Mannion

“ After the erasure, you will never have existed, Lieutenant Mannion. Your body will be restrained under a new name and will make a fresh start in life. It will even be possible for your new personality to enter the Space Patrol, if it so chooses. ”

“ Mannion was, and what consequence it could possibly be to me that he had come back. But immediately afterwards, I remembered that this Mr. Mannion’s name had been mentioned during my first conversation with Mr. Sherwin; and then I recalled to mind the description I had heard of him, as “confidential clerk;” as forty years of age; and as an educated man, who had made his information of some use to Margaret in keeping up the knowledge she had acquired at school. I knew no more than this about him, and I felt no curiosity to discover more from Mr. Sherwin. ”

“ Four copies of a will making Arthur Mannion heir to an immense fortune are found in the pockets of Arthur Mannion's confederate in crime. Who, of all persons in the world, criminally inclined, would be capable of drawing a will likely to deceive the eyes of an expert? Arthur Mannion, who probably carried away with him when he left Washington, years ago, specimens of his stepfather's handwriting. ”

“ Some weeks passed away; Margaret and I resumed our usual employments and amusements; the life at North Villa ran on as smoothly and obscurely as usual—and still I remained ignorant of Mr. Mannion’s history and Mr. Mannion’s character. He came frequently to the house, in the evening; but was generally closeted with Mr. Sherwin, and seldom accepted his employer’s constant invitation to him to join the party in the drawing-room. At those rare intervals when we did see him, his appearance and behaviour were exactly the same as on the night when I had met him for the first time ”

“ Why, he’d be worth his weight in gold, only for the knack he has of keeping the young men in the shop in order. Poor devils! they don’t know how he does it; but there’s a particular look of Mr. Mannion’s that’s as bad as transportation and hanging to them, whenever they see it. I’ll pledge you my word of honour he’s never had a day’s illness, or made a single mistake, since he’s been with me. ”

“ Mr. Mannion is forty, or a year or two more, if he’s a day—an admirable man of business, as well as a great scholar. He’s at Lyons now, buying silks for me. When he comes back I shall be delighted to introduce—-”
“I beg your pardon, but I think we are wandering away from the point, a little.”
“I beg yours—so we are. Well, my dear Sir, I must be allowed a day or two—say two days—to ascertain what my daughter’s feelings are, and to consider your proposals, which have taken me very much by surprise, as you may in fact see. But I assure you I am most flattered, most honoured, most anxious—“. ”

“ Almost all men, when they stand on their own hearths, in their own homes, instinctively alter more or less from their out-of-door manner: the stiffest people expand, the coldest thaw a little, by their own firesides. It was not so with Mr. Mannion. He was exactly the same man at his own house that he was at Mr. Sherwin’s. ”

“ Mannion had spoken up to this time.
“I may tell you then,” he resumed, “that while I am anxious to commit no untimely intrusion on your hours at North Villa, I am at the same time desirous of being something more than merely inoffensive towards you. I should wish to be positively useful, as far as I can. In my opinion Mr. Sherwin has held you to rather a hard engagement—he is trying your discretion a little too severely I think, at your years and in your situation. ”

“ It must be a golden one, or they wouldn't be taking the risk of an arrest for murder."
"Let us look at matters from what I will assume to be their standpoint," said Nick. "They probably think they are running no risk. They must believe that the murder was not witnessed and that no clue was left behind which would point suspicion in their direction. The bank-note found near the river is a clue, it is true, but [137] Mannion, who lost the note, cannot regard it as such, for he does not know that I have the list of the notes which Cora Reesey possessed. ”

“ Mannering took the packet to the window—his pride forbade a more distant retreat—he glanced at some passages of the letters with an unsteady eye and an agitated mind—his stoicism, however, came in time to his aid; that philosophy, which, rooted in pride, yet frequently bears the fruits of virtue. He returned towards his daughter with as firm an air as his feelings permitted him to assume.
"There is great apology for you, Julia, as far as I can judge from a glance at these letters—you have obeyed at least one parent. ”

“ Why, I supposed you never felt a care except when a candidate for the people's suffrages."
"But there is greater cause, my friend," and Mannis's voice assumed a tone of sadness. "When a man sees the dearest object of his life before him, yet, like Tantalus, putting forth his hand to grasp it, it recedes, he is unhappy."
"I cannot understand you, Mannis," said the Senator. "You speak in parables; be more explicit."
"Were I married and quietly settled in life, I should be happy; but the only woman I ever loved I fear will never be mine. Your daughter, my friend, could make me supremely content." ”

“ Be sure, if you see any of those people whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders, that you make a draught of them. It will be very curious. O Manning, I am serious to sinking almost, when I think that all those evenings, which you have made so pleasant, are gone perhaps for ever. Four years you talk of, maybe ten, and you may come back and find such alterations! Some circumstance may grow up to you or to me, that may be a bar to the return of any such intimacy. ”

“ Happy for us if we could think that our Master saw in us what He saw in Nathaniel—a heart in which there is no guile. When He was on earth He did not trust Himself to men, because He knew what was in men. ”

“ I have, moreover, found that the disclosures contained in the biography do not oblige me to darken the colours of the sketch itself. Taken all in all, these intimate records of Manning’s life tend to confirm the view that, along with his love of power and pre-eminence, along with his carelessness about historic truth, along with the questionable methods he sometimes allowed himself to use, there lay deep in his heart a genuine and unfailing sympathy with many good causes, such as the cause of temperance, and a real tenderness for the poor and for children. ”

