John Ames

“ Now Amos, with all his practical common-sense, I know to be unusually romantic and imaginative. He loves the mystic and the fabulous. The other day while we were fishing together—thank you, Maggie does love a fresh place for my slippers every night—the other day I discovered, from several things he said, that he was an out-and-out fatalist. But I think we can weaken his faith in all that. He is too young and healthy and has too free a mind to remain a permanent dupe. ”

“ Amos arose and stood facing them with his back against the mantel. “You are much too clever for me, Mr. Cabot. I hardly thought you could accept this explanation, but I have told you nothing but the truth.”
“My dear boy, do not think for a moment that I doubt your honesty. Older men than you, and harder-headed ones, have digested [134] more incredible things. In telling your story you ask me to believe what I consider impossible. There is no well-authenticated case on record of such a faculty. It would interfere with the workings of nature. ”

“ The legs over which he had ceased to have direction, carried him along the narrow brick walk, and one of them lifted him upon the granite doorstep.
[151] Once more he resolved, calmly and with a serious determination, that this humiliating comedy should go no farther. He would turn about and go home without entering the house. It would be well for Amos to know that an old lawyer of sixty was composed of different material from the impressionable enthusiast of twenty-seven. While making this resolve the soles of his shoes were drawing themselves across the iron scraper ”

“ Amos.
She went, and although their conversation that morning touched upon ribs and anatomy, it would, if taken as a whole, have been of little value to a scientist. It was distinctly personal. The one sentiment which appeared to have an irresistible fascination for the bull-fighter and his fiancée colored all remarks, and the fact that the dialogue would have caused them the most intense mortification if made public, tended in no degree to lessen their enjoyment. To a middle-aged person who [188] had never been in love it would have been unendurable. ”

“ He leaned back in his chair and continued, with a smile, “I suspect our guest has been reading his ‘Monte Cristo’ lately, which may account for a pardonable exaggeration in [75] a historian who means to be honest. Who told you all this, Sam? The Judds’ family cat?”
Mr. Fettiplace drew his hand slowly across his forehead and closed his blue eyes, as if hesitating for a reply. “There is so much that is hard to believe connected with Amos that one ought to prepare his audience before talking about him. ”

“ The brilliant crown of the debate was the impassioned speech of Fisher Ames, the impression of which upon the House and the crowded gallery is one of the traditions of American oratory. The scene, as it has been handed down to us, resembles, in all save its close, that which Parliament presented when Chatham made his last and dying appeal. Like the great earl, Ames rose pale and trembling from illness to address a House angry and divided. Defending himself and the Federal party against the charge of being in English interest, he said, “Britain has no influence, and can have none. ”

“ Ames's consciousness. "I just wondered," he said, suddenly. "What will happen to Don—I mean, the reject you sent us. Will he be—uh—destroyed?"
The coordinator laughed. "Heavens, no, Mr. Ames," she said, lightly. "He'll be sent to the Biological Reservation and allowed to live out his life span with other rejects. He'll be much happier there. We're not savages, you know."
"That's right," Mr. Ames said, his tone matching her brightness. "We're not savages. ”

“ So, likewise, was the mind of John relieved by the angel who came to him and said, “I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her;” for as the curtain was lifted the doom of Babylon was revealed to him and the mystery was solved.
But, however plain the mystery was to him, it is assuredly not equally so to us. The explanation which suggests itself to us the most readily is not necessarily the most correct one ”

“ Ames is still in Congress; John Harmon continues to enjoy his comfortable quarters at the seat of Government. Tim Blake remains the efficient post master of Harrowfork, with the young man of strict temperance principles for his assistant; and Atkins still edits the Goblet.
This powerful organ has of late regained something of its former popularity and patronage; but whether it will support Ames at the next Congressional election, depends upon Blake; whether Blake retains his office, depends upon Ames ”

“ The tones of Father Burke’s voice were, in themselves, almost sufficient for the purpose. Deep, calm, mellow, ravishingly sympathetic, they played like celestial zephyrs upon the chords of the maiden’s heart. They filled the inmost recesses of her soul with security and peace. ”

“ We wandered along through the thick grass, Nofuhl and I, much excited over our discoveries and delighted with the strange scene. The sunshine is of dazzling brightness, birds are singing everywhere, and the ruins are gay with gorgeous wild flowers. ”

“ There was evidently an understanding between the partners that there should be four principal agents charged with the preparations for, and carrying out of, the enterprise,—Thomas Weston and Christopher Martin representing the Adventurers and the colonists who were recruited in England (Martin being made treasurer) , while Carver and Cushman acted for the Leyden company. John Pierce seems to have been the especial representative of the Adventurers in the matter of the obtaining of the Patent from the (London) Virginia Company, and later from the Council for New England. ”

“ Here is another characteristic passage from Ames, who accurately expressed New England Federalist sentiment: "The second French and first American Revolution is now commencing.... The extinction of Federalism would be followed by the ruin of the wise, rich, and good." ”

“ We have seen that the "pilot," John Clarke, was employed by Weston and Cushman, even before the vessel upon which he was to serve had been found, and he had hence the distinction of being the first man "shipped" of the MAY-FLOWER'S complement. It is evident that he was promptly hired on its being known that he had recently returned from a voyage to Virginia in the cattle-ship FALCON, as certain to be of value in the colonists' undertakings. ”

“ On sea and sky a more melancholy tone had come,–dull, slaty grays crowding in from every quarter. And over the darkening waters there seemed a tragic note, half-threatening, intensified by every plunge of the steamer and by the swish of waters very near the deck. ”

