James

“ James understood every art and craft of popularity, and made himself mightily at home in all the chimney corners of the region round about; knew the geography of every body's cider barrel and apple bin, helping himself and every one else therefrom with all bountifulness; rejoicing in the good things of this life, devouring the old ladies' doughnuts and pumpkin pies with most flattering appetite, and appearing equally to relish every body and thing that came in his way. ”

“ I watched James pacing back and forth, with disquiet steps, through the frozen walks of the garden; presently he lit a cigar, and went out on the lawn, and from thence into the streets. His was one of those minds which do not like their own company when they are uneasy. How he managed to while away the day I do not know; to me it was long and oppressive; Mary remained up stairs with her sister; Mr. Argyll sat in the library with a book, which he held open but did not read. ”

“ And now James draws a wonderfully vivid picture of the idle hearers, the hangers-on in revival meetings, like the scum that comes first to the surface, lighthearted, impulsive, nonchalant, without depth of purpose or seriousness in life. Such a frivolous listener glances at his face in a mirror, taking note to see that he looks natural and proper. A quick look 69 suffices for that, for “his natural face,” the face of his birth, the only one that he has. If nothing is awry about his appearance reflected in the mirror, he is satisfied (or dissatisfied) with the momentary glance. ”

“ When the news that James had arrived in Ireland reached London, the sorrow and alarm were general, and were mingled with serious discontent. The multitude, not making sufficient allowance for the difficulties by which William was encompassed on every side, loudly blamed his neglect. To all the invectives of the ignorant and malicious he opposed, as was his wont, nothing but immutable gravity and the silence of profound disdain. But few minds had received from nature a temper so firm as his; and still fewer had undergone so long and so rigorous a discipline. ”

“ Then James condescended to lift the weight of fear from their hearts, for he meant to give the puritans a sound flagellation: the truth could no longer be disguised. He avowed to them that he was a sincere convert to the church of England, and thanked God who had brought him to the promised land, to a country where religion was purely professed, and where he sate among grave, reverend, and learned men; not as before, elsewhere, a king without state, without honour, and without order, and braved to his face by beardless boys under the garb of ministers. ”

“ James's court was as great in inconsistency as himself. His father's grossness, his mother's refinement, and the faults common to both, were equally to be seen in it—drunkenness and poetry, dirt and splendour, impiety with claims to religion, favouritism without principle, the coarsest and most childish buffoonery, and the exquisite fancies of the masque. ”

“ Ha! Sir James yonder on the terrace, and alone! Let me examine his countenance:—I see no clouds;—this is the time, if ever!—Miss Warley not yet come up from Jenkings's!—If successful, with what transports shall I run to fetch her!—Yes, I will venture;—I will have one trial, as I hope for mercy.—
As I hope for mercy, I see, were my last words.—I do indeed hope for it, but never from Sir James. ”

“ There be birds in the air to carry such words whither ye would not. If God has thought good to take one monarch to Himself, He has given us another of the same name and race to set upon the throne. Let us thank Him from our hearts for this great goodness, and cry aloud in joy and gratitude, 'Long live King James!'"
As he spoke he lifted his hat and waved it above his head, and all who wore theirs instinctively uncovered, and many amongst us, led by the hearty voice of my uncle, strove to raise the shout, "Long live King James the Second!" ”

“ When the "Psychology" was drawing to its completion, James wrote two sentences about his difficulties to his brother Henry. They might equally well have been written at any other time during the eighties. "I have," he said, "to forge every sentence in the teeth of irreducible and stubborn facts. It is like walking through the densest brush-wood." ”

“ James farther examplifies in his epistle; 'You have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, how he is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.' Here you have seen the great distress of Deidamia; and here you have seen the goodness of God in her deliverance. Here you have seen the Count Alanson, rifled of all his estates and possessions; and here you have seen how God has graciously made it up: in giving him that faith which is far more precious than the gold which perisheth. ”

“ It was James's habit to disconcert his opponent by a rush of talk while he himself made certain of his next move. Nothing flusters a man more, James considered, than to brush aside his attempts to explain himself. But now the arguments, the things he could say to Mary, were springing up, were marshalling themselves in his mind, demanding expression. ”

“ Others may dwell on the illustrious deeds of James as a warrior and a legislator; but I have delighted to view him merely as the companion of his fellow-men, the benefactor of the human heart, stooping from his high estate to sow the sweet flowers of poetry and song in the paths of common life. He was the first to cultivate the vigorous and hardy plant of Scottish genius, which has since become so prolific of the most wholesome and highly flavored fruit. ”

“ To find that James had — sneaked his girl!
Time passed. John tried his grief to drown;
To-day James owns one-half the town;
His army contracts riches yield;
And John? Well, search the Potter's Field. ”

“ James, a strong, intelligent-looking man, gazes in utter despair upon his youngest child, who clings to him in distress. Poor little Jane! At the youthful age of seven, thou shalt already drink the bitter cup! ”

“ Nothing is unalterable, except the heaven above my head, and even it, James, is hardly, methinks, at times, the same as in former days or nights. There is not much difference in the clouds, James, but the blue sky, I must confess, is not quite so very blue as it was sixty years since; and the sun, although still a glorious luminary, has lost a leetle—of his lustre. ”

“ Now, this James is to be our hero, and he is just the hero for a sensation—at least, so you would have thought, if you had been in Newbury the week after his arrival. Master James was one of those whole-hearted, energetic Yankees, who rise in the world as naturally as cork does in water. He possessed a great share of that characteristic national trait so happily denominated "cuteness," which signifies an ability to do every thing without trying, and to know every thing without learning, and to make more use of one's ignorance than other people do of their knowledge. ”

