Lord Claud

“ Dost thou pretend attachment to Us while all the while thy heart is engaged with another person? How can two loves co-exist in one heart?' On hearing this, I prayed to the Lord and said, 'O my God, if my love to this child makes Thee withdraw from me, take his soul or mine.' My prayer was heard, and He has taken the soul of my son." On one occasion Ibrahim is reported to have said, "Many nights in succession I sought to find the Kaaba unoccupied. ”

“ Whom slumber soothes not, pleasure cannot please,”
is poor in comparison, though all the king’s banquets and metropolitan feasts in the world should vie together to make good the substitute. Claud’s life had thus far been, in the main, a quiet and commonplace one; nothing having occurred to him to arouse those strong and over-mastering passions to which it is the lot of most of us, at some period of our lives, to become subjected. ”

“ He who really intends to buy something keeps on discussing it. If you were really disentangled from it, what would you care about its merits or its faults?"
Other sayings of Rabia were these, "My God, if on the day of judgment Thou sendest me to hell, I shall reveal a secret which will make hell fly far from me." "O Lord, give all Thou destinest for me of the goods of this world to Thy enemies, and all that Thou reservest for me in Paradise to Thy friends, for it is Thou only Whom I seek." "My God, if it is from fear of hell that I serve Thee, condemn me to burn in hell ”

“ There is no real fear at all. He who fears a thing flees from it, and he who hopes for a thing strives for it, and the only fear that will save thee is the fear that forbids sinning against God and instils obedience to Him. Beware of the shallow fear of women and fools, who, when they hear of the terrors of the Lord, say lightly, 'We take refuge in God,' and at the same time continue in the very sins which will destroy them. Satan laughs at such pious ejaculations. ”

“ Claud always sets out, like his elder brother, in a meditative mood. Having traveled a sufficient distance and found nothing worthy of his mettle, he decides, apparently, to show his independence by never coming down from his airy height to earth at all. ”

“ Like his father, he was firm and persevering; but he wanted something of the old man’s shrewdness; and there was more of avarice in his hopes of wealth than in the sordidness of his father, for they were not elevated by any such ambitious sentiment as that which prompted Claud to strive with such constancy for the recovery of his paternal inheritance. In fact, the young merchant, notwithstanding the superiority of his education and other advantages, we may safely venture to assert, was a more vulgar character than the old pedlar. ”

“ Claud shuddered at the picture, and taking the reproving minister by the hand, said, ‘We canna help the wicked thoughts that sometimes rise, we dinna ken whar frae, within us.’
‘Ye dinna ken whar frae?—I’ll tell you whar frae—frae hell; sic thoughts are the cormorants that sit on the apple-trees in the devil’s kail-yard, and the souls o’ the damned are the carcasses they mak their meat o’.’
‘For Heaven’s sake, Mr. Kilfuddy,’ exclaimed Claud, trembling in every limb; ‘be patient, and no speak that gait, ye gar my hair stand on end.’
‘Hair! ”

“ It was in this beloved church of Derry that it was given so often to Columba to behold the angels adoring their Lord on His altar throne, and to hear the melody of their voices as they sang the eternal song of praise.
Prayer, labour, and study divided the hours of the day, and young as was the abbot, the hand that governed, though gentle, was very firm. Columba had learnt from his holy masters in the spiritual life to lead his monks by example even more than by precept. He slept on the bare ground, with a skin for covering and a stone for pillow. ”

“ Adieu, dearest Louise,—evermore your faithful Georgina.
Who can a Mr. Claude be whom George has taken to be with?
Very stupid, I think, but George says so very clever.
IV.—Claude to Eustace.
No, the Christian faith, as at any rate I understood it,
With its humiliations and exaltations combining,
Exaltations sublime, and yet diviner abasements,
Aspirations from something most shameful here upon earth and
In our poor selves to something most perfect above in the heavens,—
No, the Christian faith, as I, at least, understood it,
Is not here, O Rome, in any of these thy churches ”

