Lady Theobald

“ Matthew led me to hope the speedy arrival of the express; but he does not come: and I know not why, I experience in my heart oppression and anguish. O, who will tell me what has become of Hildegarde and my children? But what have I to fear? Rothenwald is impregnable, and should all our enemies surround it, is it not under the protection of Our Lady? Who shall conquer it?"
"He who dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High," said Gottfried, "shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. Happy is the man who makes his refuge in the shadow of his wings, until his calamity be overpast." ”

“ Singer was most certainly right in giving this speech to Lady Cap.; for the Nurse was hardly present.
Sc. 5.
"Dead art thou, dead—alack! my child is dead."
In this I find I had been as usual preceded by Theobald.
"Peace, ho, for shame! confusion's cure lives not."
All the old editions read care. Theobald made the correction.
"For though some nature bids us all lament."
For 'some' the 2nd folio reads fond.
"Faith, we may put our pipes up and be gone."
The originals read 'put up.'
Act V. Sc. 1.
"If I may trust the flattering eye of sleep."
The 4to 1527 reads thus ”

“ He was a small wiry man, with a clever, impudent, tossed-up nose, a sharp little black eye, and waxed ends to his moustache. On the side of his head he wore jauntily a little crimson velvet smoking-cap, and I observed that his feet were encased in brilliant slippers. On Serafina’s remarking with dignity that I was the friend of Mr. Theobald, he broke out into that fantastic French of which certain Italians are so insistently lavish, and declared with fervour that Mr. Theobald was a magnificent genius. ”

“ It seemed to me that Theobald trembled, when I spoke to him of the love of Jesus; but as soon as I had raised my shield, he became furious, and seizing his sword with both hands, he urged his horse against mine, and struck me on the head with all his force, so that I was overthrown and my casque cleft by the blow. ”

“ His sword was attached to a scarf of silver and azure, and from beneath his casque, the visor of which was raised, escaped curls of light hair.
"Grandpapa!" exclaimed Erard, running towards Gottfried, "was it not—?"
"Be quiet, Erard," said his grandfather, ordering him to sit down. "Should a child interrupt an older person who is speaking?"
"This chevalier," resumed Theobald, "advanced towards me, who had also left the ranks, and when all was ready, stopped his horse, and said to me, mildly, but with a deep and manly voice, 'Jesus has shed his blood for us: why would you shed mine? ”

“ The chart, as far as Raynor is concerned, is worthless."
I interrupted him.
"One thing, at least, is clear," I said. "It is the work of an Englishman, and the words on the back allude to a person of the name of Theobald."
"That may be the case; but they do not allude to Mr. Theobald of Rosemary Gardens."
"They allude to someone of the name of Theobald who lives in Kensington, Paddington, Islington, Kennington, or Newington," I answered. "I have seen, with one exception, the Theobalds in those five quarters; your Mr. Theobald is the only one who takes the least interest in the matter." ”

“ It was impossible to imagine that men and women would not suffer at the thought of causing suffering to the helpless, if once they realized that suffering clearly. Men and women were not devils! Theobald had always laughed at him for this part of his work, but he felt now, at the close of his life, that he could dwell upon that effort with more pleasure than on any other, although others had won him far more applause, and this had often brought him contempt. ”

“ He may or may not do so. Oh Lord” (and she turned her eyes prayerfully to Heaven) , “spare my Theobald, or grant that he may be beheaded.”
“My dearest,” said Theobald gravely, “do not let us agitate ourselves unduly. If the hour of trial comes we shall be best prepared to meet it by having led a quiet unobtrusive life of self-denial and devotion to God’s glory. Such a life let us pray God that it may please Him to enable us to pray that we may lead.”
“Dearest Theobald,” exclaimed Christina, drying the tears that had gathered in her eyes, “you are always, always right. ”

“ It is interesting to observe how nearly Theobald's plain, homely sense, led him to the necessity of the context. The real points of the allusion can scarcely be expressed in better words than his own:
"Faulconbridge, in his resentment, would say this to Austria, 'That lion's skin which my great father, King Richard, once wore, looks as uncouthly on thy back, as that other noble hide, which was borne by Hercules, would look on the back of an ass!' A double allusion was intended: first, to the fable of the ass in the lion's skin ”

