George Ripley

“ Ripley's death, and lives in Agen, France. The union with Mr. Ripley was entirely happy; the new life was bright and prosperous. He travelled abroad, saw many people, lived in the world, did a vast amount of literary labor, was hearty and cheerful, the honored centre of a brilliant intellectual circle. ”

“ No journalist has raised literature to so high a distinction, or derived such large rewards for that mental labor. He deserves to be called "remarkable," who can do all this or but a part of it, and, all the time, preserve the sunny serenity of his disposition. If the biography failed to present these traits it was, indeed, unsuccessful. Yes, Mr. Ripley was an extraordinary man. It is seldom that one carries such qualities to such a degree of perfection, and it may be worth while to look more closely at his character. ”

“ Ripley is an accomplished man of letters, familiar with the whole field of literature and philosophy, gifted with a mental aptitude equally for facts and ideas, a fanatic for no particular branch of knowledge, but with a genial appreciation of each, and endowed with a largeness and catholicity of mind which eminently fit him to mould the multitudinous materials of a work like the present into the form of a prescribed plan. ”

“ Imagine my feelings when I pictered him clanking up Norfolk Street in irons and Miss Wozenham looking out of window! “Gentlemen,” I says all of a tremble and ready to drop “please to bring him into Major Jackman’s apartments.” So they brought him into the Parlours, and when the Major spies his own curly-brimmed hat on him which Joshua Lirriper had whipped off its peg in the passage for a military disguise he goes into such a tearing passion that he tips it off his head with his hand and kicks it up to the ceiling with his foot where it grazed long afterwards. ”

“ Sir John Wetheral and Christobelle were speedily on their road to Ripley. The morning air was fresh and delicious, for May was on its threshold, and April had passed in smiles. The father's countenance beamed with pleasure, for he was conferring happiness—and his daughter was revelling in delight, because she was rolling towards Isabel, and should enjoy hours of amusement with the kind and patient Mr. Boscawen. All nature smiled under her eager eye, and she fancied the woods of Ripley even more beautiful than the grounds of Wetheral. ”

“ Being ready and eager to start, I immediately went down to the quarters a half-mile distant; there I waited, going from cabin to cabin, and walked to the dwelling-house and back again. Willy stood by the hitched-up teams, and Sabe, near by, held the baby in her arms, while little Henry clung to her skirts. Then back to the quarters. This man “had a misery in his back—had it ever since the crevasse”; that man “never druv in his life—didn’t I know he was de engineer?” Another man “wouldn’t drive old Sall—she was de balkinest mule on de place ”

“ Rippley shook himself peevishly:
“This bleating minor poet keeps diggin’ his dandified elbow into my ideas until he makes ’em sulk in their tents like—like Ash-heels.”
“Achilles, Rippley—Achilles!” cooed the poet gently.
Rippley turned upon him:
“I say, poet,” said he, walking up to the languid Aubrey, “you’re looking sallow; you poets don’t take enough exercise. I bet I put you under that sofa.” ”

“ She failed in her effort to laugh. “Ah! ye’re sly!” She changed her attitude and drew a breath.
“No,” said Richling, “no, honestly. I should feel that you deserved better at this world’s hands than that, and that the world deserved better of you. I find two people don’t make a world, Mrs. Riley, though often they think they do. They certainly don’t when one is gone.” ”

“ Ripley had ordered his son to make the long journey on foot over the hills to the railway station. Only enough money had been handed the young man to buy his railway ticket home. The dress suit case had been added in order to make his progress more difficult.
"A young man who cannot treat the aged with proper respect must be dealt with severely," said Lawyer Ripley to his son. "You will reach home fagged out from your long tramp. For your fare, until your mother and I return, you will have to depend on such food as the servants at home can spare you from their larder. ”

“ RIPLEY. Six brothers came to America from Yorkshire. Henry, John and William Ripley came in 1774; Joseph, Robert, and Thomas, later. Henry settled in Nappan, and his wife was Mary Fawcett, daughter of John Fawcett, of Lower Sackville, N.B. Henry and Mary Ripley had a family of sixteen children. Henry Ripley occupied a rented farm the first years in this country, but later purchased a farm from the DeBarres estate, 600 acres of marsh and upland, for L 600, and became a very prosperous farmer. ”