“ We can therefore hardly take bishop Jonas at his word when he speaks of Claudius as an enemy of (p. 169 C.) all the sincerest churchmen, the most devoted soldiers of Christ, in Gaul and Germany: we know indeed from a friend who was also Claudius's opponent in this respect (Theodemir. epist. ad Claud., ap. F. A. Zachari. Biblioth. Pistor. 60, Turin 1752 folio.) , that in spite of his action in the matter of images, his commentaries on the Bible were received with eager enthusiasm by not a few of the highest prelates of Gaul. ”

“ He threeps that the body is no his wife’s, and ca’s it a hateral o’ clay and stones, and says we may fling’t, Gude guide us, ayont the midden for him.—We’ll just be affrontit if he’ll no carry the head.’
Claud, who had dressed himself in the morning for [137] the funeral, was sitting in the elbow-chair, on the right side of the chimney-place, with his cheek resting on his hand, and his eyelids dropped, but not entirely shut, and on being thus addressed, he instantly rose, and went to the nursery.
‘What’s t’ou doing there like a hussy-fellow?’ said he. ”

“ Clovis exclaimed: "Christ Jesus, Thou whom my queen Clotilde calleth the Son of the Living God, I have invoked my own gods, and they have withdrawn from me; I believe that they have no power, since they aid not those who call upon them. Thee, very God and Lord, I invoke; if Thou give me victory over these foes; if I find in Thee the power the people proclaim of Thee, I will believe on Thee, and will be baptized in Thy name." The fortune of battle immediately turned in favor of the Franks. ”

“ Columba had a deep love and reverence for all honest labour done for God. One night he told his monks that he had just seen entering into heaven the soul of a blacksmith whom he had known long ago in Ireland.
"He has bought eternal life," he said, "with the labours of the earthly. He was charitable and gave of his poverty to the poor, therefore the Lord of the Poor has rewarded him." ”

“ But then Claudius was Claudius, and even the Duke saw something in him besides his wealth which gave him a right to aspire to the highest.
"I can't make out," the Duke once said to Barker, "where Claudius got his manners. He never does anything the least odd; and he always seems at his ease."
"I only know he came to Heidelberg ten years ago, and that he is about thirty. He got his manners somewhere when he was a boy."
"Of course, there are lots of good people in Sweden," said the Duke; "but they all have titles, just as they do in Germany. And Claudius has no title." ”

“ What is ordained is right, and all that happens is ordered. Ah, no, that isn't it. But yet I retain my conclusion. I will go where I am led, and will not dictate to the chances. Do nothing more, I beg. If you love me, forbear interfering. IX. Claude to Eustace. Shall we come out of it all, some day, as one does from a tunnel? Will it be all at once, without our doing or asking, We shall behold clear day, the trees and meadows about us, And the faces of friends, and the eyes we loved looking at us? Who knows? Who can say? It will not do to suppose it. X. Claude to Eustace,-from Rome. ”

“ No, Claude," he continued, in a reasoning tone, "there's no two ways about it, but you've got to get out—for a spell, at any rate. If you don't, old man Fay'll be after you with a gun, and what Matt Fay'll do may be worse. I can handle them if you'll keep from hanging yourself out like a red rag to a bull, like; but if you don't—then the Lord only knows what'll happen."
"What'll happen," Claude cried, with a final up-leaping of resistance, "is that you'll marry Rosie." ”

“ Appius Claudius, who perhaps aspired to regal power, became enamored of the daughter of a centurion, L. Virginius. In order to gratify his passions, Claudius suborned a false accuser, one of his clients, who was to pretend that the mother of Virginia had been his slave. Appius sat in judgment, and against his own laws, and also the entreaties of the people, declared her to be the slave of the accuser. Her father returned from the army, and in his indignation plunged a dagger in her breast, preferring her [pg 417] death to shame. ”

“ He relates that Clovis, the first Christian king of France, marching 280against Alaric, King of the Visgoths, and being near the city of Tours, where the body of St. Martin was deposited, he sent some of his nobles, with presents to be offered at the saint’s tomb, to see if they could not bring him a promising augury, while he himself uttered this prayer “Lord, if thou wouldest have me punish this impious people, the savage enemy of thy holy name, give me some signal token, by which I may be assured that such is thy will.” ”

