Raynal

“ Raynal reported the evacuation of the place, and that Colonel Dujardin was buried under the bastion, and soon after rode out of the camp.
The words Camille had scratched with a pencil, and sent him from the edge of the grave, were few but striking.
“A dead man takes you once more by the hand. My last thought, thank God, is France. For her sake and mine, Raynal. GO FOR GENERAL BONAPARTE. Tell him, from a dying soldier, the Rhine is a river to these generals, but to him a field of glory. He will lay out our lives, not waste them.” ”

“ It is, however, interesting to notice that in Master Raynal's religion, as in Richard Rolle's, hermit of Hampole, there appears to have been some of that inchoate Quietism which was apt to tinge the faith of a few of the English solitaries. He was accustomed to attend mass devoutly and to receive the sacraments, and on his death-bed was speeded into the next world, at his own desire, by all the observances prescribed by the Catholic Church. ”

“ On the other hand, if Raynal turns myth into history, he constantly resorts to the opposite method, and turns the hard prose of real life into doubtful poetry. If he reduces the demi-gods to men, he delights also in surrounding savage men with the joyous conditions of the pastoral demi-gods. ”

“ This signal merit need not blind us to Raynal’s shortcomings in the other direction. There are very [214] few dates. The total absence of references and authorities was condemned by Gibbon as “the unpardonable blemish of what is otherwise a most entertaining book.” There is no criticism. As Raynal was a mere literary compiler, it was not to be expected that he should rise above the common deficiencies in the thought and methods of his time. It was not to be expected that he should deal with the various groups of phenomena among primitive races, in the scientific spirit of modern anthropology. ”

“ Colonel Dujardin was COMPARATIVELY indifferent to YOU. Will you undertake the task? A rough soldier like me is not the person to break the terrible tidings to that poor girl.”
“What tidings? You confuse, you perplex me. Oh! what does this horrible preparation mean?”
“It means he will never marry your sister; he will never see her more.”
Then Raynal walked the room in great agitation, which at once communicated itself to his hearer. But the loving heart is ingenious in avoiding its dire misgivings.
“I see,” said she; “he told you he would never visit Beaurepaire again. He was right.” ”

“ More disinterested persons than Frederick set as low a value on Raynal’s performance. One writer even compares the book to a quack mounted on a waggon, retailing to the gaping crowd a number of commonplaces against despotism and religion, without a single curious thing about them except their hardihood. ”

“ Meantime, all he thought it prudent to tell them was that he had endeavored to be just to both parties.
“Little solemn puppy,” said Rose, and was racked with curiosity.
Next week Raynal called on the baroness. She received him alone. They talked about Madame Raynal. The next day he dined with the whole party, and the commandant’s manners were the opposite of what the baroness had inculcated. But she had a strong prejudice in his favor. Had her feelings been the other way his brusquerie would have shocked her. It amused her. If people’s hearts are with you, THAT for their heads! ”

“ But a truce to all ideas excepting that of being shortly restored to all that is dear to me on earth. We are all in first-rate spirits, considering the misery with which we are surrounded. It is only this evening that we have got the boat ready for launching, and indeed there are several little preparations uncompleted yet.
Mr. Raynal is still making his hammer ring in the forge, although it is now half-past one o'clock in the morning. He is just finishing his last job, and I have snatched this opportunity for writing a little. Raynal has all along worked until eleven o'clock or midnight. ”

“ Has the discovery of America been useful or injurious to the human race?
Raynal was one of the most assiduous of the guests at the philosophic meals of Baron Holbach and Helvétius; he was very good-humoured, easy to live with, and free from that irritable self-consciousness and self-love which is too commonly the curse of the successful writer, as of other successful persons. ”

“ When you surprise the calves when they are staying at the edge of the water, they will always run on shore and make for the bush. The last time that Raynal went without me the seals were very savage. In the water they attacked the boat; one left the marks of his teeth in an oar, and another one was going to jump into the boat, but Raynal shot him. When they are killed in the water they sink like a stone. ”

