John Stanley

“ Margaret, daughter and heiress of Hugh Owen of Penrhos, 1763, 10 Stanley, Lady Margaret Owen, born 1742, 10 Stanley, Sir John T., 7th Bart., 1st Lord Stanley of Alderley, m. 1796 Lady Maria Josepha Holroyd, daughter of Lord Sheffield, 15 Stanley, Lady Maria Josepha, 15, 26, 74, 76, 78, 84, 89, 96, 235, 248, 260, 273, 281, 301 Stanley, Edward, naturalist and ornithologist, son of Sir John Stanley, 6th Bart. ”

“ Slowly the footsteps and voices receded along the lane; slowly, until silence swallowed them, and on the quivering strained senses of the two who remained behind, descended the gentle influence of twilight and the sweet scent of the new-mown hay on which they lay.
La Tribe turned to his companion, his eyes shining. "Our soul is escaped," he murmured, "even as a bird out of the snare of the fowler. The snare is broken and we are delivered!" His voice shook as he whispered the ancient words of triumph.
But when they came to look in the nest at Tignonville's feet there was no egg! ”

“ Only in moments of forgetfulness could the Dean now walk in his Close of Bicester with the grace of old times.
But on this particular morning the sunshine was so pleasant, the wind so balmy, that he walked halfway across the Close as if the river of Lethe flowed fathoms deep over Mr. Swainson's plot. Then it chanced that his eyes in a heedless moment rested upon the enclosure: and he saw that a man was at work in it, and he paused. The Dean knew Mr. Swainson too well to trust him. ”

“ Alban’s Court, Nonington, near Canterbury. Following the almost unbroken law of the heredity of genius, Stanley derived his chief mental qualities from his mother; and through her he was nearly related to the poets George Sandys, William Hammond, Sir John Marsham the chronologer, Richard Lovelace and his less famous brother; as, through his father, to a fellow-poet perhaps dearer to him than any of these, Sir Edward Sherburne.
His tutor, at home, not at College, was William Fairfax, son of the translator of Tasso. ”

“ Its rays, aided by the clearness of the air, brought out the colors of stubble and field, flood and coppice, that lay below. And men looking up from toil or pleasure, leaning on spades or pausing before they crossed a stile, saw the Gatehouse transformed to a fairy lodge, gray, clear—cut, glittering, breaking the line of forest trees—saw it as if it had stood in another world.
Mary looked back, looked forward, admired, descended. ”

“ After this it fared with us as it fares at last with the driftwood that chance or the woodman's axe has given to a forest stream in Heritzburg. After rippling over the shallows and shooting giddily down slopes--or perchance lying cooped for days in some dark bend, until the splash of the otter or the spring freshet has sent it dancing on in sunshine and shadow--it reaches at last the Werra. It floats out on the bosom of the great stream, and no longer tossed and chafed by each tiny pebble, feels the force of wind and stream--the great forces of the world. ”

“ I forced myself to speak, though I was trembling all over like a man in an ague. ‘No, Mademoiselle, there is no one here,’ I muttered. ‘There is no one here.’ And then I let my head fall on my breast, and I stood before her, the statue of despair. Had she felt a grain of suspicion, a grain of doubt, my bearing must have opened her eyes; but her mind was cast in so noble a mould that, having once thought ill of me and been converted, she could feel no doubt again. She must trust all in all. ”

“ In the Thirty Acres which climbed the hill above them, the thrushes were singing their May-day song, and beside them the brook rippled and sparkled in the sunshine. All Nature rejoiced, and the pulse of youth leapt to the universal rhythm. ”

“ The great bed with its drab hangings, the lofty press with its brass handles, the dark Windsor chairs, now lurked in and now sprang from the shadows, as the fire flickered up or sank. On the verge of the circle of light the butler moved mysteriously, now appearing, now disappearing; now coming forward to set an inkstand and goose-quills beside the decanter, now withdrawing to pile unseen plates upon an unseen tray. ”

