John Wood

“ Wood kept in his possession a deed, signed by the agent of William Penn, who acted as executor of John Fenwick, conveying a lot of ground forming a part of his Greenwich farm.
In each generation, the heads of this family in New Jersey have been men of consideration and local distinction. Richard Wood, the father of the subject of this memoir, was a man of superior mind and strong character, much respected by all who knew him. He was described by an acquaintance, speaking of him to Dr. Wood, as "a prince of a man." He married twice. ”

“ In the broad light of the bustling day, if we by chance glance back at our evening fancies--seeming true enough then--it is with a shrug of compassion at their folly. All the time Mr. St. John was dressing, the sun shining gaily into his chamber, he was feeling rather ashamed of himself. How could he have allowed those horrible thoughts to obtain a moment's ascendency the previous night? Was he not doing Mrs. Carleton an unpardonable injury? He had positively no grounds whatever to go upon, except that past communication made by Rose, which might have had no truth in it. ”

“ The intensely serene look that for some time now had taken possession of his face, I had never seen surpassed in boy or man.
“How quiet the house is, Johnny!” he said, touching my hand. “Where are they all?”
“Helen and Anna went out to ask after Mrs. Frost and Barrington. And the boys—but I think you know it—have gone with Sir John to Evesham. You wouldn’t call the house quiet, John, if you could hear the row going on in the nursery.”
He smiled a little. “Charley’s a dreadful Turk: none of us elder ones were ever half as bad. Where’s the mother?” ”

“ He complains of what seems to have been a sentence of rustication passed upon him at some period in his academical career, in his address to the gentlemen scholars of Oxford affixed to the second edition of the first part of Euphues, but in the absence of any further evidence it is impossible to fix either its date or its cause. If we are to believe Wood, he never took kindly to the proper studies of the university. ”

“ The declaration of authorship came as a surprise, for the tales, which are subdued, quite unmelodramatic, and, at their best, approximate Mrs. Gaskell's in manner, had been held by some of the critics to exhibit qualities in which Mrs. Wood was believed to be deficient.
Shortly after her husband's death in 1866, Mrs. Henry Wood removed from Kensington to St. John's Wood Park, South Hampstead. There she lived for the remainder of her life, working assiduously at her novels. As may be gathered from their pages, she was a strictly orthodox churchwoman and a strong conservative. ”

“ Wood continued in the exercise of the foresaid offices, until 1663, when, by the instigation of bishop Sharp, he got a charge to appear before the council on the twenty-third of July, to answer to several things laid to his charge; and though Mr. Sharp was indebted to Mr. Wood for any reputation he had, and was under as great obligations to him as one man could be to another, for they had been more than ordinarily familiar, yet now the primate could not bear his continuing any longer there, and he caused cite him before the council. ”

“ His father was a younger son of Alexander Rushworth of Coley Hall in the parish of Halifax, Yorkshire. John is said by Wood to have been educated at Oxford, but his name does not appear in the matriculation lists. He was created M.A. on 21 May 1649, being described as a member of Queen's College, and secretary to Lord Fairfax (Wood, Athenæ, iv. 280; Fasti, ii. 137) . Rushworth was bred to the law, and on 13 April 1638 was appointed solicitor to the town of Berwick-on-Tweed at a salary of 4l. per annum (Berwick Records) . ”

“ They are full of the most shocking indecencies. Wood sums up his character thus: ‘He had all the advantages imaginable tendered to him to tread in the steps of his virtuous father, but his nature being vile, he proved no better all his lifetime than an atheistical buffoon, a banterer, and a person of over free thoughts.’ It has been assumed, and may be true, that he was the John Donne who married Mary Staples at Camberwell 27 March 1627. ”

“ John.
"Do I want you! I never wanted any one so much in my life. Has Mrs. St. John been telling you that Frederick has disappeared?"
"Yes. She thinks he has gone to London."
"What nonsense!" ejaculated Georgina, pushing back her bonnet from her flaming cheeks. "As if he would go off to London in that manner! I have come to tell you about him, Mr. St. John. He had no one to trust, and so he trusted me. He could not send a letter to await you, lest Mrs. St. John should open it. He is at the Barley Mow all this time; a prisoner."
"A what!" exclaimed Mr. St. John. ”