“ Though if Sir James was a squeamish man—which he is not, for no man ever braved the pillory with all its unsavoury accidents with a stronger stomach—then would he never again behold the Queen’s head upon the red post-stamp without thinking of human blood! ”

“ With James the source of wisdom is God, not the Jews. So then, when our supply runs short, ask of God. It is like a bank to which we go to get our money. God is the banker whose supply of wisdom never gives out. Unlike other bankers, he asks no security save the name of Jesus. ”

“ There was nothing monstrous about it, she told herself, nothing more strange, nothing more unbelievable, than that she had been a fool. James cared for the thing he had created, for his achievement, his title to respect in the eyes of the world. Any man can marry a wife, any man can beget children, but James had built up this business with the strength of his manhood, and now the business made James a powerful man. ”

“ James, with his splendid equipment and beautiful genius, should have devoted himself so sedulously, in his own performances in fiction, to the contemplation of cramped foreign vistas and exotic types, when all this wide, surging, eager, laboring America lay ready to his hand. ”

“ James has just been sketching with much beauty the excellences of the heavenly wisdom, and especially its marked characteristic of always tending to produce an atmosphere of peace, in which the seed that produces the fruit of righteousness will grow and flourish. ”

“ James, unable to resist so strong a combination as that of his people, his parliament, his son, and his favorite, had been compelled to embrace measures for which, from temper as well as judgment, he had ever entertained a most settled aversion. Though he dissembled his resentment, he began to estrange himself from Buckingham, to whom he ascribed all those violent counsels, and whom he considered as the author, both of the prince’s journey to Spain, and of the breach of the marriage treaty. ”

“ James justly regarded these renegades as the most serviceable tools that he could employ. It was not from the stouthearted Cavaliers, who had been true to him in his adversity, that he could expect abject and unscrupulous obedience in his prosperity. The men who, impelled, not by zeal for liberty or for religion, but merely by selfish cupidity and selfish fear, had assisted to oppress him when he was weak, were the very men who, impelled by the same cupidity and the same fear, would assist him to oppress his people now that he was strong. ”

“ There was none to question the supremacy of James the Fifth. At the age of twenty-two he now sat firmly on his throne. He was at peace with England, friendly with France, and was pledged to take a wife from that country. His great grandfather, James the Second, had crushed the Black Douglas, and he himself had scattered the Red Douglas to exile. No Scottish noble was now powerful enough to threaten the stability of the throne. The country was contented and prosperous, so James might well take his pleasure as best pleased him. ”

“ Of James’s original development as a medium I know nothing, as I first knew him in his abnormal character, in which he was truly marvelous, being perfectly familiar with all languages, living and dead, and with all subjects—religion, science, philosophy, and ethics. ”

“ Sir James was one of those primitive men, much more usual a generation ago than now, whose knowledge of life, which to his own thinking was profound and extensive, left out the greater part of what in our days is known as life at all. He knew Scotland and India, and nothing more. ”

“ James to remind us of their true nature and of their certain consequences. As regards others, such things wound tender hearts, add needlessly and enormously to the unhappiness of mankind, turn sweet affections sour, stifle good impulses, create and foster bad feelings, embitter in its smallest details the whole round of daily life. As regards ourselves, indulgence in such language weakens and warps our characters, blunts our sympathies, deadens our love for man, and therefore our love for God. ”

“ William James of Albany was at that time approaching the term of his remarkably fruitful career, and as I see the fruits of it stated on the morrow of his death—in the New York Evening Post of December 20th 1832, for instance, I find myself envying the friendly youth who could bring his modest Irish kin such a fairytale from over the sea. I attach as I hang upon the passage a melancholy gaze to the cloud of images of what might have been for us all that it distractingly throws off. ”

“ James liked the boy, and said "the lad would make a fine man if he lived." Every one liked him, for he was a jolly good fellow, beloved by one and all, as all sunny-dispositioned persons are, welcomed everywhere for the pleasant brightness their presence throws around. ”

“ James seems to have thought that the strongest proof of kindness which he could give to heretics who had resigned wealth, country, family, for his sake, was to suffer them to be beset, on their dying beds, by his priests. If some sick man, helpless in body and in mind, and deafened by the din of bad logic and bad rhetoric, suffered a wafer to be thrust into his mouth, a great work of grace was triumphantly announced to the Court; and the neophyte was buried with all the pomp of religion. ”

“ James was a churchman—’twas his pride and boast;
Loyal his heart, and “Church and King” his toast;
He for Religion might not warmly feel,
But for the Church he had abounding zeal.
Yet no dissenting sect would he condemn, 130
“They’re nought to us,” said he, “nor we to them;
’Tis innovation of our own I hate,
Whims and inventions of a modern date.
“Why send you Bibles all the world about,
That men may read amiss, and learn to doubt?
Why teach the children of the poor to read,
That a new race of doubters may succeed? ”

“ The rage of James flamed high. He had always been more than sufficiently prone to the angry passions. But none of his enemies, not even those who had conspired against his life, not even those who had attempted by perjury to load him with the guilt of treason and assassination, had ever been regarded by him with such animosity as he now felt for Burnet. His Majesty railed daily at the Doctor in unkingly language, and meditated plans of unlawful revenge. Even blood would not slake that frantic hatred. The insolent divine must be tortured before he was permitted to die. ”

“ His one great weakness was these spells of unaccountable silence.
The outstanding feature of James's personality was his ability to see all sides of a proposition. Of all the twelve, he came the nearest to grasping the real import and significance of Jesus' teaching. He, too, was slow at first to comprehend the Master's meaning, but ere they had finished their training, he had acquired a superior concept of Jesus' message. James was able to understand a wide range of human nature; he got along well with the versatile Andrew, the impetuous Peter, and his self-contained brother John. ”