“ Now contemplation is an arduous labour; it is not, as some ignorant persons think, a process of idle absorption; it is rather a state of strenuous endeavour, aided at any rate in its first stages by acts of steady detachment from the world of sense. Richard Raynal had passed through the first rigour of that purgative stage in the short period of one year, and although he still lived a detached life, and practised various austerities, he was so far free of danger that he was able, as has been already remarked, to dig and talk without interrupting the exercise of his higher faculties. ”

“ Many writers devoted themselves to history, but the spirit of French philosophy was uncongenial to this species of composition, and the age does not afford one remarkable historian. The fame of the Abbé Raynal (1718-1796) rests chiefly on his "History of the Two Indies." It is difficult to conceive how a sober man could have arrived at such delirium of opinion, and how he could so complacently exhibit principles which tended to overthrow the whole system of society. ”

“ On all other sides the woods rose to the sky. I think that the beasts knew the peace of the place. I have seen often a stag unafraid watching Master Richard as he dug or walked on his path; the robins would follow him, and the little furry creatures sit round him with ears on end. And he told me, too, that never since he had come to the place had blood fallen on the ground except his own when he scourged himself. The hunting-weasel never came here, though the conies were abundant; the stags never fought here though there was a fair ground for a battlefield. ”

“ He invaded the kingdom, and, at the battle of Hittin, Raynald along with King Guy and many others fell into his hands. They were brought to his tent; and Saladin, after rebuking Raynald strongly for his treachery, offered him his life if he would become a Mahommedan. He refused, and Saladin either slew him with his own hands or caused him to be slain (for accounts differ) in the presence of his companions.
The death of Raynald caused him to be regarded as a martyr; his life only shows him to have been a brigand of great capacity. ”

“ But whether he were disquieted or no on that Sunday, at least he was content next day, for it was on the next day at mass that our Lord told him what was the message that he was to deliver to the King.
There was a Cluniac monk from France who had obtained leave to say mass at the shrine of the Confessor, and Master Richard followed him and his fellow to the altar at five o'clock in the morning to hear mass there and see his Maker. [This is the common mediaeval phrase. Men did not then bow their heads at the Elevation.] ”

“ Alfred Rayner had so often of late come back from the High Court with an air of depression that Hester was surprised one evening when he returned home in his office-bandy in high excitement.
"I've great news for you, my darling," he greeted her gleefully, as he hurried up the verandah steps. "I've been and gone and shaken the pagoda tree, as the natives say, and I've brought down a crop of gold! To the hills at once, Hester, and gather your English roses once more. I can't stand those pale cheeks a day longer." ”

“ Alfred Rayner had been practising as a barrister in Madras, and was able to expatiate in glowing words on the many-sided charm of life for the dominant race in the tropical land. His young wife had found as yet that those descriptions were, if anything, under the mark. During those early days she used playfully to tax her gratified husband that he had not conveyed to her half the charm of the bright Eastern land whose spell had hitherto been unbroken. ”

“ Surely it's not the mosque? The Mahomedans will be beside themselves with fury. By Jove! I only hope it's Zynool's house—and him in it!" muttered Rayner with a chuckle.
A wild chorus of shouts and shrieks was now borne on the still evening air, and more flames leapt up into the sky.
"I declare I'm tempted to creep a little nearer and see the fun! Not a soul will heed an old woman in the scrimmage!"
Rayner began to walk on steadily as fast as his unshod feet would carry him. When he reached the narrow streets of the old town, he found that all were literally packed with human beings. ”

“ How could it be otherwise, he asked himself, with this high-souled girl exposed to the daily companionship of a nature so vain, so shallow, and he feared, so false, as he was reluctantly discovering Alfred Rayner to be? He recalled with fresh anxiety his shifty air when he had met him at Puranapore during his mysterious visit to the unprincipled Zynool. But happy chance had thrown Hester and him together on this Day of Glad Tidings. He must do all in his power to bring some pure, healthful pleasure into those few days on which he would be near her. ”

