Mr. Elliot

“ Mr Elliot was rational, discreet, polished, but he was not open. There was never any burst of feeling, any warmth of indignation or delight, at the evil or good of others. This, to Anne, was a decided imperfection. Her early impressions were incurable. She prized the frank, the open-hearted, the eager character beyond all others. Warmth and enthusiasm did captivate her still. She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped. ”

“ There is no possible way of making a thing of beauty and a joy forever out of Mr. Elliot. If he were a British commissioner or an African prince it would be all the same. Nature has fixed him up according to her best ideas of a man, and it is evident that she did not consult him or any other mortal in the matter. The New York Tribune says he is very fine looking “when his face lights up.” ”

“ Elliot’s house in town, where Lord and Lady Holland are lodged. I there supped with them. Mr. Elliot remarkably amusing; no one has so much small talk, or parries better by a jest an opinion he disapproves, but does not choose to refute. He has so much wit, originality, and knowledge of the world, his caprice rather increases than diminishes his powers of pleasing. He says the Princess Radziwill (mère) is like a high priest in an Italian opera. Those who have seen her will appreciate the comparison.
Sept. 2.—At Mad. Divoff’s. ”

“ Mary spoke with animation of their meeting with, or rather missing, Mr Elliot so extraordinarily.
"He is a man," said Lady Russell, "whom I have no wish to see. His declining to be on cordial terms with the head of his family, has left a very strong impression in his disfavour with me." ”

“ Elliot came to Bath for a day or two, as he happened to do a little before Christmas, Colonel Wallis made him acquainted with the appearance of things, and the reports beginning to prevail.—Now you are to understand that time had worked a very material change in Mr. Elliot's opinions as to the value of a baronetcy. Upon all points of blood and connexion, he is a completely altered man. Having long had as much money as he could spend, nothing to wish for on the side of avarice or indulgence, he has been gradually learning to pin his happiness upon the consequence he is heir to. ”

“ Mr Elliot, the magistrate, lived at Penredding, the village where Mr Rabbits had gone to lecture, and thither Tom Buller was driven in a close fly, the doctor accompanying him. Lord Woodruff, who had come to Weston on horseback, rode over separately. Mr Elliot was a man of good common sense, though his opinions were not quite so weighty as his person, which declined to rise in one scale when fifteen stone was in the other. ”

“ Elliot," presently said Marguerite, addressing her sister in English. "Mr. Chevalier, the Centenier, told you of his return but yesterday when we went to the market at S. Helier. I admire to see him here so soon."
Rose advanced, with the restored self-possession of a lady on her own hearth, and gave the visitor her hand. "Welcome back to Jersey, Mr. Elliot. Time hath dealt kindly with you: you are almost grown to man's estate." ”

“ Still, however, she had the sensation of there being something more than immediately appeared, in Mr Elliot's wishing, after an interval of so many years, to be well received by them. In a worldly view, he had nothing to gain by being on terms with Sir Walter; nothing to risk by a state of variance. ”

“ "My idea of good company, Mr Elliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company." ”

“ He is of Irish descent, his father, John Elliot, and mother, Rebecca Taylor, both having been born in Ireland. The family came to Canada in 1818, and shortly afterwards settled in Lanark. The subject of this sketch received his education at the Grammar School of Perth. In 1863 he began the study of the law with the late William Oscar Buell, barrister, in Perth. Mr. Elliott was admitted as a solicitor in Michaelmas term 1868, and called to the bar in Hilary term 1869. Though devoted to his profession, he has yet found time to serve his fellow-citizens in various capacities. ”

“ Elliot has such magnificent muscles he can do anything, and better than any one else, and that's why he's on the varsity, you see!"
"Thank you, Elizabeth," said grandma tranquilly. "I'd entirely forgotten that young men don't go to college now to study their lessons. My memory is certainly getting poor."
"No, grandma dear; it isn't. You remember everything a thousand times better than any one else, and what is more, you know it. But of course Elliot studies; he has to. Mr. Brewster says he thinks Elliot is one of the finest [Pg 12] boys he knows. He thinks he would make a splendid engineer. ”

