Mr. Van Brunt

“ Even Mr. Humphreys and Mr. Van Brunt, two persons not usually given to many words, came out wonderfully on this occasion; gratitude and pleasure in the one, and generous feeling on the part of the other, untied their tongues; and Ellen looked from one to the other in some amazement, to see how agreeable they could be. Kindness and hospitality always kept Mrs. Van Brunt in full flow; and Alice, whatever she felt, exerted herself and supplied what was wanting everywhere, like the transparent glazing which painters use to spread over the dead colour of their pictures ”

“ The gentle cows standing quietly to be milked as if they enjoyed it, and munching the cud; and the white streams of milk foaming into the pails; then there was the interest of seeing whether Sam or Johnny would get through first; and how near Jane or Dolly would come to rivalling Streaky's fine pailful; and at last Ellen allowed Mr. Van Brunt to teach herself how to milk. She began with trembling, but learnt fast enough; and more than one pailful of milk that Miss Fortune strained, had been, unknown to her, drawn by Ellen's fingers. ”

“ Van Brunt seemed to stand just where he did before in Miss Fortune's good graces, but not Ellen. To her, when others were not by, her face wore constantly something of the same cold, hard, disagreeable expression it had put on after Mr. Van Brunt's interference—a look that Ellen came to regard with absolute abhorrence. She kept away by herself as much as she could; but she did not know what to do with her time, and for want of something better often spent it in tears. ”

“ Guy was capable of hearing a good deal without committing himself. He would not promise to reason with Jeanie, nor to telegraph to Godfrey; but he agreed to interview Mr Van Brunt, and in his secret heart, he hoped that that dry-goods store in Chicago might prove to be solvent, and its owner’s character and intentions clear as the day, and that his duty as “one of the family” would not be to protect Jeanie from the snares of an adventurer. ”

“ Miss Fortune might object as she pleased; he always found an answer; and at last Ellen, to her great joy, would be told, "Well! go get your bonnet and be off with yourself." Once under the shadow of the big trees, the dried leaves crackling beneath her feet, and alone with her kind conductor, and Miss Fortune and all in the world that was disagreeable was forgotten—forgotten, no more to be remembered till the walk should come to an end. And it would have surprised anybody to hear the long conversations she and Mr. Van Brunt kept up, he, the silentest man in Thirlwall! ”

“ The rays of the sun struggled through the blue haze, which hung upon the hills and softened every distant object; and the silence of nature all around was absolute, made more noticeable by the far-off voice of somebody, it might be Mr. Van Brunt, calling to his oxen, very far off, and not to be seen: the sound came softly to her ear through the stillness. "Peace" was the whisper of nature to her troubled child; but Ellen's heart was in a whirl ”

“ I tell you, you don't know Van Brunt; he's as easy as anybody as long as he don't care about what you're doing; but if he once takes a notion you can't make him gee nor haw no more than you can our near ox Timothy when he's out o' yoke ”

“ It was the homestead. The English gentleman, the president of the fruit syndicate who had rented the house of Vandover, was now willing to buy it. His business was by this time on a firm and paying basis and he had decided to make his home in San Francisco. He offered twenty-five thousand dollars for the house, including the furniture.
Brunt had several talks with Vandover and easily induced him to sell. "You can figure it out for yourself, Mr. Vandover," he said, as he pointed out his own calculations to him ”

“ IV. SILAS VAN BURNAM.
"However much I may be needed at home, I cannot reconcile it with my sense of duty to leave just yet," I confided to the reporter, with what I meant to be a proper show of reason and self-restraint; "Mr. Van Burnam may wish to ask me some questions."
"Of course, of course," acquiesced the other. "You are very right; always are very right, I should judge." ”

“ For every little while the absurdity of the thing would come over me and off I would go again. Brunt was good-natured about it, though he didn't alwaysjoinin. First of all, he swore me to secrecy. He did not want any halfway work, he said. He was going to give his experiment a fair trial. ”