“ Now Calvin was imbued with the lofty spirit of the Fathers of the Church and the more religious and contemplative of the schoolmen and the saints of the Middle Ages, when he attached but little dignity to man unaided by divine grace, and was absorbed with the idea of the sovereignty of God, in whose hands man is like clay in the hands of the potter. ”

“ Ye hae ay been reputed an honest man, and no deficient in your moral duties, as a husband, a parent, a master, and a friend.’
Claud clasped his hands fervently together, exclaiming, ‘O God! thou hast ever seen my hypocrisy!—Dr. Denholm,’ and he took him firmly by the hand;—‘when I was but a bairn, I kent na what it was to hae the innocence o’ a young heart. I used to hide the sma’ presents of siller I got frae my frien’s, even when Maudge Dobbie, the auld kind creature that brought me up, could na earn a sufficiency for our scrimpit meals ”

“ I thought of the man I loved, whose safety I imagined I had purchased by that daring promise to Sir Claudius, and, knowing from what Saul had said, that I had been deceived, was altogether overwhelmed with grief and misery. A mist gathered around me, the church grew dark; releasing my hand from the arm that held it, I stretched it towards the old clergyman, and then fell half-unconscious at his feet.
Instantly there was a tremendous noise in the chapel. Swords clashed, men shouted and fought wildly. ”

“ By the duke of Florence, Cosmo II., Callot was liberally patronised and loaded with benefits, but on his death the government had to be placed in the hands of a regency, and art and literature no longer met with the same encouragement. In this state of things, Callot was found by Charles of Lorraine, afterwards duke Charles IV., and persuaded to return to his native country. He arrived at Nancy in 1622, and began to work there with greater activity even than he had displayed before. ”

“ Until David was thirty years of age his life was identified with the fading glories of the reign of Saul, who laid the foundation of the military power of his successors,--a man who lacked only the one quality imperative on the vicegerent of a supreme but invisible Power, that of unquestioning obedience to the divine directions as interpreted by the voice of prophets. ”

“ There are others who find peace and power to live and work by giving up all questions of this kind as hampering life and useless for good. But Clough was not of that temper, and could not enter its regions. He did his duty, but a tender intensity of passion urged him beyond it to find the rest in perfection. He was the image and the expression of thousands who lived in that disturbed time, when criticism and science set the battle in array against the old theology. ”

“ But 'tis not worth what we give for it. I am growing older, Claude. I see many things differently from what I did in youth. I should deeply rejoice at peace, honesty, fidelity, truth; but, since those things are not, and cannot be, I am satisfied with what I have—money, life, clothes, wines, dinners, a good bed, and a man who really knows how to prepare perfect snuff. I let women alone. I am wiser than you."
Claude looked sharply at his cousin. Certainly, if this were his creed, he was changed. The words and tone, however, served for the moment to still his own growing disquietude. ”

“ The marquis and Adamas halted at La Caille-Bottée's cottage, where they did in fact find Jean le Clope, who warmly greeted his patron, calling him his captain.
As is well known, the convents were compelled to take charge of soldiers disabled in the service of the king or of the lord of the province. Most of the religious communities were bound by contract to receive and support these relics of the calamities of war, who were sometimes too fond of high living for pious recluses, sometimes much less corrupt than the monks themselves. ”

“ No use shilly-shallying about things of that sort. Father mayn't like it; but he can't kick."
Claude spoke moodily: "He can't kick in your case."
"We're grown men, Claude. We're the only judges of what's right for us. I don't mean any disrespect to father; but we've got to be free. Best way, as far as I see, is to be open and aboveboard and firm. Then everybody knows where you are."
Claude made no response till they reached the door-step, where he lingered. "Look here, Thor," he said then, "I've got to put this thing through in my own way, you know." ”

“ Walkinshaw, that ye wished to see me under this dispensation with which the hand o’ a righteous Providence has visited your family.’
‘I’m greatly obligated to Mr. Keelevin,’ replied Claud, thoughtfully; ‘he’s a frien’ly and a very honest man. It would hae been happy wi’ me the day, Dr. Denholm, had I put mair confidence in him ”