomas Elgin, also a relation of hers, a most extraordinary man, stiff like a poker, but evidently a dangerous man, who never opens his mouth except when he eats. He is a famous hand at small-swords, however, and snuffs his candle, nine times out of ten, at a distance of thirty yards. This Mr. Thomas Elgin, whom the world calls familiarly Sir Thorn, and Mrs. Brian, always stay with Miss Sarah. ”

“ To be the very first and solitary arrival is nowhere esteemed the happiest fortune, but in Elgin a kind of ridiculous humiliation attached to it, a greed for the entertainment, a painful unsophistication. A young man of Elgin would walk up and down in the snow for a quarter of an hour with the thermometer at zero to escape the ignominy of it; Lorne Murchison would have so walked. ”

“ Johnson. When the doctor arrived at the inn, the waiter, by a hasty glance, mistook him for Paufer, and such a dinner was prepared as Paufer was wont to receive. The doctor suffered by the mistake, for he did not ask for that which was to follow. Thus the good name of Elgin suffered, through the mistaking of the person of the ponderous lexicographer. This fact is well known, and is authenticated by some of the oldest and most respectable citizens of the town. ”

“ Alec and Oliver enjoyed a good deal of popularity, and it was Stella’s boast that if Lorne didn’t go out much it needn’t be supposed he wasn’t asked. It was an accepted state of things in Elgin that young men might be invited without their sisters, implying an imperturbability greater than London’s, since London may not be aware of the existence of sisters, while Elgin knew all sorts of more interesting things about them. The young men were more desirable than the young women ”

“ In this, and in the important object of encouraging the application of mechanical contrivances to agriculture, Elgin's efforts were very successful, and his administration generally was so satisfactory that very shortly after leaving Jamaica he was offered by the whig government, which had acceded to office in 1846, the important post of governor-general of Canada. His first wife had died shortly after his arrival in Jamaica, and in 1847 he married Lady Louisa Mary Lambton, daughter of the first Earl of Durham. ”

“ She is rich and lonely, and has a warm heart. Those were Elgin's conditions, and he found her.
Elise. Elgin?
Ethel. That's the dream again. Come, Elise, let us see if our dear mother is awake. I am nearly bursting with this good news. And I must tell you my dream. For, you see, the letter and the basket just agree with the dream. And after I have told my dream, and we have read the letter, and seen our Thanksgiving dinner, why, if you and mamma don't believe in fairies, you're funny people, that is all. (Kisses her hand to the air.) I believe in you two dear fairies, at all events. ”

“ ON THE ELGIN MARBLES.
My spirit is too weak; mortality
Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,
And each imagined pinnacle and steep
Of godlike hardship tells me I must die
Like a sick eagle looking at the sky. ”

“ The grand jury [19] is chiefly composed of Conservatives, the Mayor, Aldermen and the police are all Conservatives, but no men could have carried out more fearlessly their determination to maintain order in the community."
Of all the Governors-General who have been sent out to Canada, Lord Elgin was by far the best fitted, by personal suavity of manners, eloquence in speech, and readiness in catching the tone of his hearers, to tide over a stormy political crisis. He had not been long in Toronto before his praises rang from every tongue, even the most embittered. ”

“ On the 9th day of October, 1849, Lord Elgin made his second public entry into Toronto. The announcement of his intention to do so, communicated to the mayor, Geo. Gurnett, Esq., by letter signed by his lordship's brother and secretary, Col. Bruce, raised a storm of excitement in the city, which was naturally felt in the city council. The members were almost to a man Tories, a large proportion of whom had served as volunteers in 1837-8. The more violent insisted upon holding His Excellency personally responsible for the payment of rebels for losses arising out of the rebellion in Lower Canada ”

“ This intelligence made our men pass through Elgin, without halting, and straight on that night to Forres, which was ten miles farther; and, after some stay there, to Nairn, out of which we were next morning driven; the whole English Army entering the town at one end, whilst we marched out at the other, and continuing to pursue us sharply for three or four hours. And here it was His Grace the Duke of Perth and Colonel O’Sullivan [439] gained immortal honour by their bravery and conduct in bringing us off in good order from under the very nose of the enemy ”

“ A burst of anger, classical and poetical, declared the ambassador to be, not a benefactor, but a thief. The gale blew upon him from many points. The author of the Classical Tour through Italy declared that Lord Elgin’s ‘rapacity is a crime against all ages and all generations; depriving the Past of the trophies of their genius and the title-deeds of their fame, the Present of the strongest inducements to exertion.’ |Eustace, Classical Tour, p. ”

“ Duff, in his valuable "Sketch of the Geology of Moray," enumerates five several localities in the neighborhood [Pg 222] of Elgin in which there occur outliers of the Weald; though, of course, in a country so flat, and in which the diluvium lies deep, we cannot hold that all have been discovered. And though the outliers of the Oölite have not yet been ascertained to be equally numerous, they seem of greater extent; the isolated masses detached from them by the denuding agencies lie thick over extensive areas ”

