Mrs. Duff-Scott

“ Nothing is more repulsive to any healthy-minded youngster than to have these incarnations of all the namby-pamby little virtues set up as patterns for imitation. So exemplary biography is, on the whole, rather a fetish, and calculated to make the 'men who have made themselves' unpopular, and the record of their deeds a wearisome grind. Popular accounts of voyages and travels, and historical books like Scott's Tales of a Grandfather, are on quite another level, and, if such works were not to be had in abundance in Public Libraries, it would be necessary to specify a few. ”

“ The three books which follow the Golden Legend, and which are all dated 1485, are of very great interest. These are the Morte [pg 64] d'Arthur, the Lyf of Charles the Great, and the History of Paris and Vienne, all printed in folio.
Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur, that cycle of stories connected with King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and as Sir Walter Scott called it, the best of all English romances, is perhaps the most interesting volume that Caxton ever printed. Two copies only, one perfect, the other wanting a few leaves, are now known. ”

“ Margaret's Church, Westminster, "Bureyng of Mawde Caxston", 88 Salisbury, Church of. Hours, Legends, Missal, Ordinale. See, respectively, Horae, Legenda, Missale, Ordinale, ad usum Sarum. Saona, Laurentius de. Nova Rhetorica. See Margarita Eloquentiae. Sarum, Church of. See Salisbury. Scotland, Andrew Myllar first printer of, 35 Scott, Sir Walter, Comment on Morte d'Arthur, 64 Scott, Mr., of British Museum, Remark on Caxton's will, 86 Scrope, Translator of Dictes, 52 Selden collection, 75 Sermones, Quattuor. ”

“ "Why don't you say something?"
"What a darling you are," I cried. "I am simply sitting here getting thoroughly fascinated by you--here this very moment thoroughly fascinated.... There is no help for it.... You are the most extraordinary creature that ... sometimes your eyes gleam so, that I never saw their match; they look like flowers ... eh? No, well, no, perhaps, not like flowers, either, but ... I am so desperately in love with you, and it is so preposterous ... for, great Scott! there is naturally not an atom of a chance for me.... What is your name? ”

“ But when the novelty of such avocations ceased to amuse her, she showed to her sister but too plainly, that the gaudy colouring with which she veiled her unhappiness afforded as little real comfort, as the gay uniform of the soldier when it is drawn over his mortal wound. ”

“ Their steps are heard in darkness, when all is silent save the whirlwind and the cataract. The timid deer comes only forth when the sun is upon the mountain’s peak, but the bold wolf walks in the red light of the harvest-moon. ”

“ Usually, the schoolmaster's list is full of vapid, colourless and goody-goody stuff which children will not read. They cannot be expected to take great delight in literature which is reminiscent of school lessons, or which is calculated to hurt their self-respect, by being what a London lad once contemptuously called them—'Kids' Books'. ”

“ The gaunt precipice which remained behind, like the skeleton of some huge monster divested of its flesh, formed the wall of a fearful abyss, resembling the face of a newly wrought quarry, more dismal of aspect from the rawness of its recent formation, and from its being as yet uncovered with any of the vegetation with which nature speedily mantles over the bare surface even of her sternest crags and precipices. ”

“ To the left the woods advanced far into the ocean, waving in the moonlight along ground of an undulating and varied form, and presenting those varieties of light and shade, and that interesting combination of glade and thicket, upon which the eye delights to rest, charmed with what it sees, yet curious to pierce still deeper into the intricacies of the woodland scenery. ”

“ In winter, when the snow lay on the mountains around, these dazzling masses appeared to ascend far beyond their wonted and natural height, while the lake, which stretched beneath, and filled their bosom with all its frozen waves, lay like the surface of a darkened and broken mirror around the black and rocky islet, and the walls of the gray castle with which it was crowned. ”

“ He leaves the shelter of his native wood, He leaves the murmur of Ohio’s flood, And forward rushing in indignant grief, Where never foot has trod the fallen leaf, He bends his course where twilight reigns sublime. ”

