James Holden

“ Holden during the conversation had sat with drooping lids, and a sad and grieved expression, and now, as he raised his eyes, he said, mournfully—
"Thou meanest, James, that I, too, am insane. May Heaven grant that neither thou nor thine may experience the sorrow of so great a calamity." ”

“ The musings of this solitary man in a boat with a company who might all be but corpses, on a tropical sea, and not knowing where he was going, could not be but strange, and Mr. Holden is either as good a romancer as the Lakeside bard, or the "Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner" has been equaled by sober fact. The night seemed the longest he had ever spent, even in the South Seas, and it almost needed the assurance of the dawn streaking up at last in the east that he was not himself the dying or dead. ”

“ It gave Jimmy a new insight into the sweetness and charity of Harriet Holden’s character. “Yes,” he said, “her soul and her heart were good and pure.”
“She believed so in you,” said the girl. “She thought you were the best man who ever lived. She told me that you were the only really good man she had ever known, and her confidence and belief in you were contagious. You will probably never know all that she did for you. It was really she that imbued my father and his attorney with a belief in your innocence, and it was she who influenced the Lizard to take the stand in your behalf. ”

“ A smile like sunshine stealing from behind a wintry cloud over the pure snow, welcomed Holden. As he took the offered hand of Armstrong, he found it extenuated and cold, and pressed it with more than ordinary feeling, before he took a seat by his side. The first inquiry of the Recluse was, as usual, after Faith.
"She is out," answered her father, "but I expect her soon."
"The sight of Faith is to me as the beauty and fragrance of days long gone," said Holden. "Unsinning Eve was not more lovely." ”

“ John Holden was lost. His mother’s faith that God would take care of her boy was rewarded, however, when it was discovered that John with his little fife was helping to drill the soldiers in Washington’s army.
MORE than a hundred years ago there lived, in the town of Shirley, Mass., a bright, well-grown lad named John Holden. His father was a farmer, and the little fellow trudged about the farm, clad in home-spun and home-made clothing, feeding calves, driving cows, and doing whatever his hands found to do “with all his might.” ”

“ Sir John Herschel remembers his father saying, 'If that hypothesis were true, and if the planet destroyed were as large as the earth, there must have been at least thirty-thousand such fragments,' but always as an hypothesis—he was never heard to declare any degree of conviction that it was so."
For us, the value of this sympathetic account of a day in Herschel's life is in its conception of the simplicity, the modesty, the "boyish earnestness," the elevation of thought and speech of the old philosopher ”

“ For the young man was himself a nobleman of nature, who had inherited some of the romance of his father, and, indeed, in whom were slumbering, unconsciously to himself, many traits of character like those of the father, and which needed only opportunity to be developed.
The first words Holden uttered, after recovering from his emotion sufficiently to speak, were:
"Lord! now let thou thy servant depart, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." ”

“ Education and information failed. Jimmy Holden had been told and told and instructed, and the words had been graven deep in his mind by the same fabulous machine that his father used to teach him his grammar and his vocabulary and his arithmetic and the horde of other things that made Jimmy Holden what he was: "If anything happens to us, you must turn to Paul Brennan!" ”

“ This was done with so much ceremony and deliberation that Holden, who was all anxiety to secure the rescue of his mate, Knute, and to redeem his promise to his master, Parabaway, became very impatient. But when a little breeze now began to blow, and the order came from the captain to brace up the yards, he could no longer control himself. It seemed incredible that a man should be left, or that no attention should be paid to his representations about the natives. ”

“ Holden sat silent on the couch thinking of the future, and his thoughts were not pleasant. The drawbacks of a double life are manifold. The Government, with singular care, had ordered him out of the station for a fortnight on special duty in the place of a man who was watching by the bedside of a sick wife. The verbal notification of the transfer had been edged by a cheerful remark that Holden ought to think himself lucky in being a bachelor and a free man. He came to break the news to Ameera. ”

“ As children instinctively know those who love them, so must Holden have originally had some idea of the feelings of Faith, and by it been drawn closer to her. Certainly, there was no one in whose society he took more pleasure, or whom he was more desirous to please.
At this stage of the conversation, the door opened, and Mr. Armstrong entered. He advanced to Holden, whose hand he took, and welcomed with much cordiality. It was no new thing for him to see the Recluse in his parlor. His daughter's partiality he well knew, of course ”

“ Captain Nicholas Joel paced the fore-waist bridge. There was a full, untouched flagon on the mahogany desk, and the bottle of Martian Colony Bond stood, tightly corked, beside it.
He sat down, hating the feel of the chair of command beneath his big body.
What he was thinking was wrong, of course. But no man could be two men; a man could not split himself down the middle and say: this is your life here, this is your life there, for it is unthinkable that a man be prisoner of one life only—No, a man could not do that; a man had only one life. ”

“ A visitor from Boston was at the farmhouse, and the talk, as usual, ran on the prospect of war in the colonies. During a pause in the conversation, Mr. Holden asked John to play something on the fife. When he had played a stirring march or two, the stranger exclaimed, “Upon my word! But the boy has the soul of music in him! He will be ready for the British bulls and lions when it is necessary.”
John sat quite still for some time. But before he [104] went to bed he went to his father and said, “Father, if the British do come, shall I go to war with my fife?” ”

“ The first shock of a bullet is no more than a brisk pinch. The wrecked body does not send in its protest to the soul till ten or fifteen seconds later. Holden realised his pain slowly, exactly as he had realised his happiness, and with the same imperious necessity for hiding all traces of it. In the beginning he only felt that there had been a loss, and that Ameera needed comforting where she sat with her head on her knees shivering as Mian Mittu from [Pg 173] the housetop called: Tota! Tota! Tota! Later, all his world and the daily life of it rose up to hurt him. ”