“ When at Toronto in 1851, the writer was welcomed to the splendid hospitality of Lord Elgin, and the very lecture-room here depicted was mentioned as "a rare gathering of notables." Lord Abercorn was of the class, a future viceroy; Lord Douglas, lately Duke of Hamilton, handsome as an Apollo, and who married a Princess of Baden; and if Lord Waterford was infrequent in his attendance, at least he was eligible, and should not be omitted as a various sort of eccentric celebrity. Then Phillimore was there, now our Dean of the Arches ”

“ On the 12th of October nine more prisoners were returned to the camp—eight troopers of Fane's Irregular Horse and one French soldier; but the evidence given by them left no doubt that two at least of the remainder, Lieutenant Anderson and Mr. De Norman had perished, having sunk under circumstances of much suffering from the consequences of the maltreatment to which they were subjected. 'I was not personally acquainted' wrote Lord Elgin, 'with Lieutenant Anderson, but he is spoken of by all who knew him as an excellent officer. Mr. De Norman was a young man of remarkable promise. ”

“ “‘Here lie I, Martin Elginbrodde: Hae mercy o’ my soul, Lord God; As I wad do, were I Lord God, And ye were Martin Elginbrodde.’”
Certainly Hugh could not help a slight shudder at what seemed to him the irreverence of the epitaph, if indeed it was not deserving of a worse epithet. ”

“ They put me in mind of Heber's image, who says that we are like travellers journeying through a dense wood intersected by innumerable paths: we are constantly meeting in unexpected places, and plunging into the forest again!
[Sidenote: Alexandria.]
_Alexandria.—May 6th.—_I made up my letter last night, not knowing how short the time of my sojourn at Alexandria might be. But at about one in the morning I received a letter from Frederick, [3] telling me that the steamer due at Suez had not yet arrived, that an official reception was to be given me, and that I had better not land too early.... ”

“ On Wednesday, before mass was sung in the town, Erling sailed from Bergen with all his fleet, consisting of twenty-one ships; and there was a fresh breeze for sailing northwards along the coast. Erling had his son King Magnus with him, and there were many lendermen accompanied by the finest men. When Erling came north, abreast of the Fjord district, he sent a boat on shore to Jon Halkelson's farm, and took Nikolas, a son of Simon Skalp and of Maria, Harald Gille's daughter, and brought him out to the fleet, and put him on board the king's ship. ”

“ It stimulated his desire to indulge his craving for drink. As Ernest, with the bottle in his hand, prepared to leave, the tramp addressed him.
“Say, young feller, ain’t you goin’ to shout?”
“What do you mean?”
“Ain’t you goin’ to treat me and this gentleman?” indicating Luke Robbins.
“No,” answered Ernest shortly. “I don’t buy it as drink, but as medicine.”
“I need medicine,” urged the tramp, with a smile.
“I don’t,” said the hunter. “Don’t you bother about us, my boy. If we want whisky we can buy it ourselves.” ”

“ I said, feeling guiltily conscious of what Agnes had told me. "And I daresay we shall like it very much when we are grown-up."
'"Of course," replied Algernon. "And in the meantime it does not much matter, because I don't suppose we shall see each other very often."
'"Oliver thought you would come here and stay with us sometimes," I remarked. "He is always wishing for a boy of his own age for a companion, because Miles and Roger are so little."
'"Ah! I should like that," said Algernon, who evidently regarded a brother-in-law as a much more interesting and valuable acquisition than a wife. ”

“ When Earl Erling heard this, he hastened with his troops to meet them in Viken, and fell in with them east of the Fjord, at a place called Stangar; where they had a great battle, in which Erling was victorious. Sigurd Agnhot, and many others of Olaf's men, fell there; but Olaf escaped by flight, went south to Denmark, and was all winter (A.D. 1169) in Alaborg in Jutland. The following spring Olaf fell into an illness which ended in death, and he was buried in the Maria church; and the Danes call him a saint. ”

“ My Lord Elsingham, whom you met at dinner, is a peer of enormous wealth; he has just expressed himself greatly prepossessed in your favour. It rests with you to follow up this favourable impression, and he is your own—the coronet of a peeress will grace your temples. Your sister will, I trust, win the Duke; and in these two marriages we may defy fate itself. You, Helen, will prove my salvation! Do only but this, and the agony of the past will be compensated by the splendour of the future. ”

“ So Elidore dwelt in Elfinland, and day after day was fed with milk and saffron; and he played with the Elfin Prince, tossing gold and silver balls. When he walked in the meadows to pick flowers, he saw everywhere about him the Elfin people, with long, flowing yellow hair, riding on little horses and chasing tiny deer with Fairy hounds. For all the people in Elfinland played and rode about night and day, and they never worked. Sometimes on moonlit nights they rode through the dark passage to the upper world, and danced in Fairy Rings on the grass. ”

“ Judge," said Agnes. "It is because there is so much freedom in here. You can't soil anything in here—never can in a place where men stay." Howard passed the door, and the Judge's face darkened. Florence looked at him and her eyes were not soft.
"Now, what are you frowning at, Mr. Judge?" said Agnes. "Do you mean that I haven't told the truth?"
"You always tell the truth, Agnes."
"No, I don't. I told Mr. Bradley a fib—a small one, though; a little white mouse of a fib. But you have to tell fibs to a preacher."
"It is the way of life. Fibs to a preacher and lies to a judge," said the old man. ”