“ Manning... I do not know. It is so difficult. When I think of the love you give me—One ought to give you back love."
"You like me?"
"Yes. And I am grateful to you...."
Manning tapped with his racket on the turf through some moments of silence. "You are the most perfect, the most glorious of created things—tender, frank intellectual, brave, beautiful. I am your servitor. I am ready to wait for you, to wait your pleasure, to give all my life to winning it. Let me only wear your livery. Give me but leave to try. You want to think for a time, to be free for a time. ”

“ If I erred in the matter of this devoted priest, I shall not question the judgment of my fellow-men upon me."
"Fear nothing of that sort," answered Mannering. "Your fellow-man has no right to judge you, and the law, with all its faults, appreciates logic. Who can question your right to believe that this is a matter outside human knowledge? Your wisdom may be questioned, but not your right. Plenty would have felt the same. When the mind of man finds itself groping in the dark, you will see that, in the huge majority of cases, it falls back upon supernatural explanations for mystery. ”

“ A wealthy home, four years at Harrow, Balliol in its palmiest days, a good degree, a College Fellowship, political and secular ambitions of no common kind, apprenticeship to the practical work of a Government office, a marriage brightly but all too briefly happy, the charge of a country parish, and an early initiation into the duties of ecclesiastical rulership—all these experiences had made Henry Manning, by the time of his momentous change, an accomplished man of the world. ”

“ Whatever else Cardinal Manning was, he was an English gentleman of the old school, with a nice sense of honour and propriety. But still, under a mass of calumny and exaggeration, there lay this substratum of truth—that he who wills the end wills the means; and that where the interests of a sacred cause are at stake, an enthusiastic adherent will sometimes use methods to which, in enterprises of less pith and moment, recourse could not properly be had. ”

“ I tell you, Manning, that's the greatest work in the world—getting out into the wilderness and finding the right spot for civilization to come and thrive. There's where you get a sense of power that makes you feel like a Pilgrim Father. ”

“ Manning has "unconsciously evolved" what he wormed out of his savage informant into a pale copy—caricature, if you please—of Christian ideas. He has presented us not with savage ideas, but with what he thinks they would be if expressed in the pompous and technical terms of Christian theologians. When he descends to particulars, he becomes more valuable. " Their belief in God's creation of His own Son was explained to me thus by the intelligent native from whom I derived my chief information. ”

“ Manning smiled languidly. "Well, you don't guess, that's all. It's quite simple. Perhaps there is a god; perhaps He is all that is said about Him. Perhaps.... Only we are reasonable men and we have to go upon facts, and the facts are that there is no trace of Him."
"Unless very existence is a sign—the fact that things are," said Paul, catching at a straw.
"Oh, very well, have it if you will. But of what or of whom is existence a sign? I know it's sentimental twaddle to talk of the cruelty and so on of Nature, and I won't. But you know and I know there are laws, and what sort of laws? ”

“ When Mr Mansel, in the extract quoted, speaks of "two selves," I cannot suppose him to mean that, according to my doctrine, there are two separate selves involved in the process of cognition, although his words might seem to imply that such is his understanding of my position. The ego, which is known by itself, is one and the same with that which knows itself. The other grounds on which Mr Mansel dissents from my system have been already dealt with, in the answers which I have given to my other antagonists. ”

“ The motto of his magazine, Veritas sine clementia, ruled his life, and, putting aside the lenses of passion and prejudice, he coolly, quietly, relentlessly judged men and women and their works; neither loving nor hating, pitying nor despising his race; looking neither to right nor left; laboring steadily as a thoroughly well-balanced, a marvellously perfect intellectual automaton.
"Good evening, Mr. Manning. I am very glad to meet you; for I fear my letters have very inadequately expressed my gratitude for your kindness." ”

“ The temptations of the Evil One are many, Manning knew; and he knew also that, for him at least, the most subtle and terrible of all temptations was the temptation of worldly success. He tried to reassure himself, but it was in vain. He committed his thoughts to a diary, weighing scrupulously his every motive, examining with relentless searchings into the depths of his heart. ”

“ A great ecclesiastical statesman and diplomatist, an eloquent and impressive preacher, a dogmatic theologian of considerable learning and rare power of logical and luminous exposition, an acute, subtle, and trenchant controversialist, Manning was disqualified for the part of mediator between Christianity and modern thought by the unspeculative and uncritical cast of his mind. ”

“ Henry Manning had received a new idea—that there are those who are above the fashion. Allied to this was another thought, which in time found entrance to his mind, that it would be at least as profitable to devote our energies to the acquisition of true nobility of soul, pure and high thought and refined taste, as to the study of those conventionalisms which are but their outer garment, and can at best only conceal for a short time their absence. ”

“ I have refined thee, but not with silver'— (not in the same way, that is; not with mere physical heat) —'I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.' See! there is something that escapes us at first. God not only says He has tested us, but that He has chosen us. O, blessed to be the chosen of the Lord——"
"Valdés, I seek Him, but I know not that I have yet found Him——"
"Signora! 'let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord.'"
While masses were being sung and said for [Pg 267] the soul of Cardinal Ippolito, the spirit of Valdés departed without a sigh. ”

“ Instead of elevating that noble soul, Manton, whom I thought, through you, to rescue from the dominion of his appetites, and see set apart, with all his glorious powers, to the exalted priesthood of the Harmonies, you have steadily dragged him down from the beginning until now, when he is further removed than ever beyond our reach, and regards with contempt and disgust the very name of the system with which I had yearned to see him identified. ”

“ Such questions are easier to ask than to answer; but it may be instructive, and even amusing, to look a little more closely into the complexities of so curious a story.
I UNDOUBTEDLY, what is most obviously striking in the history of Manning's career is the persistent strength of his innate characteristics. Through all the changes of his fortunes the powerful spirit of the man worked on undismayed. ”