Harcourt

“ Come, what is your trouble?” demanded Harcourt, setting the stranger down upon a large box, placing himself at his side, and passing his arm around the man’s waist, the better to protect him from himself.
“Trouble!” cried the other. “Trouble enough! Illness all autumn. No work. Wife and children freezing, starving, in a cellar. No food for two days. Everything pawned but just enough clothes to cover our nakedness. Trouble, indeed!”
“Good Heaven! good Heaven! It is incredible! ‘In a whole city full!’” exclaimed Harcourt, quoting Hood. “Come with me. The stores are not all closed yet. ”

“ She sank down on the solitary chair beside the bed, and holding the waiter of breakfast in her lap, said:
“Now sit up and take this, while I get a good look at you.”
Again, with a feeble smile, Harcourt obeyed her, took the offered cup from her hand, and while he eagerly quaffed the fragrant coffee, which he found so grateful to his parched throat and fainting frame, she regarded him with the eyes of experience.
“Yes, young man,” she said gravely and tenderly, “you have seen trouble—plenty of trouble, but that is the lot of human beings. ”

“ Harcourt gazed for a moment longer without speaking.
“Charles Cutts, don’t you know, who landed from a passing yacht at the Isle of Storms late one night in September last—a night memorable for the tragedy enacted there, you know,” said the stranger.
“I—remember—you—now,” Harcourt faltered, changing color from pallor to green ghastliness.
“Ah! I see that the very sight of me, calling up the memory of that night, has quite upset you, and I don’t wonder,” said Cutts, taking a seat beside the agitated young man. ”

“ Harcourt laughed good-humouredly, almost paternally. “I was going, I declare, to commit the folly, unpardonable in my years, of offering a young man advice. I was going to say, my good lad, that from the poetic point of view, your visit here must have been so inspiring, so, what shall I say? so eminently successful, that it would be a thousand pities for you to prolong it. Disillusion,” he added, with a light sigh, “swiftly follows upon joy.”
Herrick chewed a thousand savage retorts, but let not one escape beyond his clenched teeth. ”

“ You had better come in, and let me get you a cup of tea, and after you have taken it you will feel better able to tackle with a damp room and a cold hearth. Come in, now. Why not? Are we not all brethren and sisters?”
“Oh! my dear Annie, you are really too good for this world,” said Harcourt, very stupidly, it must be admitted, for he even thought so himself, yet in perfect good faith. ”

“ What he thought and felt is truer than all that you and I and a score like us ever did or ever will do. The creations of janius are the landmarks of humanity; and well for us is it that we have such to guide us!”
“All this may be very fine,” said Harcourt, contemptuously, “but give me the sentiments of a living man, or one that has lived, in preference to all the imaginary characters that have ever adorned a story.”
“Just as I suppose that you'd say that a soldier in the Blues, or some big, hulking corporal in the Guards, is a finer model of the human form than ever Praxiteles chiselled.” ”

“ The Bishop of Norwich sent in his resignation by the same prelate and lord."
Sagacious Horace Walpole, who compressed so much wit into a sheet of ordinary post, had entertained his doubts about Lord Harcourt two years before: writing to Sir H. Mann, on June 8, 1751, he says in his dry way, "They have hooked in, too, poor Lord Harcourt, and call him Harcourt the wise: (how Horace must have grinned as he italicised the last word;) his wisdom has already disgusted the young prince: 'Sir, pray hold up your head,' 'Sir, for God's sake, turn out your toes!' Such are Mentor's precepts." ”

“ When they left the table Martha came up and said to Harcourt:
“Young marse, de ole madam is axin’ fo’ yo’ ag’in. She seems moughty queer, she do.”
Harcourt immediately followed the woman to his mother’s room.
She was sitting in the same chair, knitting, as before.
“Sit down, Will, my dear. Your father has just gone out. He says that I must cheer up, for I shall soon be well—well enough to leave this room; and Will, he says that he has got a beautiful new home for me, where I shall be sure to grow strong and hearty, and renew my youth. Just think of that, Will!” ”