“ I started back.
"I cannot interfere," I said. "I have stated my case; I have shown the chart to the Theobalds; it is for them to decide."
"Say no more," he answered. "It was in your power to do a great deal—and I am rich and powerful, and could have——"
He broke off abruptly—his face was the colour of chalk. "I see it is useless to ask you," he said finally.
"It is," I replied. "In a place like the Banda Sea, which is full of islands, there is a possibility of Mr. Raynor being alive. The more Mr. Theobald thinks over this matter, the more anxious he will be to follow up this possibility. ”

“ Theobald didn’t lift his little finger to preserve us. At the first hint that we were tired of waiting, and that we should like the show to begin, he was off in a huff. ‘Great work requires time, contemplation, privacy, mystery! O ye of little faith!’ We answered that we didn’t insist on a great work; that the five-act tragedy might come at his convenience; that we merely asked for something to keep us from yawning, some inexpensive little lever de rideau. Hereupon the poor man took his stand as a genius misconceived and persecuted, an âme méconnue, and washed his hands of us from that hour! ”

“ Ethbert. He who loves Jesus does not blaspheme his name; and the name of Jesus is written on the Church of Jesus. No, no: the Christian does not hate or revenge himself; and he blasphemes neither his God nor the Church of God!
"It is enough!" said Theobald to the servant. "Leave me—I have need of repose and silence:" and the servant went out.
Meanwhile Gottfried had retired into his room, and, like David, wept and sobbed before the Lord, repeating, with bitterness, "Arnold! my son Arnold! Thou art no more! thy father will never more see thee on earth!" ”

“ In this brighter illumination I perceived that our hostess was decidedly an elderly woman. She was neither haggard, nor worn, nor gray; she was simply coarse. The “soul” which Theobald had promised seemed scarcely worth making such a point of; it was no deeper mystery than a sort of matronly mildness of lip and brow. I should have been ready even to declare that that sanctified bend of the head was nothing more than the trick of a person constantly working at embroidery. ”

“ The practical outcome of the foregoing was a conviction in Theobald's mind, and if in his, then in Christina's, that it was their duty to begin training up their children in the way they should go, even from their earliest infancy. The first signs of self-will must be carefully looked for, and plucked up by the roots at once before they had time to grow. Theobald picked up this numb serpent of a metaphor and cherished it in his bosom. ”

“ In the new home in Paris, to which Theobald returned as often as his military duties permitted, Matilda Tone devoted herself to the education of her children while the fateful months from the end of May, 1797, to the beginning of September, 1798, sped by. During that “crowded hour” of her husband’s glorious life much history was a-making; and now, as always, his wife performed her woman’s part: to watch and wait, and suffer and sacrifice herself to her husband’s—a splendidly tragic destiny—with incomparable and heroic devotion. ”

“ While desire for the secular greatness of the Church, her splendour and her wealth, led Henry to scheme and change sides according as he found Stephen or the Empress acting against her interests, Theobald sought a higher [Pg 111] power for her, and attached himself to Bernard, who ruled Christendom by his sanctity and his intellectual gifts. Theobald’s household was the home of a little society of men of like mind with himself. One of them was a young clerk of London, named Thomas, who soon became his chief adviser ”

“ His grandfather placed his finger on Erard's lips, and kept it there, as if to enjoin upon the child the greatest secrecy; and Erard, with a sigh, turned his eyes again upon his father.
"But it was he, it was Theobald, who commenced the combat. He ordered his troops forward; and, himself advancing in front of ours, who had also formed themselves in battle array, he provoked us, calling us heretics and infidels, whom Heaven had already cursed, and whom the Holy Virgin, he said, was about to crush beneath her feet. ”

“ Shall the Iron-Hearted become a woman?"
"'Jesus wept!' is written in the Gospel," replied Matthew. "And our good Saviour is our pattern in all things."
"You weep, then, here?" said the chevalier, with visible interest; "for here you do in all things like Jesus?"
Matthew, (humbly.) At least, we desire to. Our pious lord—
Theobald. Gottfried is then a nobleman?
Matthew. My master is the Count of Winkelthal.
Theobald, (with agitation.) The Count of Winkelthal, Matthew? Arnold, the Lion, was then his son? Am I then, indeed, in the house of his father?
Matthew. Arnold is the only son of my master ”