“ Bradford uses the terms, the “biger ship,” or the “larger ship,” and Winslow, Cushman, Captain John Smith, and others mention simply the “vessel,” or the “ship,” when speaking of the MAY-FLOWER, but in no case give her a name.
It is somewhat startling to find so thorough-paced an Englishman as Thomas Carlyle calling her the MAY-FLOWER “of Delft-Haven,” as in the quotation from him on a preceding page. That he knew better cannot be doubted, and it must be accounted one of those ‘lapsus calami’ readily forgiven to genius,—proverbially indifferent to detail. ”

“ For a time Elinor sat with folded hands gazing dreamily beyond the point over the distant gulf, a dazzling, vivid blue beneath the July sun. When at last she turned with a question upon her lips and saw the closed eyes and tranquil breathing of the convalescent, she held her peace. Then came a drowsy sense of her own fatigue. Cautiously, that the sleeper might not awake, she also reclined, at full length, and closed her eyes. Delicious was the soft air: restful the carpet of pine-needles. No cradle-song could be more soothing than the muffled voices of the pines: and the lady slept. ”

“ Judge therefore we beseech you indifferently of things, and if a faulte have bene comited, lay it where it is, & not upon us, who have more cause to stand for ye one, then you have for ye other. We never gave Robart Cushman comission to make any one article for us, but only sent him to receive moneys upon articles before agreed on, and to further ye provissions till John Carver came, and to assiste him in it. ”

“ Walking farther on, into the wood, she became more and more impressed by the solemn beauty of this paradise. And the carpet of pine-needles seemed placed there with kind intent as if to insure a deeper silence. She resolved to spend much of her time in these woods, and, even now, she found herself almost regretting the proximity of her friends. ”

“ Among the pines, in the solemn shade of this cathedral, grander and more impressive than any human temple, moved the little procession.
No requiem; only the murmuring in the boughs above, those far-away voices, dearer to him, perhaps,–and to his companion in the grave beside,–than all other music. ”

“ This mound was also covered with pine-needles, as if Nature were helping some one to forget.
The silence of this spot, the murmuring of the wind among the branches high above, all tended to a somewhat mournful revery; and she wondered how this empty grave had been cheated of its tenant. With reverence she gazed upon the primitive wooden cross, evidently put together by inexperienced hands. Then she looked upward, as if to question the voices in the boughs above. But of the empty grave and its companion the whispering pines told nothing. ”

“ It was the wisest and most unpopular act of Adams's troubled Administration.
The leading Federalist politicians were enraged. Indeed, "the whole [Federalist] party were prodigiously alarmed." [957] They thought it a national humiliation. What! said they, kiss the hand that had slapped our face! "The new embassy ... disgusts most men here," reported Ames from New [Pg 424] England. [958] Cabot confirmed Ames's doleful message—"Surprise, indignation, grief, & disgust followed each other in swift succession in the breasts of the true friends of our country," he advised King. ”

“ Cyrus, more than other boys, was a lover of beautiful things. Flowers, pictures, music, color, all gave him pleasure. In the presence of an American sunset he would sit in solemn adoration. To this lover of beautiful things Ruth's eyes were as windows of heaven. Into them he could look and wonder; quit the earth and imagine all things. They soothed and stirred his fancy like summer skies and solemn woods—or flowers and thunderstorms. ”

“ Painful realities soon shake men out of such sunny dreams, and banish such fond illusions as did the murder of Abel, the lusting after the fleshpots of Egypt, the imprisonment of Peter, the defection of Ananias, the martyrdom of Stephen and James. ”

“ He then drank the wine, and so did Lev-el-Hedyd.
Hereupon the others smiled as if at their comrade's wit, all save the women, whose tender faces spoke more of pity than of mirth. The wine flew to his brain as he drank it, and things about him seemed to reel and spin. Strains of fantastic music burst upon his ears: then, all in rhythm, the women joined their partners and whirled about him with a lightsome step. ”

“ As she swept with a rustle of silk along the huge, round, crimson carpet, she remembered how deeply she had been impressed in former years by the knowledge that it was made in England expressly for this room. The perfect stillness was broken only by herself as she moved out into the wide circle of mysterious faces. ”

“ Molly hastened to his side and bent over him with an anxious question. In the full rays of the moon her head and neck with the white dress were almost luminous against the dim recesses of the room behind; and his eyes rested with a dazed, half-frightened look on the diamond crescent, then fell to her face, and up again to the jewels in her hair. With an effort he laid a hand upon her shoulder and answered, with a feeble smile, “The end has come, my Moll.” ”

“ They strode the public streets with roving eyes and unblushing faces, holding free converse with men as with women, bold of speech and free of manner, going and coming as it pleased them best. They knew much of the world, managed their own affairs, and devised their own marriages, often changing their minds and marrying another than the betrothed. ”

“ Pats’s wandering eyes encountered a lady in a chair. She sat facing him, a few feet away, her head resting easily against the carved woodwork behind, a hand upon each arm of the seat. She was asleep. In this golden mist she seemed to the half-dreaming man a vision from another world–something too good to be true–a divine presence that might vanish if he moved. ”

“ Here, in the woods, was protection from the wind, but the branches aloft were moving and tossing from the fury of the gale above. The usual murmuring of the pines had become a roar. Great drops of rain, shaken from this surging vault, fell in fitful but copious showers. This constant roar,–not unlike the ocean in a gale,–the sombre light, the helpless and perhaps dying man before her, the chill and mortal dampness of all and everything around, for an instant congealed her courage and took away her strength. ”

“ It arrogates to itself the right to the whole of man’s being—to all beauty and life, to all literature and art, to all recreation and enjoyment, to the exclusive and undivided use and administration of all earthly powers and faculties. ”