“ Emerson, "in a funeral sermon on some parishioner, whose virtues did not readily come to mind, honestly said, 'He was good at fires.' Dr. Ripley had many virtues, and yet, even in his old age, if the firebell was rung, he was instantly on horseback, with his buckets and bag." He had even some willingness, perhaps not equal to the zeal of the Hindoo saint, to extinguish the Orthodox fires of hell, which had long blazed in New England,—so that men might worship God with less fear. But he had small sympathy with the Transcendentalists when they began to appear in Concord. ”

“ While they snatched a meal of beef and bread, Christopher glanced at the Prince. "I know my way on foot to Ripley, and they may need me there," he said.
"The fields will be packed with danger, lad. Run at my stirrup, till by good luck we find a third horse on the road to York."
"Let him be," growled the old Squire. "There's a lady lives at Ripley. Lovers and drunkards seldom come to harm, they say."
"Ah, so!" For a moment there was a glow of tenderness in Rupert's sombre eyes. "It is good to hear the name of lady after the late happenings. Get forward, sir, and guard her." ”

“ Now, if you've a key to Evelyn's rooms, we'll just go up-stairs and search 'em. You can stand outside, while we go in. But no noise,—no fuss you know."
"But they'll murder you," cried the merchant, "they'll murder me. They'll,"—
Blossom drew a six-barreled revolver from one pocket, and a slung-shot from the other.
"This is my settler," he elevated his revolver, "and this, my gentle persuader," he brandished the slung-shot.
"Oh!" cried Mr. Somers, "property is no longer respected,—ah! what times we've fallen in!"
"How many folks have you in the house?" ”

“ Chadwick asking the wheat king to give him a line on what the stock-kiting meant. Then Ripley asked for orders.
"There is nothing to be done until Hatch begins to raise his prices," he was told. "But I wanted to have you here in case anything should break loose suddenly." And at that Ripley went away.
We were closing our desks to go to dinner when Fred May came in to say that a delegation of the pay-roll men was outside and wanting to have a word with the "Big Boss." Mr. Norcross stopped with his desk curtain half drawn down. ”

“ The French small-arm men rushed forward to prevent this being done, by keeping up a fire of musketry. The two seamen fell. The lieutenant still hung in the rigging, but the rope with which he was lashing the bowsprit to it was shot from his hand; no other was within reach. Having just delivered the powder he had brought from below, young Ripley was watching the proceeding. Seizing a rope he sprang into the ringing unhurt amid a shower of bullets, and handed it to the brave officer. Together they made the required turns for lashing it fast, and descended to the deck in safety. ”

“ Tip assented.
"But it's mighty little he'll do for me until I get a job and settle down to it."
"Well, why don't you?" asked Fred Ripley. "That's the surest way to get straight with the world."
"When I want advice," sneered Scammon, "I won't tramp all the way out here, an' ask you for it. Nope. I don't want advice. What I want is money."
"Oh, well, Tip, I'm sorry for you and your troubles. Here's a dollar for you. I wish I could make it more."
Fred Ripley drew out the greenback, passing it over. Tip took the money, studying it curiously. ”

“ Richling fed his hope on the possibilities that might follow Ristofalo’s return. His friend would want him to superintend the gathering and shipment of those crops—when they should be ripe—away yonder in November. Frantic thought! A man and his wife could starve to death twenty times before then.
Mrs. Riley’s high esteem for John and Mary had risen from the date of the Doctor’s visit, and the good woman thought it but right somewhat to increase the figures of their room-rent to others more in keeping with [Pg 175] such high gentility. ”

“ All were in their best humor. Deacon Jarvis [adds his son] , did not go to these levees every Sunday night, though he would have been glad to do so, had he been less distrustful. When his children, who had no such scruples, asked him to go and take them with him, he said he feared that Dr. Ripley would not like to see him so frequently."
According to Mr. Emerson, Dr. Ripley was "a natural gentleman; no dandy, but courtly, hospitable, and public spirited; his [Pg 78] house open to all men." An old farmer who used to travel thitherward from Maine, where Dr. ”