“ Harcourt, either to begin a suit or to rest quietly under the calumny. Briefly, Mr. Fletcher, as you or your informant knows, I was the surveyor who revealed to Mr. Harcourt the value of the land to which he claimed a title from your man, this Elijah or 'Lige Curtis as you call him,”—he could not resist this imitation of his adversary's supercilious affectation of precise nomenclature,—“and it was upon my representation of its value as an investment that he began the improvements which have made him wealthy. ”

“ Wynthrop’s sitting-room.
He found the three tall, fair women employed as they had been on his first call.
They all left work and made him welcome to the fireside.
“How did you find the dear mother?” inquired the elder lady.
“Not so well as I had been led to expect,” said Harcourt with a sigh.
“But, indeed, beyond the weakness of her limbs, due to her one single malady, she has good health. She never suffers in mind or body. She has a good appetite, fine spirits, and she enjoys life oven more than we do, I fancy. Think of that, Mr. Harcourt.” ”

“ When one meets Sir William Harcourt for the first time in society, perhaps one is first struck by the fact that he is in aspect and bearing a great gentleman of the old school, and then that he is an admirable talker. He is a true Whig in culture as well as in blood. ”

“ Betty, dear, this is Mrs. Harcourt’s son,” said Mrs. Wynthrop, cordially shaking hands with the visitor, and presenting him to her younger daughter.
The young man bowed to the young girl, who 96seemed in face and form only a fairer and more delicate repetition of her mother and elder sister.
“Take this armchair in the chimney corner, Mr. Harcourt,” said Margaret. “But take off your overcoat first. Frankly, you are not looking in good health. You must be careful of yourself at this season of the year, when the changes are so sudden. ”

“ You remember Mr. Merritt?” inquired Harcourt as they walked on toward Louisiana Avenue, for it is needless to say Harcourt could not afford to hire a carriage, nor indeed was one needed for so short a distance.
“Well, I should smile! Haven’t I been talking to you about him? He is one of them old gentlemen Lady will have to marry if you don’t marry her.”
“My dear child, do not talk that way,” said Harcourt.
“Isn’t Lady at Goblin Hall?”
“I am not sure that she is there now. She may be at the Isle of Storms, or she may be here in this very city.”
“Oh, if I thought that!” joyfully exclaimed Owlet. ”

“ The coin and the scrap of paper lay in his hand as he looked up and met the shrewd questioning eyes of Sir Richard.
"Yes," answered the Baron Harcourt in a low voice, "you have seen the coin before, and now you may read what is written on the paper."
"Now I know," said Sir Richard, shaking his head, "what charm you gave to the woman and her child forty years ago. Was I not right? It was a deception."
"Who knows?" said the Baron Harcourt cheerfully. "It has not failed to-day. Fortune has favoured Faith." ”

“ When Alain and his brothers made their appearance, they still bore visible marks of the recent fray; but in that bone-breaking age it was quite the correct thing for a young man of rank to wear a face like a beaten prize-fighter; and Sir Simon Harcourt mentally decided that these were “exceeding gentle and good young men.”
“I give thee joy, my noble host,” said he, bowing courteously to the three tall youths as they entered; “thou hast a goodly muster of sons to carry on thy name.” ”

“ The Princesse d'Harcourt was a sort of personage whom it is good to make known, in order better to lay bare a Court which did not scruple to receive such as she. She had once been beautiful and gay; but though not old, all her grace and beauty had vanished. The rose had become an ugly thorn. At the time I speak of she was a tall, fat creature, mightily brisk in her movements, with a complexion like milk-porridge; great, ugly, thick lips, and hair like tow, always sticking out and hanging down in disorder, like all the rest of her fittings out. ”

“ Harcourt ranks with the few men who could talk as brilliantly as they could write. He was an indefatigable worker, and his speeches, which were monuments of closely reasoned arguments, teeming with facts and illuminated by witty epigrams, were generally most diligently prepared and delivered by the aid of copious notes. He was at his best, however, when suddenly called upon to debate, and was never so happy as when he was fighting a hopeless battle against overwhelming odds. ”

“ Harcourt laughed heartily at this sally, and pushed the decanter towards his guest.
“Not that I'd give sixpence to know every syllable of the whole transaction,” said Scaresby. “A man that has passed, as I have, the last twenty-five years of his life between Rome, Florence, and Naples, has devilish little to learn of what the world calls scandal.”
“I suppose you must indeed possess a wide experience,” said Harcourt.
“Not a man in Europe, sir, could tell you as many dark passages of good society! ”