“ It was now some years since Anne had begun to learn that she and her excellent friend could sometimes think differently; and it did not surprise her, therefore, that Lady Russell should see nothing suspicious or inconsistent, nothing to require more motives than appeared, in Mr Elliot's great desire of a reconciliation. ”

“ And the silent Trefethen squirmed under that skin and agreed.
“He’s a Yale man,” put in Van Arden reflectively.
“More’s the pity,” growled Elliot. “We’re not proud of him. Do you suppose any of us will ever turn into case-hardened octopuses like that? Ginger! I’ll make a try at least not to be a disgrace to my Alma Mater.” With that, as his guest sat quiet, his eyes on his cigar, “We’re giving Mr. Lord a dickens of a gay time,” Elliot announced cheerfully. “Unloading all our kicks for his benefit. Now cut it out, fellows. Mr. Lord’s not crazy about our great thoughts on political economy. ”

“ Elliot assured Trefethen, patting the exhibit fondly as he inventoried his qualities. “Show the gentleman how pretty you walk, Pearly,” he urged, and Pearly beamed from behind his glasses and kicked out affectionately. “Trainer says he’s made up all right,” Elliot went on. “It’s just a sort of foolishness of the muscles. We’re proud of him, you know,” he explained. “He’s the only one. There isn’t such a fool in college. Pearly, which will you do first, sing or tell Mr. Lord about the football game?” ”

“ Elliott. Mr. Elliott is a member of the firm. He is young, tall, slender. Somehow I thought all publishers were middle-aged, stocky as to build, and with close-cut white moustaches.
Mr. Elliott asked me if I had ever dined at Mouquin’s. His face was a compliment when I told him that like a little mountain boy of my acquaintance I [Pg 78] had never “ben nowhar nur seen nothin’.” I do like Mr. Elliott. My heart is almost leaping out of me! ”

“ He is the leading solicitor of Leeds, a man with a comfortable fortune made by hard work, a delightful home, and an interesting family. The young people were full of friendliness and sparkle. The whole family in type strongly resemble our Boston Appletons and the New York branch. There is nothing more fascinating than this study of types. When I saw the famous Gainsborough portrait of Lord Heathfield, the defender of Gibraltar, I realized how strong the Elliott type is. Mr. Elliott, at the Norman farm, might have sat for that portrait, and yet he has no tradition of his descent. ”

“ The wide interest in the revelation of Egypt’s achievements more than thirty centuries ago should prepare men’s minds impartially to study the vast significance of the facts thus displayed by Mr Howard Carter’s investigations.
Besides revealing the wonderful equipment of a royal tomb the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb enables us to examine many objects and articles of funerary equipment hitherto known to us only in pictures. ”

“ The path by the side of the lake was a very pretty one, and Mrs. Elliott and her husband walked along there with little Gilbert between them. The child was getting sleepy and a little wilful; and while Jane, his nurse, was eating her supper, his parents had him in charge.
Soon they heard Frank's voice calling, "Father, won't you please come here a minute and help us get this swing down?"
Mr. Elliott went to help the boys, and Mrs. Elliott and Gilbert sat down on the grassy bank to await his return.
"Mamma," said the child, "shall I pick you some pretty flowers?" ”

“ It will come as a surprise to most people to learn that the Valley of the Tombs in Egypt has provided the information which is destined in time to afford the explanation of the early history of the Story of the Flood, before it began to exert a strange fascination upon the minds of men that led to its diffusion throughout the world.
Inscribed upon the walls of the tomb of Seti I in the Theban necropolis—less than seventy years after the burial of Tutankhamen—is the remarkable story of the Destruction of Mankind. ”