“ It will be noticed that there is one sad devotional poem in this book, ‘The lazy hours move slow’; and as it appears only in John Gamble’s book, 1657, it may fairly be inferred that it was written later than the other lyrics. In 1657 Stanley was two-and-thirty, and his singing-time, so far as we know, was over. He had discharged it well. He fails where any true artist may ever be expected to fail, in verses occasional and complimentary. ”

“ I am jealous of the wind that caresses your cheek, of the carpet that feels your tread, of the star that peeps in at your window! I am jealous of all who come near you, or speak to you, or look at you! ”

“ It was groping and feeling about like a hunted mole for some way of escape. For time pressed. The slope we were on was growing steeper. By-and-bye we fell into a southward valley, and began to follow it steadily upwards, crossing and recrossing a swiftly rushing stream. The snow-peaks began to be hidden behind the rising bulk of hills that overhung us; and sometimes we could see nothing before or behind but the wooded walls of our valley rising sheer and green a thousand paces on either hand, with grey rocks half masked by fern and ivy getting here and there through the firs and alders. ”

“ One source from whence we have derived some information, though well known to the comparative few who have explored these by-paths of history, may not be thought uninteresting to the general reader, especially as it is connected with the most eventful portion of our narrative.
An ancient metrical account of the Stanleys, Earls of Derby, is contained in some uncouth rhymes, written about the year 1562, by Thomas Stanley, Bishop of Sodor and Man, [12] and son of that Sir Edward Stanley, who, for his valour at Flodden, was created Lord Monteagle. ”

“ To name his familiar associates is to call up a bright and thoughtful pageant, for they include, besides Lovelace and Suckling and Sherburne, the Bromes; James Shirley; John Davies of Kidwelly; John Hall of Durham, better remembered now as the friend of Hobbes than as the prodigy his generation thought him; and the genial Edward Phillips, the nephew of Milton. Though Stanley knew how to protest manfully when the profits of his mental labours were in danger of being withdrawn from him, yet he sought none of the usual awards of life, and never increased his patrimony. ”

“ His eyes looked askance, like the eyes of a beast in a snare—seeking a weapon, or a throat! To be butchered thus! To be butchered thus!
Perhaps Colonel John, notwithstanding his calm courage, had the same thought, and found it bitter. Death had been good in the face of silent thousands, with pride and high resolve for cheer. Or in the heat of a fight for the right, where it came unheeded and almost unfelt. But here on the bog, in the mist, unknown, unnoticed, to perish and be forgotten in a week, even by the savage hands that took their breath! ”

“ On dark days it broke the fringe of woodland and stood up, gloomy and forbidding, the portal of a Doubting Castle. On bright days, with its hundred diamond panes a-glitter in the sunshine, it seemed to be the porch of a fairy palace, the silent home of some Sleeping Beauty. At all times it imposed itself upon men below and spoke of something beyond, something unseen, greater, mysterious.
To Mary Audley, who saw it at its best, the very stains of the plaster glorified by the morning light, it was a thing of joy. ”

“ The clammy vapour chilled them to the bone: while the unceasing wailing of seagulls, borne off the lough, the whistle of an unseen curlew on the hillside, the hurtle of wings as some ghostly bird swept over them—these were sounds to deepen the effect, and depress men who had reason to suspect that they were being led to a treacherous end. ”

“ But in early spring no window in Paris looked on a scene more cheerful than this window; which as from an eyrie commanded a shining reach of the Seine bordered by the lawns and foliage of the King’s Garden, and closed by the graceful arches of the Bridge of Austerlitz. On the water boats shot to and fro. The quays were gay with the red trousers of soldiers and the coquettish caps of soubrettes, with students in strange cloaks, and the twinkling wheels of yellow cabriolets. ”

“ I had thought, while I listened and wondered, of more than one whom this might be: the leech, Simon Fleix, Madame Bruhl, Fresnoy even. But as the tap came, and I felt my mother tremble in my arms, enlightenment came with it, and I pondered no more. I knew as well as if she had spoken and told me. There could be only one man whose presence had such power to terrify her, only one whose mere step, sounding through the veil, could drag her back to consciousness and fear! ”

“ And I heard screams of men in the death-throe, ear-piercing shrieks of women--shrieks that chilled the blood and stopped the breath--mad laughter, sounds of the pit. But to rise was to court instant death, and, though I had no hope and no looking forward, my momentary passion had spent itself and I lay quiet. ”