“ Van Buren’s middle life was spent in New York, where she lived a pleasant existence, surrounded by her family, and in the midst of a charming social circle. Her career was an exceptionally prosperous one, and she enjoyed life thoroughly. She was a cultivated, elegant-mannered person, considerate of others, sweet in disposition, and gracious in speech. Her home was the centre of 345elegant hospitality, and in the gayest city on this continent she was accounted a society leader. She was an unselfish woman, and she was never tardy in employing her gifts or her means in behalf of others. ”

“ CHAPTER VIII. A RETROSPECT.
"Poor, brilliant, gay, moody, moping, wildly excitable, miserable Brontë! No history records your many struggles after the good—your wit, brilliance, attractiveness, eagerness for excitement—all the qualities which made you such 'good company' and dragged you down to an untimely grave."
Thus ejaculates Mr. Francis H. Grundy, remembering the boon-companion of his early years, the half-insane, pitiful creature that opium and brandy had made of clever Branwell at twenty-two. ”

“ Would not the distinguished counsel on both sides consult with their clients? Surely there must be some way by which--Mr. Justice Mallory coughed judicially--a compromise, if necessary a financial compromise, could be effected.
"Interfering old fool," whispered Brunton to his junior.
Ensued a further orgy of whispering: Lord Arthur, his solicitor and Sir Martin on one side: Brunton, Lady Hermione and Sir Peter on the other. Behind him, Ronnie heard Lady Cynthia's muffled staccato, "I say, she isn't going to settle, is she?" and Miss Elizabeth Cattistock's "If she does, I win my bet." ”

“ Circumstances certainly do look very black against him."
"It is dreadful, unprecedently dreadful. I do not know what to think of it all. The Van Burnams have borne so good a name, and Franklin especially is held in such high esteem. I don't think anything more shocking has ever happened in this city, do you, Miss Butterworth? You saw it all, and should know. Poor, poor Mrs. Van Burnam!" ”

“ Van Buren was a smooth tongued, sleek little man who, said his enemies, never gave any one a straight answer, and who wrapped up his ideas and opinions in so many words that nobody could be sure what he really thought about any subject. ”

“ Give my love to all at Brookroyd.
‘C. Brontë.’
TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY
‘July 28th, 1848.
‘Dear Ellen,—Branwell is the same in conduct as ever. His constitution seems much shattered. Papa, and sometimes all of p. 138us, have sad nights with him: he sleeps most of the day, and consequently will lie awake at night. But has not every house its trial?
‘Write to me very soon, dear Nell, and—Believe me, yours sincerely,
‘C. Brontë.’
Branwell Brontë died on Sunday, September the 24th, 1848, [138] and the two following letters from Charlotte to her friend Mr. Williams are peculiarly interesting. ”

“ For about a year they were left entirely to their own devices, and to the rough care of kind-hearted, busy servants. They devised plays about great men, read the newspapers, and worshipped the Duke of Wellington, strolled over the moors at their own sweet will, knowing and caring absolutely for no creature outside the walls of their own home. To these free, hardy, independent little creatures Mr. Brontë announced one morning that their maiden aunt from Cornwall, their mother's eldest sister, was coming to superintend their education.
"Miss Branwell was a very small, antiquated little lady. ”

“ Van Buren is essentially furtive, lurking, cat-like. He delights in moonlight politics and follows the byways. He avoids the eye, is seldom in the show ring, and, in making his excursions, sticks to the lanes and keeps off the highways. Few men see, and fewer know, Van Buren. He is sly rather than bold ”

“ It was this revengeful warrior that Brother Van had met at the river crossing, but danger held no terrors for him, and that night in the coulee, near the scene of the tragic murder of the Canadian prospector, he took the saddle from his pony, pillowed his head on it, and slept peacefully with the stars smiling down on him. God’s protection was with the man who had a vision of the life of peace and righteousness which could come to the West only through the gospel that it was his privilege to preach. ”