“ The noble form and fine features of Ravenswood, fired with the pride of birth and sense of internal dignity, the mellow and expressive tones of his voice, the desolate state of his fortunes, and the indifference with which he seemed to endure and to dare the worst that might befall, rendered him a dangerous object of contemplation for a maiden already too much disposed to dwell upon recollections connected with him. ”

“ The howling of the storm mingled with the shrieks of the sea-fowl, and sounded like the dirge of the three devoted beings, who, pent between two of the most magnificent, yet most dreadful objects of nature—a raging tide and an insurmountable precipice—toiled along their painful and dangerous path, often lashed by the spray of some giant billow, which threw itself higher on the beach than those that had preceded it. ”

“ Countless rows of ladies, whose diamonds, jewels, and splendid attire were their least powerful charms, looked down from their lofty seats on the rich scene beneath, themselves forming a show as dazzling and as beautiful as that of which they were spectators. ”

“ Wild as the scream of the curlew, From crag to crag the signal flew. Instant, through copse and heath, arose Bonnets and spears and bended bows On right, on left, above, below, Sprung up at once the lurking foe; From shingles gray their lances start, The bracken bush sends forth the dart, The rushes and the willow-wand Are bristling into axe and brand, And every tuft of broom gives life 'To plaided warrior armed for strife. ”

“ Speak'st thou of their inability to influence waters, when yet thou know'st that ever the weakest, the moon herself—weakest because nearest to this wretched earth of ours—holds under her domination not such poor streams as the Somme, but the tides of the mighty ocean itself, which ebb and increase as her disc waxes and wanes, and watch her influence as a slave waits the nod of a Sultana? ”

“ The gallant Frith the eye might note,
Whose islands on its bosom float,
Like emeralds chased in gold.
Fitz Eustace’ heart felt closely pent;
As if to give his rapture vent,
The spur he to his charger lent,
And raised his bridle hand,
And making demivolte in air,
Cried, “Where’s the coward that would not dare
To fight for such a land!” ”

“ Our separation was not sought by thee, but thou borest it as a vine whose twining arms when turned from round the limb lie prostrate, broken, life scarcely left enough to keep the withered leaf from falling off. ”

“ To read the minstrel’s idle strain,
Sound head, clean hand, and piercing wit,
And patriotic heart—as Pitt!
A garland for the hero’s crest,
And twined by her he loves the best.
To every lovely lady bright,
What can I wish but faithful knight?
To every faithful lover too,
What can I wish but lady true? ”

“ Is it he, that I have seen lead the chase and head the attack,—the brave, the active, the young, the noble, the love of ladies, and the theme of song,—is it he who is ironed like a malefactor—who is to be dragged on a hurdle to the common gallows—to die a lingering and cruel death, and to be mangled by the hand of the most outcast of wretches? ”

“ Heaven saw need to chastise me in love—I was stript of all I clung to on earth—my worldly honour was torn from me—I went forth an exile from the home of my fathers, a deprived and desolate man—a baffled, and beaten, and dishonoured man. ”

“ If the sight I saw in the tent of King Richard escaped thine observation, I will account it duller than the edge of a buffoon's wooden falchion. True, thou wert under sentence of death at the time; but, in my case, had my head been dropping from the trunk, the last strained glances of my eyeballs had distinguished with delight such a vision of loveliness, and the head would have rolled itself towards the incomparable houris, to kiss with its quivering lips the hem of their vestments. ”

“ Never more shall Piercie Shafton advance, as the centre of your radiant glances, couch his lance, and spur his horse at the sound of the spirit-stirring trumpets, nobly called the voice of war—never more shall he baffle his adversary's encounter boldly, break his spear dexterously, and ambling around the lovely circle, receive the rewards with which beauty honours chivalry! ”

“ The sky is clouded, Gaspard, And the vexed ocean sleeps a troubled sleep, Beneath a lurid gleam of parting sunshine. Such slumber hangs o'er discontented lands, While factions doubt, as yet, if they have strength To front the open battle. ”

“ On the bier placed before it were stretched the mortal remains of the murdered man, his arms folded on his breast, and his palms joined together, with the fingers pointed upwards, as if the senseless clay was itself appealing to Heaven for vengeance against those who had violently divorced the immortal spirit from its mangled tenement. ”