“ The fate of the mummy of Akhenaton’s successor Smenkhara is unknown: but Tutankhamen came after him, and Mr Howard Carter’s discovery has shown that he displayed his return to strict orthodoxy by making his tomb in the Eastern Valley among the worshippers of Amen. For some reason which has not been fully elucidated, his successor Ay made his tomb in the Western Valley and so was laid to rest alongside Amenhotep III, whose Minister he seems to have been during his life. He is supposed by some historians to have been the father or the foster-father of Nefertiti, the wife of Akhenaton. ”

“ It is not to be wondered at that the engineer who successfully achieved this task, and in a very special and real sense controlled the lives and destinies of his people, became the king, whose beneficence was apotheosized after his death, so that he became the god Osiris, who was identified with the river, whose life-giving powers he controlled. For to a people who had never experienced anything of the kind before it must have seemed an altogether miraculous and superhuman act for one man to have in his absolute control the prosperity of a whole community and every individual unit of it. ”

“ But to the student who is interested in tracing out the origin of the customs and beliefs which have shaped the fabric of civilization and influenced the trends of even our own thoughts, the objective expression of ancient beliefs displayed in Tutankhamen’s tomb is 130 the most important outcome of Mr Howard Carter’s discovery. ”

“ It gives us a new revelation of the wealth and luxury of Egyptian civilization during its most magnificent period. The value of the gold and precious objects far surpasses that of any hoard previously recovered from ancient times. Judged merely by its quantity the collection of furniture is the most wonderful ever found; and everyone who has examined the individual pieces agrees that in beauty of design and perfection of craftsmanship Tutankhamen’s funerary equipment is indeed a new revelation of the ancient Egyptians’ artistic feeling and technical skill, far surpassing anything known before. ”

“ Readers of the daily papers and the illustrated weeklies will already be aware of the vast quantity of furniture and of the fact that even those who were already familiar with the superb design and workmanship displayed in the objects from such tombs as those of Thothmes IV, Yuaa and Tuaa, and Akhenaton were amazed at the new revelation of Egyptian craftsmanship revealed in scores of the things found in Tutankhamen’s tomb, the throne, a superb work of art, the no less wonderful chariots, chairs, couches, statues, sandals, textiles and jewellery, and above all the impressive canopy or shrine. ”

“ He imagined that he had found the tomb of Tutankhamen, and in the preface of the last of his series of magnificent reports he makes the remark: “I fear that the Valley of the Tombs is now exhausted.” But it is a fortunate thing that Mr Howard Carter did not share this idea. After the war the late Lord Carnarvon, with whom Mr Howard Carter had been working since 1907, applied to the Antiquities Department, and 29 was granted a concession to be allowed to continue in the Valley of the Tombs the work which the late Mr Theodore Davis had abandoned. ”

“ Birtwell he saw Mr. Elliott in one of the parlors, and made his way into the little group which had already gathered around the affable clergyman. Joining in the conversation, which was upon some topic of the day, Mr. Ridley, who talked well, was not long in awakening that interest in the mind of Mr. Elliott which one cultivated and intelligent person naturally feels for another ”

“ For in the myth mankind was destroyed to provide the elixir of life for the king so that he might attain to the immortality, which was the distinctive prerogative of a god. The blood of the slaughtered saints was the elixir by which the mortal dweller on earth put on the immortality of a celestial being. ”

“ It must not be forgotten that when these beliefs were first formulated, more than fifty centuries ago, there was no knowledge or understanding of the principles of physics and biology to hinder the adoption of such naïve fancies as the simple and obvious truth. There is no reason to doubt that the philosophers of those days did honestly believe in the possibility of prolonging existence by fulfilling all the conditions that seemed to them essential and adequate to the maintenance of vitality. ”

“ For it enables us to realize more vividly than before the relentless and persistent logic with which the ancient Egyptian theologian strove by any and every device he could think of, to make as certain as any physical or magical procedure could make it, to give a new lease of life or existence to the dead. Many modern scholars object to the use of the word logic to apply to a series of procedures inconsistent the one with the other except in their ultimate aim, and are constantly emphasizing and marvelling at their lack of cogency and consistency. ”