“ VAN BUREN'S CHARACTER AND PLACE IN HISTORY
In the engraved portrait of Van Buren in old age, prefixed to his "History of Parties," are plainly to be seen some of his traits,—the alert outlooking upon men, the bright, easy good-humor, the firm, self-reliant judgment. Inman's painting, now in the City Hall of New York, [20] gives the face in the prime of life,—the same shrewd, kindly expression, but more positively touched with that half cynical doubt of men which almost inevitably belongs to those in great places. ”

“ But Miss Branwell persevered; urged economical motives; pressed on his love for his daughters. He gave way. Tabby was to be removed to her sister’s, and there nursed and cared for, Mr. Brontë coming in with his aid when her own resources fell short. This decision was communicated to the girls. There were symptoms of a quiet, but sturdy rebellion, that winter afternoon, in the small precincts of Haworth parsonage. They made one unanimous and stiff remonstrance. Tabby had tended them in their childhood; they, and none other, should tend her in her infirmity and age. ”

“ The profoundly thrilling and hidden delight which comes with the first taste of supreme power, even to the experienced and battered man of affairs, had been enjoyed by Van Buren only a few days, when the air grew heavy about him, and then perturbed, and then violently agitated, until in two months broke fiercely and beyond all restraint the most terrific of commercial convulsions in the United States. ”

“ Van Buren's skill in dealing with men was indeed extraordinary. It doubtless came from this temper of amity, and from an inborn genius for society; but it had been wonderfully sharpened in the unrivaled school of New York's early politics. When he was minister at London, he wrote that he was making it his business to be cordial with prominent men on both sides; a branch of duty, he said, in which he was not at home, because he had all his life been "wholly on one side." But he was jocosely unjust to himself. He was, for the politics of his day, abundantly fair to his adversaries. ”

“ Farming and tavern-keeping then were fairly interchangeable; and the gracious manner, the tact with men, which the younger Van Buren developed to a marked degree, it is easy to believe came rather from the social and varied life of an inn than from the harsher isolation of a farm. The statesman's boyish days were at any rate spent among poor neighbors. He was born at Kinderhook, an old village of New York, on the 5th of December, 1782. ”

“ Van Buren does with snares what others do by blows; traps while others hunt. And yet, in a feline way, he likes trouble. Set out a bowl of milk and a bowl of blood, and turn your back. If sure of unobservation, he will lap the blood. But if you stare at him, he dissembles with the milk, purring with fervor sedulous. Ever secret, Van Buren knows of no harder fate than mere discovery. His points of power are his egotism, his skill for sly effort, his talent as a trader of politics. Marcy is of another sort. Marcy is vigorous where Van Buren is fine. ”

“ The devil has his agents at work in the saloon and dance halls. Why should we give up to him?”
In that distant time when Brother Van made his first visit to the Indian agency, he traveled in an army post wagon. As we seek the Blackfeet Indians, we travel with him on a railroad train. His vivid stories of the towns through which we pass make us realize how much the frontier owes to missionary influence. Brother Van gets off at every station to look around.
“See that church house,” he exclaims proudly, for he always calls it that. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
It is small and in need of paint. ”

“ Returned from Bradford, his nervous system racked by opium fumes, he had loitered about at Ha worth until his father, stubborn as he was, perceived the obvious fact that every idle day led his only son more hopelessly down to the pit of ruin. At last he exerted his influence to find some work for Branwell, and obtained for his reckless, fanciful, morbid lad the post of station-master at a small roadside place, Luddendenfoot by name, on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. Thither he went some months before Charlotte and Emily left for Brussels. It was there Mr. Grundy met him ”

“ Vanbrunt is a Yorkshire dalesman, with Dutch trading blood in him. It is extraordinary how Dutch the people look near Goole and Hull. I shall like him better now. I always have liked him till—the last few months. You would never say Vanbrunt was a gentleman, but you would never say he wasn't. He seems apart from all class. There is no hall-mark upon him. He is himself. So you would not have him, my little Anne? That's over. It's the very devil to be refused, I can tell you. ”