Philimore

“ Oriana deeply acknowledged their sway; and Rosilia, oh! how often had she wished in secret that Douglas, to his more polished, fascinating, and brilliant manners and mien, had united the blameless life of Philimore, and in sentiment, truth, and morals resembled him! Freely then could she have admitted his suit, and have avowed without blushing that partiality with which he had so fervently sought to inspire her; that partiality even then existing, having outlived the hopes which had formerly given it strength—though deprecating her weakness, yet unable to subdue it. ”

“ Had he during that fatal season of health and strength, hope and joy, made a timely sacrifice of his feelings, and not have allowed their bright infatuation to dazzle his judgment, what a weight of misery would have been averted, not more from Oriana than himself!
In such afflicting reproaches day succeeded to day, and scarcely was a smile seen to illumine the countenance of the wan and faded Philimore. How truly did the words of the poet apply to his peculiar case, "Day followed day, and night the night: our life is but a chain of many deaths!" ”

“ Mr. Phillimore was correct. Miss Margaret Fuller—the sister of Violet—knocked at the door of the house in Freer Street. She had grown tall, and grand-looking, and very handsome. More, as Mr. Phillimore hastened to assure himself, from her richness of hue—quite Giorgionesque, as he said—than from any absolute regularity in the outline of her features. A trace of the Madge of old might have been perceived in the carelessness which permitted a thick, tangled cable of warm-coloured hair to protrude from the back of her bonnet in a great loop. ”

“ The collections of the Pilgrim Society are of great historical value. In Pilgrim Hall are preserved personal and household belongings of the Pilgrims, documents with their signatures, their books and Bibles, and the only known portrait of one of their number. Here is the patent issued to the Plymouth Colony in 1621, and the swords of their Governor, Carver, and their Captain, Myles Standish. Near by, a bit of woman’s embroidery, a baby’s shoe—great things and small,—the human element of a great transitional epoch, saved by reverential descendants to become an inheritance for another epoch. ”

“ Philemon Henry was older than his brother James, and in trade in the city that William Penn had planned and founded in an orderly manner. And though it is the common belief that Philadelphia was born at right angles and on a level, at its early inception there was much diversity to it. Creeks swept it in many directions, and there were hills and submerged lands waiting for the common sense of man to fill up and hew down the romance. Even before Revolutionary times there was much business on the wharves of the Delaware, and many men owned trading ships and warehouses. ”

“ CHAPTER XIII. EVEN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS DOESN’T MATTER MUCH.
“I did not intend to stay for lunch,” said Phyllis, “but your overpowering will swept me along with it, Ella. But I hope you will let me say that I don’t think you should jest about what is—what some people at any rate think very serious.”
“Phyllis is of Philistia,” said Ella, “and Philistia was always given to ordeal by champions. She thinks the attack made upon you by two missionaries in their newspaper organ quite disgraceful. It doesn’t seem so disgraceful after all.” ”

“ Rein in these brain-sick thoughts with judgment's bridle,
A short prevention helps a mighty domage.
If Phillis love, love her, yet love her so
That if she fly, thou may'st love's fire forego.
Play with the fire, yet die not in the flame;
Show passions in thy words, but not in heart;
Lest when thou think to bring thy thoughts in frame,
Thou prove thyself a prisoner by thine art. ”

“ The early records of the Town, as distinct from the Colony, are kept by the Town Clerk in the Plymouth Town House. In 1889, the Records, from 1636 to 1783, were published by the order of the Town, and may be consulted in the Public Library and elsewhere.
All these early records will repay the research of the student of American history.
“But this must stand above all fame and zeal:
The Pilgrim Fathers laid the ribs and keel.
On their strong lines we base our social health—
The man—the home—the town—the Commonwealth.” ”

“ As we drew near the town, I could see some of the young fellows we met cast admiring looks on Phillis; and that made me look too. She had on a white gown, and a short black silk cloak, according to the fashion of the day. A straw bonnet with brown ribbon strings; that was all. But what her dress wanted in colour, her sweet bonny face had. The walk made her cheeks bloom like the rose; the very whites of her eyes had a blue tinge in them, and her dark eyelashes brought out the depth of the blue eyes themselves. ”