“ Cutts, I must entreat you to drop it, after this, my ultimatum: That as you will only speak in vindication of some innocent person, I repeat that no innocent person shall be accused or suffer for me. Now that we perfectly understand each other, pray let us say no more about the horror,” said Harcourt, turning his head away from his persecutor. ”

“ When the work of tearing down and clearing away the old Rue Street tenement houses was finished Harcourt, still following in the wake of his friend, Adler, got employment in the upper part of the city, where a large number of men were at work blasting rock. ”

“ The history of his negotiations for office, as related in the letters of Harcourt and Blaquiere, is by no means creditable to him, and Harcourt, writing to North on 9 Oct. 1775, says: ‘Since I was born I never had to deal with so difficult a man, owing principally to his high-strained ideas of his own great importance and popularity. ”

“ What need of names?”
“Even in love a poison lies!” murmured Herrick, and looked up languishingly at Ellinor’s unseeing face.
“No doubt,” said Harcourt, in a most indifferent voice, “so wise a philosopher as Master Simon always locks up his poisons!”
“Child,” pursued the old man, “I tell you, this herb which was lost to the world, but which you yourself found again, planted and nurtured, is destined to be the greatest boon mankind has yet known! ”

“ I should think it is,” muttered Harcourt.
“This pathway, though, does not bespeak much care. I wish our friend yonder would hold his lantern a little lower. How I envy you the kind of life you lead here,—so tranquil, so removed from all bores! By the way, you get the newspapers tolerably regularly?”
“Yes, every day.”
“That's all right. If there be a luxury left to any man after the age of forty, it is to be let alone. It's the best thing I know of. ”

“ Passengers returned to their seats. New people got in. Some strangers took their places immediately behind Harcourt and his little companion, so that if either the man or the child had felt inclined to renew their discourse they could not have carried it on confidentially. But, in fact, neither wished to talk. Harcourt was buried in gloomy thought, and Owlet was heavy with drowsiness, like any other tired young animal after a hearty meal, so she curled herself up on her seat and shut her eyes. ”

“ I mean by a straightforward advertisement in the advertising columns for information respecting the whereabouts of William Everard Harcourt, late of Lone Lodge, West Virginia, who left his home on the Isle of Storms, coast of Maryland, on the fifteenth of last November, and has not been heard from since, and offering a large reward for intelligence that shall lead to the discovery of his fate. ”

“ Everyone does not call her Lady, I suppose?”
“No—nobody but me. I call her Lady. But the black people do call her ‘young mist’ess,’ and Mr. Merritt and Dr. Shaw call her ‘Roma, my dear’.”
Harcourt started.
“‘Roma?’—‘Dr. Shaw?’—‘Mr. Merritt?’ What does all this mean?” he muttered to himself in strong agitation. Then:
“Where does this lady live, my child?” he asked, in a shaking voice.
“Oh! at Goblin Hall. Such a lovely place! Oh, sir, please—oh! please do take me home to my own dear Lady!” pleaded the child, putting her little, white hands together and looking up in his face. ”

“ These singular perfections seemed to increase in Harcourt's mind the exasperating sense of injury inflicted upon him by 'Lige's exposures. With a daughter so incomparably gifted,—a matchless creation that was enough in herself to ennoble that fortune which his own skill and genius had lifted from the muddy tules of Tasajara where this 'Lige had left it,—that SHE should be subjected to this annoyance seemed an infamy that Providence could not allow! ”

“ Name o’ de Lord, who is yer, an’ wot do yo’ want?”
“’Rusalem, is that you?” inquired Harcourt, by way 67of opening conversation, though he was sure of the old man’s identity.
“Cose it’s me! But who de name o’ de Lord is yo’? Shet up, dogs! Hol’ yo’ jaws dar, I tell yo’! A body can’t hear deirselves speak fo’ yo’! Who is yo’, an’ wot do yo’ want yere?”
“Don’t you remember Will Harcourt, who was clerk here last summer?”
“W’y, sho! ’Tain’t yo’! W’y, Lor’s! ’Member yo’? Well, I reckon I doane ’member nobody else! Down, dogs! Stop it, can’t yo’? ”