“ There was nothing he liked so much as looking at these beautiful sunsets.
“Go and play for me, will you, Johnny?”
The piano was at the far end of the room in the shade. My [458] playing is really nothing. It was nothing to speak of then, it is nothing to speak of now: but it is soft and soothing; and some people like it. John could play a little himself, but it was too much exertion for him now. They had tried to teach Bill. He was kept hammering at it for half a year, and then the music master told Sir John that he’d rather teach a post. So Bill was released. ”

“ I am not going to begin to shut up doors and windows, John Bent, to please you or anybody else."
Thus put down, John resigned himself to his paper again. He was a spare, middle-sized man, some few years older than his wife, with a red healthy face and scanty grey hair. Presently he laid the newspaper aside, and sat watching his wife's nimble fingers.
"Dorothy, woman, when those shrimps are done, you might send a pot of 'em over to poor Sister Mildred. She's uncommon weak, they say." ”

“ Wood says he was ‘esteemed by his contemporaries a tolerable disputant; but, his speech being disliked by the godly party of those times, he was expelled from the university in 1658.’ He was presented, before March 1660, by John Worsley of Gatcombe, to the rectory of Newport, Isle of Wight. ”

“ Wood served with distinction in the Mediterranean from 1806 until 1808; he then went to Portugal, took part in Sir John Moore's campaign, was at the battle of Coruña on 16 Jan. 1809, and returned with the British army to England. In July he was in the expedition under the Earl of Chatham to Walcheren, and was at the siege of Flushing and its capture on 14 Aug. He was knighted on 22 May 1812. He commanded the royal artillery of the army under Sir Thomas Graham (afterwards Lord Lynedoch) [q. v.] ”

“ Do not blame him: man cannot act against his nature; least of all when in the heyday of youth.
He could not offer a churlish reception to his visitors, who had journeyed far to sojourn with him. They were of the world, and expected to be entertained. Mr. St. John invited people to the Hall to meet them; and went out with them in return. In July the county families began to seek their homes after the whirl of the London season, bringing their guests with them, and gay parties were the rule of the hour. Archery, boating, lawn dances, dinners ”

“ John told them he should prefer to go back, and laughed a little at this fuss being made over him: he should soon be all right, he said; people were apt to lose strength more or less in the spring. He was sixteen then, a slender, upright boy, with a delicate, thoughtful face, dreamy, grey-blue eyes and brown hair, and he was ever gentle, sweet-tempered, and considerate. Sir John related to the Squire what the doctors had said, avowing that he could not “make much out of it.” ”

“ I thought she might: and I got Miss Deb to think so. She’ll—she’ll—”
“She’ll what?” asked John Massingbird.
“She’ll be a thorn in Lionel’s side, I’m afraid.”
“Nothing more likely,” acquiesced easy John. “Roses and thorns go together. If gentlemen will marry the one, they must expect to get their share of the other.”
Jan jumped off his bough. His projects all appeared to be failing. The more he had dwelt upon his suddenly-thought-of scheme, that Dr. West’s house might afford an asylum for Lionel and his wife, the more he had become impressed with its desirability. ”

“ John George Wood, one of the most popular and instructive of natural history writers, died March 3d, while on a visit to Coventry, England. He was born in London, the son of a surgeon, in 1827, and was graduated from Merton College, Oxford, in 1848. lie served for two years in the Anatomical Museum at Christ Church, Oxford ”

“ John had died, it was true; but John’s death had been a violent one. Had Roy argued the point at all—which he did not, for it had never occurred to his mind—he might have assumed that because John had died, Fred was the more likely to live. It is a somewhat rare case for two brothers to be cut down in their youth and prime, one closely following upon the other.
Roy lived in a cottage standing by itself, a little beyond Clay Lane, but not so far off as the gamekeeper’s. On the morning when the bells had rung out—to the surprise and vexation of Lionel—Roy happened to be at home. ”