“ At that moment Ella Linton came up with Lord Earlscourt.
“Has Mr. Courtland been telling you all about the bird of paradise?” she asked of Phyllis, while she waved the tail feathers of the loveliest of the birds of paradise before her face.
“The bird?—not the bird,” laughed Phyllis.
“But the topic was paradise?” Ella joined in the laugh—yes, to some extent.
“I talked of Adam—the old one of that name,” said Mr. Courtland.
“And Eve—the new one of that name,” said Phyllis.
“Theology is in the air!” cried Ella. “Even the stage of a theater is not free from the taint. ”

“ IN the story of my life in Philadelphia, and my love for the town which grew with my knowledge of it, my beginning to work was more than an awakening: it was an important crisis. For work first made me know Philadelphia as it is under the surface of calm and the beauty of age, first made me realize how much it offers besides the social adventure. ”

“ Grace. [From the tea-table.] Don't you like him?
Cynthia. [Calmly sarcastic.] Like him? I love him. He's so generous. He couldn't have received me with more warmth if I'd been a mulatto.
Thomas comes in, preceded by Phillimore. Philip Phillimore is a self-centered, short-tempered, imperious member of the respectable fashionables of New York. He is well and solidly dressed, and in manner and speech evidently a man of family. He is accustomed to being listened to in his home circle and [Pg 620] from the bench, and it is practically impossible for him to believe that he can make a mistake. ”

“ If we of Plymouth had come so burdened with clothes and food, we should have been spared many a sad day, when an empty stomach, scantily covered with thin clothing, knew at the same time the biting of the frost and the gnawing of hunger. It is little wonder that Sarah and I were eager to see these fortunate people, if for no other reason than to learn how they carried themselves before us of Plymouth, who failed of being fine birds through absence of fine feathers. ”

“ When her impassioned denunciation of him had come to an end, and she stood with flaming face, one outstretched hand pointing to the door, he recovered himself—partially; and curiously enough, his first thought was that he had never seen a more beautiful girl in a more graceful attitude. She had insulted him grossly; she had behaved as none of the daughters of Philistia would behave in regard to him—him, a clergyman of the Church of England; but he forgot her insults, her injustice, and his only thought was that she was surely the most beautiful woman in the world. ”

“ CHAPTER XXXV. IF GOD WOULD ONLY GIVE ME ANOTHER CHANCE!
“Poor creature! Poor creature!” said Mr. Ayrton. He had just returned from the room to which they had carried Ella. Phyllis was lying on the sofa with her face down to the pillow. “Poor creature! No one could have had any idea that she was so attached to him! She will be one of the richest women in England. He fell down in the club between nine and ten. His heart. Sir Joseph was not surprised. He said he had told him a short time ago that he had not six months to live. He cannot have let his wife know. ”

“ The girl had sprung to her feet, and was speaking with white face and clenched hands. “Down into the earth”—she stamped upon the floor—“even if we have to throw our bodies into the grave into which we trample it. Woman, I tell you that the other love,—the love which is the truth,—is stronger than the love of the satyr.”
“Is it? is it, Phyllis? Yes, sometimes. Yes; it was a word that you spoke in his hearing that saved him—him—Herbert—and that saved me that night when I came to you—when I waited for you—you did not know anything of why I came. I will tell you now—”
“No, no, no! Oh, Ella! ”

“ Philemon, the master of Onesimus, was the principal, to whom the letter is inscribed, the head of the family, in whom were the authority and power of taking in or shutting out, and whose property Onesimus was: with him therefore chiefly lay the business. To Philemon our dearly beloved, and fellow-labourer; a good man he was, and probably a minister, and on both accounts dearly beloved by Paul. A lover of good men is one property of a good minister (Tit. i. 8) , and especially must such love those who labour with them in the work of the gospel, and who are faithful therein. ”