“ It was therefore a matter of course that the primate should resume the constitutional position which he had inherited from Anselm and Lanfranc and their old-English predecessors. Theobald, however, was now in advanced age and feeble health; and when he fully perceived what manner of man it was to whom he was bound to act as spiritual father and political guide, he felt that to regulate these strong passions, to direct these youthful impulses, to follow these restless movements, was a task too hard for his failing strength. ”

“ Theobald had now settled down to the pursuits of the literary hack, being in all probability dependent on his pen for his livelihood. In 1713 he hurried out a catchpenny ‘Life of Cato’ for the benefit of the spectators and readers of Addison's tragedy which then held the town. Next year he published two poems—‘The Cave of Poverty,’ which he calls an imitation of Shakespeare, presumably because it is written in the measure and form of ‘Venus and Adonis,’ and ‘The Mausoleum,’ a funeral elegy in heroics on the death of Queen Anne. These poems, like all Theobald's poems, are perfectly worthless. ”

“ The misfortune is that by the law of the land one side only can be heard.
Theobald and Christina were no exceptions to the general rule. When they came to Battersby they had every desire to fulfil the duties of their position, and to devote themselves to the honour and glory of God. But it was Theobald’s duty to see the honour and glory of God through the eyes of a Church which had lived three hundred years without finding reason to change a single one of its opinions. ”

“ This Prince Sondersheim, whom Prince Theobald wished his granddaughter to take as her husband, was the same Prince Waldemar of whom mention has already been made. Prince Theobald knew his character well. We have heard what he said to Eveline. The world had the worst opinion of him, and Angela knew what the world thought of her future husband.
Was it any wonder she refused to give herself to such a man? Could she act otherwise than she did? Women are the best judges on this point. Men cannot witness against themselves. ”

“ In history Theobald lives chiefly as the patron of three eminent men: Becket, who began life as a clerk in his household; Master Vacarius, the Italian jurist, who was the first to teach Roman law in England ”

“ If Theobald’s temper was rather irritable he did not vent it upon them.
By nature reserved, if he could have found someone to cook his dinner for him, he would rather have lived in a desert island than not. In his heart of hearts he held with Pope that “the greatest nuisance to mankind is man” or words to that effect—only that women, with the exception perhaps of Christina, were worse. ”

“ The king seized the lands of the archbishopric. Eugenius ordered the English bishops to excommunicate him and lay the kingdom under an interdict. On this Stephen recalled the archbishop, who returned to Canterbury before 28 Sept. (ib. i. 151, ii. 76; Becket, Ep. 250; Hen. Hunt. viii. c. 32; Vita Theobaldi, p. 338) . When Henry, duke of Normandy, was in England in 1153, Theobald laboured to bring about a peace between him and the king. He was successful, and the treaty between the king and the duke was proclaimed at Westminster before Christmas at a great council which Theobald attended. ”

“ THEOBALD'S ACCOUNT OF HIS CONFLICT WITH ARNOLD THE LION—HATRED OP ENEMIES—DISTRESS OF THE FAMILY.
"You are pious people," said the chevalier to Gottfried, in the afternoon of the same day, and while Erard was present. "Religion is a good thing."
"One who loves Jesus is always happy," said the child.
"Let them love Jesus!" replied the warrior. ”

“ Is it thy master, this venerable and mild old man?"
"Jesus is the Prince of peace," replied Ethbert; "for he is love, and love does not war against any one."
"Jesus! did you say, is the Prince of peace! But is he not with us who support his cause, and who yet fight valiantly?"
Ethbert. The cause of Jesus is the gospel of his grace. His cause is not supported by the sword and lance; but is defended by truth and love.
Theobald, surprised. Your words, Ethbert, are sermons. Where do they come from?
Ethbert. He who is acquainted with God speaks the word of God; and God is love. ”