“ It was Fulbert. As the men, of whom some were saddling--for the light was beginning to appear--pressed forward to look, the steward crawled out of the gloom about the brook, and, raising himself on one hand, made painful efforts to speak. He looked like a dead man risen; nor did the uncertain light of the lanthorns take from the horror of his appearance. Probably he had been left for dead, for the smashing blow of some blunt weapon had beaten in one temple and flooded his face and beard with blood. The Abbess, faint and sick, appalled by this first sign of her handiwork, hid her eyes. ”

“ The sunshine which reached my watery eyes was softened by its passage through great trees, which grew and expanded as I gazed up into them, until each became a verdant world, with all a world's diversity of life. ”

“ Men, busy as devils, black against the light, were plying the fire with straw. Beyond the dovecot, an outhouse and a stack were blazing; and nearer, immediately before the house, a crowd of moving figures were hurrying to and fro, some battering the doors and windows, others bringing fuel, all moving, yelling, laughing--laughing the laughter of fiends to the music of crackling flames and shivering glass. ”

“ Death, not in the arena, not in the sight of shouting thousands, but in this darkening street, with an enemy laughing from the window, death with no revenge to follow, with no certainty that after all she would be safe, such a death could be compassed only by pure love--the love of a child for a parent, of a parent for a child, of a man for the one woman in the world! ”

“ My brain seemed to be a cavern into which each moment, with a rhythmical regularity which added the pangs of anticipation to those of reality, the sea rushed, booming and thundering, jarring every nerve and straining the walls to bursting, and making each moment of consciousness a vivid agony. ”

“ Men, topping and tailing turnips, stood and watched them from the fields, a gleam of December sunrise warmed the landscape. To the tedious nightmare of the long, dark hours, with their endless stages and sleepy turn-outs and shadowy postillions, their yawning inns and midnight meals, had succeeded sober daylight, plodding realities, waking life; and Clement should have owned the relief. ”

“ It was, indeed, as full as it could be, for the surrender of Paris being momentarily expected, St. Cloud had become the rendezvous as well of the few who had long followed a principle as of the many who wait upon success. The streets, crowded in, every part, shone with glancing colours, with steel and velvet, the garb of fashion and the plumes of war. Long lines of flags obscured the eaves and broke the sunshine, while, above all, the bells of half a dozen churches rang merry answer to the distant crash of guns. ”

“ When Henrietta rose on the second morning of her imprisonment, and opened her door and looked out, she met with an unpleasant surprise. Snow had fallen in the night, and lay almost an inch deep in the yard. The sheet of dazzling white cast the dingy spiked wall and the mean cell-doors into grey relief. But it was not this contrast, nor the memory of childish winters with their pleasures—though that memory took her by the throat and promised to choke her—that filled her with immediate dismay. ”

“ The shadow of the things which stood before the cathedral affronting the sunlight with their gaunt black shapes lay across the length and breadth of Angers. Even in the corners where men whispered, even in the cloisters where men bit their nails in impotent anger, the stillness of fear ruled all. Whatever Count Hannibal had it in his mind to tell the city, it seemed unlikely—and hour by hour it seemed less likely—that any would contradict him. ”

“ Doubtless it was grass I trod, and the wood was before me with the sun shining aslant on it; doubtless the house rose behind me with a flame here and there in the windows. But I went in a dream, among shadows; with a racing pulse, in a glow from head to heel; conscious of nothing but the touch of Mademoiselle’s warm lips on my hand, seeing neither meadow nor house, nor even the dark fringe of wood before me, but only Mademoiselle’s passionate face. ”

“ This daughter of the windswept shore, of the misty hills and fairy glens, whose life from infancy had been bare and rugged and solitary, had become, for that reason, a dreamer of dreams and a worshipper of the ideal Ireland, her country, her faith. The salt breeze that lashed her cheeks and tore at her hair, the peat reek and the soft shadows of the bogland—ay, and many an hour of lonely communing—had filled her breast with love; such love as impels rather to suffering and to sacrifice than to enjoyment. ”