“ When as her leaves great moan for pity maken.
The falling fountains from the mountains falling,
Cried out, alas, so fair and be so cruel!
And babbling echo never ceasèd calling,
Phillis, disdain is fit for none but truthless.
The rising pines wherein I had engraved
Thy memory consulting with the wind,
Are trucemen to thy heart and thoughts depraved,
And say, thy kind should not be so unkind.
But, out alas! so fell is Phillis fearless,
That she hath made her Damon well nigh tearless. ”

“ If the talk is true about peace there are great plans for the advancement of the town. They are going to cut down some of the hills and drain the meadows that the British flooded," and Primrose glanced sidewise at her brother's face with a half-teasing delight. "So, if the dreams of the big men who govern the city come true, there will presently be no old Philadelphia. I hear them talking of it with Aunt Wetherill."
They wander on, now and then changing places and partners, having a little merry badinage. Polly keeps coming to the rescue where Philemon Nevitt is concerned. ”

“ A more plausible reason is that Philadelphians were so innately sure of themselves—so sure that Philadelphia was the town and Philadelphians the aristocracy of the world—that they could afford to be indifferent. But whatever the cause, this indifference, this depreciation, was worse than a blunder, it was a loss in a town with a past so well worth looking into and being proud of and taking care of. ”

“ Philipon was an affectionate animal in spite of his frown and his rumbling voice, and Brent had helped him in the rebuilding of his house. His fatherliness stretched out a protective arm over these two. It is the big men who are most warm-hearted and sentimental, and Philipon was always saying to his wife, “Look at those two at the café! What a romance! It does one’s heart good.”
They walked along between the queer shapes and little twinkling lights of Beaucourt, with the stars shining overhead, and Philipon’s big feet falling emphatically on the cobbles. ”

“ Phyllis went out a good deal during the week, and everywhere she found herself looked at with interest; sometimes she found herself being examined through a pince-nez as if she were a curious specimen, and a woman or two smiled derisively at her. She did not know what was meant by their curiosity—their derision—until one day an old lady named Mrs. Haddon went up to her and kissed her, saying:
“I made up my mind that I would kiss you, my dear, the first chance I had. God bless you, my child! You have given your testimony as a woman should, in these days of scoffing at the truth.” ”

“ He would have had considerable difficulty in explaining this apparent discrepancy between his scheme of philosophy and his life as a man, had Phyllis asked him to do so; and Phyllis would certainly have asked him to do so had she become acquainted with the contents of his letter to her friend Ella; though Phyllis’ father, having acquired some knowledge of men as well as of phrases, would not have asked for any explanation, knowing that a man’s philosophy is, in its relation to a man’s life, a good deal less important than the fuse is to a bomb. ”

“ Both men had risen from the rudest conditions through much early hardship. Fillmore had been rocked in a sap-trough in a log-cabin scarcely better than Lincoln's early shelter, and the two might perhaps have played an even match at splitting rails. Fillmore, however, strangely adaptive, had taken on a marked grace of manner, his fine stature and mien carrying a dignified courtliness which is said to have won him a handsome compliment from Queen Victoria—a gentleman rotund, well-groomed, conspicuously elegant. ”

“ It was there voted that such a society be formed; the Pilgrim Society was incorporated, and the first meeting held at the Court House in Plymouth, May 18th, 1820.
The purpose of the Society was to do honor to the memory of their ancestors, the Pilgrim Fathers; its object, to hold property, to provide a suitable site for a monument, and “to erect a public building to accommodate the meetings of the associates.”
Mr. Thomas was elected President in 1820, and Mr. John Watson followed him in 1821. Thus began a succession of prominent citizens and able men to hold that office. ”

“ But perhaps he had never been able to divest himself altogether of the notion that the front room was after all, strictly speaking, a shop; while no such impeachment could in any way attach to the back-parlour. And he became the room, did Mr. Phillimore; for he too was comfortable-looking—a prosperous man leading a cosy, methodical, enjoyable life; a bachelor, without the slightest intention of ever changing his condition. A bald-headed man, with yet a half-chaplet of rather long grey hair, and sometimes a jaunty velvet cap to hide his baldness, for he considered and cultivated his appearance. ”