“ An ordinary is a late-invented institution, sacred to Bacchus and Comus, where the choicest noble gallants of the time meet with the first and most ethereal wits of the age,—where the wine is the very soul of the choicest grape, refined as the genius of the poet, and ancient and generous as the blood of the nobles. ”

“ The fire itself did not remain steady and unmoved, but rose and fell, sometimes ascending in a brilliant pyramid of condensed flame half-way up the lofty expanse, and again fading into a softer and more rosy hue, and hovering, as it were, on the surface of the altar to collect its strength for another powerful exertion. ”

“ A breast whose blood's a troubled ocean, Each throb the earthquake's wild commotion!—O, if such clime thou canst endure, Yet keep thy hue unstain'd and pure, What conquest o'er each erring thought Of that fierce realm had Agnes wrought! ”

“ Give us the huts ye have burned, our children whom ye have murdered, our widows whom ye have starved—collect from the gibbet and the pole the mangled carcasses, and whitened skulls of our kinsmen—bid them live and bless us, and we will be your vassals and brothers—till then, let death, and blood, and mutual wrong, draw a dark veil of division between us. ”

“ Not the wild billow, when it breaks its barrier— Not the wild wind, escaping from its cavern— Not the wild fiend, that mingles both together, And pours their rage upon the ripening harvest, Can match the wild freaks of this mirthful meeting— Comic, yet fearful—droll, and yet destructive. ”

“ What thy petty fuming is to the deep and vast billows of a shoreless ocean, are our cares, hopes, fears, joys, and sorrows to the objects which must occupy us through the awful and boundless succession of ages! ”

“ Groom fought like noble, squire like knight,
As fearlessly and well;
Till utter darkness closed her wing
O’er their thin host and wounded king.
Then skilful Surrey’s sage commands
Led back from strife his shattered bands;
And from the charge they drew,
As mountain-waves, from wasted lands,
Sweep back to ocean blue.
Then did their loss his foemen know;
Their king, their lords, their mightiest low,
They melted from the field as snow,
When streams are swoll’n and south winds blow,
Dissolves in silent dew. ”

“ He had looked upon the strangeness and beauty of the world in its most remote and least-known quarters, had witnessed fights with savages, threaded unmapped straits, and had, to crown his youthful achievements, striven amidst the wrack and thunder of grim-visaged war. ”

“ What is entertaining matter for the lad of twelve must needs, according to this scheme, be poison for his brother of eight, while girl-books are apparently regarded as quite a distinct class from boy-books. This shepherding and patronage of the young idea has attained appalling dimensions in the United States, and one of its most awful results has been the production of the phenomenally impertinent American boys and girls one meets on board Atlantic steamships, in hotels, and even in the streets of London and Edinburgh. ”

“ To tell red Flodden’s dismal tale,
And raise the universal wail.
Tradition, legend, tune, and song,
Shall many an age that wail prolong:
Still from the sire the son shall hear
Of the stern strife, and carnage drear,
Of Flodden’s fatal field,
Where shivered was fair Scotland’s spear,
And broken was her shield!
XXXV.
Day dawns upon the mountain’s side:—
There, Scotland! lay thy bravest pride,
Chiefs, knights, and nobles, many a one:
The sad survivors all are gone. ”

“ There is a voice among the trees, That mingles with the groaning oak—
That mingles with the stormy breeze,
And the lake-waves dashing against the rock;—
There is a voice within the wood,
The voice of the Bard in fitful mood ”

“ Can I forget that I have been branded as an outlaw—stigmatised as a traitor—a price set on my head as if I had been a wolf—my family treated as the dam and cubs of the hill-fox, whom all may torment, vilify, degrade, and insult—the very name which came to me from a long and noble line of martial ancestors, denounced, as if it were a spell to conjure up the devil with? ”

“ If, in the midst of the most serene day of summer, when all is light and laughing around, a thunderbolt were to fall from the clear blue vault of heaven, and rend the earth at the very feet of some careless traveller, he could not gaze upon the smouldering chasm, which so unexpectedly yawned before him, with half the astonishment and fear which Leicester felt at the sight that so suddenly presented itself. ”