“ Some moments elapsed, and as Rayner still did not speak, the youth began to get impatient, and moreover, longed for his supper.
"I'll be steppin' townwards now, sir," he said timidly, keeping his eyes fixed on the rigid face. Mechanically Alfred Rayner drew from his small travelling satchel the bag of rupees, and held it out to the clerk, whose long thin fingers closed upon it. Without waiting to count the money he hurried off across the grass, never halting till he was well clear of the Shrine of Kali. Then he sat down under one of the oil lamps which skirted the road. ”

“ I carried the strips to this woman's house and I said, 'There's your mat.' I threw the pieces in her face like this—I wish they had been stones. I said to her: 'Take your mat; when my husband wants a praying mat I'll make him a better one than you can. When he wants good food I'll prepare it for him better than you can. When he wants——'"
"Buralli! Stop her!"
"No, Sahib, who can stop a Somal woman? Drown her. Murder her—yes, but as long as she has breath in her body she'll talk." ”

“ At dinner-time Mr. Rayner did not appear; I was too shy to ask Mrs. Rayner the reason, and I could only guess, when tea-time came and again there was no place laid for him, that he had gone away somewhere. I was sure of it when he had not reappeared the next morning, and then I became conscious of a slow but sure change, a kind of gradual lightening, in Mrs. Rayner’s manner. She did not become talkative or animated like any other woman; but it was as if a statue of stone had become a statue of flesh, feeling the life in its own veins and grown conscious of the life around it. ”

“ A creature not fit to touch the hem of her garment. I have a suspicion that he is——"
Mr. Worsley lowered his voice. It no longer reached the ear of the listener who had been cowering on the other side of the festooned pillar, hiding among its greenery. But Alfred Rayner had heard more than enough. With a flame of fury in his eyes, his long fingers clenched, he staggered forth to the nearest verandah. Leaning on its white balustrade he gazed with unseeing eyes on the peaceful, dark blue, star-bespangled vault, his heart a prey to misery and wrath. ”

“ No, no! (pointing to Rayner) here is my son, my heir, my child: All that I have is his: he will reward thee.
Thou hast a gen'rous mind, altho' debas'd
With vile oppression and unmanly scorn.
RAYNER (taking Ohio and Hardibrand both by the hand) .
What shall I say to you? my heart would speak
What my voice cannot. O! and here comes one
Who mocks all power of words.
(Enter Elizabeth running, and rushes into Rayner's arms; the Crowd then eagerly gathers round them, and closes upon them.)
MARDONIO (stepping out from the crowd, and looking upon them.) ”

“ Turning his head, Raynier could make out the loom of the great mountain mass against the stars, and was conjecturing on the ease and absence of obstacle which had characterised his deliverance at the hands of the Nawab’s son, for not a soul did they encounter, no guard challenged them ”

“ They have defiled our holy house! They have burned our mosque! Our children have been flung to the flames! Deen! Deen!"
"Ha, Worsley's going to catch it at last!" muttered Rayner, in growing excitement. "His Mussulman lambs will prove too much for him!"
The Collector was alternately addressing the crowd in fluent Hindustani and Tamil, his face transfigured by intense emotion, the whole spirit of the British Raj flashing in his eyes. With one hand he restrained his restive mare, the other was raised as he called now in Tamil to the Hindus:
"Back, men, back! To your homes, every man of you!" ”

“ He was always a quiet gentleman, they say. When you was born and she lay a-dying, she made him pledge himself to give you up to her sister Flo who was wed on a Mister Rayner. He once held the same post as myself in Trueloves', but he made his pile somehow and went to England to swagger and spend."
The man was so taken up with his narration that he forgot he was speaking to the relative of these people. At the mention of his aunt's name, Rayner squirmed. Cruel searching daylight was stealing into his mind. ”