“ Emerson's Sketch of Dr. Ripley. Hood, in his Music for the Million, describes an angry man as slamming a door "with a wooden damn."
[2] At the date of this letter Dr. Ripley was not quite eighty-two, and he lived to be more than ninety. Mr. Alcott, who has now passed the age of eighty-two, has been for years doing in some degree what Dr. Channing urged the patriarch of his denomination to do, but which the old minister never found time and strength for. It is curious that these two venerable men, whose united life in Concord covers a period of more than a century, both came from Connecticut. ”

“ Then his features were fixed, his eyes flashed, he clutched the iron bar, and advancing one step into the basement room, stood ready for the worst.
A candle, burning fast toward its socket, stood on a pine table, and flung its uncertain light over a small room, with cracked ceiling and rough walls, smeared with whitewash. A coal fire smouldered in a narrow grate.
Slung-Shot was there,—not on the watch precisely,—but with his brawny arms resting on the table, and his head bent on his arms. He was fast asleep, and snoring vigorously. ”

“ Quilliam O’Flaherty Macloughlin Myre——”
A bottle-necked man with a shapeless head, colourless hair, and a fat puffy underlip beneath a slovenly moustache slowly rose from a chair.
Rippley flung himself upon him, punched him in the midriff, and threw him back into his seat. Rippley’s brows were knit:
“For God’s sake,” said he, frowning at Lovegood—“don’t start Quogge Myre talking. He always takes two columns of close print to yield up an idea—and then it isn’t his own.” ”

“ Wharton looked up, and in hardly articulate accents, said, "bear witness, Richelieu, that I acquit the Duke de Ripperda. He was in wrath, and I provoked him. Let not his high character be dishonoured by my death."
This was the first time that Ripperda's lofty consciousness of consistent greatness had ever shrunk before the eye of man; he could not brook the strange humiliation, and with asperity he haughtily exclaimed; "my honour does not require protection. I know that I have been intemperate and rash. But let the world know it as it is: I have done nothing that I am not prepared to defend." ”

“ This was Lady Sarah's reason for making me trustee,' said Mr. Tapeall. 'For the present my co-trustee's presence will not be necessary,' and he politely bowed to Frank Raban.
'Thomas, did you hear? 5,000l.!' cried Mrs. Palmer. 'The poor dear extraordinary old thing must have lost her head. Why, we detested each other. However, it is quite right; yes, it would have been a thousand pities to dwell upon trifles. As for my poor Dolly, I must say I do not at all see why George is to have all those things and Dolly nothing at all. Dolly, what will Robert say, poor fellow? How disappointing. ”

“ One day, in this place, just as Richling turned from a delivery window to tear the envelope of a letter bearing the Milwaukee stamp, his attention was arrested by a man running by him toward Exchange alley, pale as death, and followed by a crowd that suddenly broke into a cry, a howl, a roar: “Hang him! Hang him!”
“Come!” said a small, strong man, seizing Richling’s arm and turning him in the common direction. If the word was lost on Richling’s defective hearing, not so the touch; for the speaker was Ristofalo. ”

“ Richling laid his hand upon an awning-post and twined an arm and leg around it as though he were a vine. “I—I forget your name.”
“Ristofalo. Raphael Ristofalo. Yours is Richling. Yes, knocked me flat. Not got cent in world.” The Italian’s low, mellow laugh claimed Richling’s admiration. ”

“ She wished she knew whether or not her color had risen with the cool damp of the walk. Without color she never had a high opinion of her appearance. As Ripley turned his eyes to the lady beside him, he indirectly answered her thought.
'The fog, these old grey stones—this vast moor that we cannot see—only feel—certainly becomes you, Miss Bardeen. I can fancy myself pixie-led, you the pixie, and this the rendezvous of your kind.'
She rewarded this sop to her egoism with a sidewise goblin glance. ”

“ Ripley nearly had a fit. He instantly realized that whoever was to blame for the runaway, it was not Andy.
"Where's the mail?" he asked.
"There's the newspaper bag," said Andy; "here's the registered mail pouch. Those thieves took the other bag of mail."
"They did? Do you hear, officer? Get after them quick, won't you? Never mind us. Describe them, kid."
"How can I, when I never saw them?" said Andy.
Ripley groaned and wrung his hands. He was in a frenzy of distress and indecision.
"See here," spoke the officer to him. "You had better go after that horse. Your wagon isn't worth fishing up. ”