“ I should pray night and morning for it, if I thought it would do no one an injury.”
“Johnny!” called out Sir John.
“Yes, sir.”
“Come you, and take my hand for five minutes. I have just remembered a note I ought to have written this afternoon.”
“I shall be sure to play badly,” I said to Lady Whitney, who had fallen to Sir John in cutting for partners.
“Oh, my dear, what does it matter?” she kindly answered. “I don’t mind if you do. I do not play well myself.”
The next morning Miss Cattledon went out to ten-o’clock daily service. Miss Deveen said she had taken to the habit of doing so. ”

“ Without pausing at the end, he went on to the next chapter, which concludes the Bible.
“Only think what it will be, Johnny!” he said to me later, following up our previous conversation. “All manner of precious stones! all sorts of glorious colours! Better even” (with a smile) “than the great east window.”
I don’t know whether it surprised me, or not, to find the house in commotion when I woke the next morning, and to hear that John Whitney was dying. A remarkable change had certainly taken place in him. He lay in bed; not insensible, but almost speechless.
Breakfast was scarcely over when Mr. ”

“ John was painfully interested in the little coincidence she mentioned--that the first idea of the toy, the lighted church, had been gathered at the fair that was being held the very day he came to Alnwick. It was at this point that Honour burst into tears, which she was quite unable to control.
However Mr. St. John might have been disposed to condemn the carelessness, he could only feel compassion for the sufferer. She should never know another truly happy moment, she sobbed, should never cease to reproach herself as long as life should last. She gave herself the whole blame ”

“ Sir John meant it. We saw that Harry’s words had really vexed him. John broke the silence.
“Papa, if I should live to be ever in your place,” he said, in his quiet voice, that somehow always had a tone of thoughtfulness in it, even when at play with the rest of us at old Frost’s, “I shall make a point of paying my labourers’ wages in full this wintry time, just the same as though they worked. It is not their fault that they are idle.”
Sir John started at him now. “What d’ye mean by ‘if you live,’ lad?” ”

“ And there might have been the slightest possible resentment perceptible in the tone, though not to an ear less quick than the surgeon's.
"Just so," he answered. "When we have nothing particular to do with ourselves, we are apt to make use of any past civilities that may be available. I remembered that Mr. Frederick St. John, when I met him at Alnwick, proffered me an invitation to call at Castle Wafer, should I ever travel to its vicinity."
"Oh!" she said. "Fred St. John's rather fond of those impromptu invitations. Do you go back tomorrow?" ”

“ Don’t any of you venture on it.”
“We will not, sir,” replied John, who was the most obedient son living.
There’s not much to be done in the way of out-door sports when snow lies on the ground. Crowding round the children’s play-room window later, all the lot of us, we looked out on a white landscape. Snow lodged on the trees, hid the grass in the fields, covered the hills in the distance.
“It’s an awful sell,” cried Bill Whitney and Tod nearly in a breath. “No hunting, no shooting, and no nothing. The ponds won’t bear; snowballing’s common. One might as well lie in bed.” ”

“ John was vexed, for he did not intend that it should ooze out. Amidst other ears, it reached that of Mr. Carr. "A cunning man in his own conceit," quoth he to a friend, alluding to his brother's son, "but not quite cunning enough to win over me. If Robert marries that girl, I'll keep my word, and not bequeath him a shilling of my money; but I'll not leave it to John Carr, or any of his brood."
Had this news touching Robert's life in Holland needed confirmation, such might have been supplied to it by a letter received from Martha Ann Hughes by her sister Mary. ”

“ Well, they all went to the seaside, and at the end of five weeks they all came back again. John had to be assisted out of the carriage, from fatigue. There could be no mistake now.
After that, it was just a gradual decay. The sinking was so imperceptible that he seemed to be always at a stand-still, and some days he was as well as any one need be. His folk did not give up hope of him: no one does in such cases. John was cheerful, and often merry.
“It can’t be consumption,” Sir John would say. “We’ve nothing of the kind in our family ”