“ It was, perhaps, this latent apprehension of his fitness to appear in the world—an apprehension, however, only dimly cognizable by himself—that induced Holden to seek the companionship of Pownal. With these feelings, and believing he might be of advantage to this strange man, for whom this new development awakened additional interest in his mind, Armstrong offered to be his companion, in the search for his son; but, to his surprise, his offer was hastily rejected.
"No," said Holden; "it befitteth not. Stay, to take care of Faith. ”

“ George Holden, LL.D., head-master of the free grammar school at Horton-in-Ribblesdale, Yorkshire, was born at that place in 1783. He was educated at the Glasgow University, where he graduated. In 1811 he was presented to the perpetual curacy of the village of Maghull, near Liverpool. Living there in seclusion he read and wrote much. He succeeded his father as vicar of Horton in 1821, but resigned that living in 1825, preferring to devote himself to Maghull. He died suddenly at Maghull on 19 March 1865, aged 81. He was not married. ”

“ Whatever maybe the condition of woman, however sad her experience in life, however deplorable her lot, however low she may be sunk in degradation, it is hard to find one of her sex in whom sensibility is extinguished. With her, kindness is an instinct. The heart throbs of necessity to a story of sorrow, and the eye overflows with pity.
But the diligence of Holden was in vain, and, at last, he was obliged to confess that he knew not what further to do, unless he took his staff in hand and wandered over the world in prosecution of his search. ”

“ The boy was not successful in his answers, whereon the old astronomer took up a small stone from the garden walk: "There, my child, there is the oldest of all the things that I certainly know." On another occasion the father asked his son, "What sort of things do you think are most alike?" The boy replied, "The leaves of the same tree are most like each other." "Gather, then, a handful of leaves from that tree," rejoined the philosopher, "and choose two which are alike."—Monthly Notices Royal Astronomical Society, vol. xxxii., page 123. ↑ Memoir of Caroline Herschel, p. ”

“ HOLDEN, LUTHER (1815–1905) , surgeon, born on 11 Dec. 1816, in his grand-father's house at Birmingham, was second son of the Rev. Henry Augustus Holden (1785–1870) , who married his cousin Mary Willetts, daughter of Hyla Holden of Wednesbury in Staffordshire. His father, on retiring from the army with the rank of lieutenant, matriculated at Worcester College, Oxford, in 1814 (B.A. 1817) , and held the curacies of Wolstanton in Shropshire and of Warmington near Banbury, where he took pupils, but on being left a small fortune gave up his curacy and lived at Brighton and afterwards in London. ”

“ Why is my soul cast down, and why do I feel like one who stumbles towards a pit? Alas! my flesh quivers and my heart trembles at the thought of falling into His hands."
"It is prayer that opens heaven," said Holden. "If thou wilt, we will unite our hearts in supplication. Peradventure the Lord may send a blessing."
A mute assent was the reply from Armstrong; the three knelt down together, and Holden poured out a prayer, into which he concentrated his glowing feelings. He described themselves as covered all over with crimes, like a leprosy; as willful and determined rebels ”

“ There are times when the heart speaks rather than the judgment, and the squire's heart is very warm towards me; and though I would not doubt his sincerity it is certain that he is not impartial where I am concerned.
The Cynic looked pleased. "I quite agree, sir," he said; "Miss Holden has used her opportunities—not simply those which presented themselves, but those which she has sought and found, which is higher service. Hence, I conclude that the policy of her subconscious self has been justified, and that she is absolved from any charge of selfishness." ”

“ But then she would envy me! It is not seemly for men to worship a woman.”
91. Holden laughed aloud at Ameera’s little spasm of jealousy.
92. “Is it not seemly? Why didst thou not turn me from worship of thee, then?”
93. “Thou a worshipper! And of me? My king, for all thy sweet words, well I know that I am thy servant and thy slave, and the dust under thy feet. And I would not have it otherwise. See!”
94. Before Holden could prevent her she stooped and touched his feet; recovering herself with a little laugh she hugged Tota close to [Pg 168] her bosom. ”

“ The rains did not come, and the earth turned to iron lest man [Pg 180] should escape death by hiding in her. The English sent their wives away to the hills and went about their work, coming forward as they were bidden to fill the gaps in the fighting-line. Holden, sick with fear of losing his chiefest treasure on earth, had done his best to persuade Ameera to go away with her mother to the Himalayas. ”

“ Herschel, of Bath." They would have been praised, and they would have been doubted. It would have taken a whole generation to have appreciated them. They would have been severely tried, entirely on their merits, and finally they would have stood where they stand to-day—unrivalled. But through what increased labors these successes would have been gained! It is not merely that the patronage of the king, the subsidies for the forty-foot telescope (£4,000) , the comparative ease of Herschel's life would have been lacking. ”

“ Perhaps he places little value on his own life, but when it comes to those of a few billion people. Yes. Haine, do you think you could wreck a Geejay?"
"Wreck a—" There was the sound of hoarse breathing from a half dozen men, and Jon felt something stir inside him, but it was as though he were a thing disconnected from his physical body; that he no longer had power of decision over it. "—sure, I guess so. A double-A in reverse! Haw! Where?"
"Canis Major, Proky system, if that's where he's from."
"Don't look like a Prokyman to me." ”

“ Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.
TENNYSON. The news of the discovery of the relationship between Holden and Pownal had reached Hillsdale before their arrival, and the friends and acquaintances of both, comprising pretty much the whole village, hastened to present their congratulations. Many supposed now they had obtained a clue to the singularities of the Solitary, and expected that since he had recovered his son, he would resume the habits of ordinary life. But nothing seemed further from Holden's intention. ”