Sewell

“ With almost any other man in the world, Sewell would have relied on his personal qualities to carry him through a passage of difficulty. He could assume a temper of complete imperturbability; he could put on calm, coldness, deference, if needed, to any extent; he could have acted his part—it would have been mere acting—as man of honor and man of courage to the life, with any other to confront him but Sir Brook. ”

“ No man ever listened to the various anecdotes narrated with a more eager interest than Sewell. Now and then, indeed, a slight incredulity—a sort of puzzled astonishment that the world could be so very wicked, that there really were such fellows—would seem to distract him; but he listened on, and even occasionally asked an explanation of this or of that, to show the extreme attention he vouchsafed to the theme. ”

“ Sewell noticed their hungry look when a book was spoken of.
"And you must read it, too, my little girl," he said.
"Thank you, sir," said Mara; "I always want to read everything Moses does."
"What book is it?" said Moses.
"It is called Plutarch's 'Lives,'" said the minister; "it has more particular accounts of the men you read about in history."
"Are there any lives of women?" said Mara.
"No, my dear," said Mr. Sewell; "in the old times, women did not get their lives written, though I don't doubt many of them were much better worth writing than the men's." ”

“ When, through Sewell's pernicious counsels, the old Judge determined to convince the world of his judicial fitness by coming out a young man, dressed in the latest fashion, and affecting in his gait and manner the last fopperies of the day, all the reserve which respect for his great abilities had imposed was thrown aside, and the papers now assailed him with a ridicule that was downright indecent. The print shops, too, took up the theme, and the windows were filled with caricatures of every imaginable degree of absurdity. ”

“ Then, turning to Sewell, with a softened voice, he said, “How grieved I am that you should have passed such a morning! It was certainly not what I had intended for you.”
“You are too good to me, my Lord,—far too good, and too thoughtful of me,” said Sewell, with emotion.
“I am one of those men who must go to the grave misconstrued and misrepresented. He who would be firm in an age of cowardice, he who would be just in an age of jobbery, cannot fail to be calumniated. But, sir, there is a moral stature, as there is a material stature, that requires distance for its proportions ”

“ While Sewell stood examining the writing, the door creaked gently, and his wife moved softly and noiselessly into the room. If the sentiment that overcame him was not shame, it was something in which shame blended with anger. It was true she knew him well: she knew all the tortuous windings of his plotting, scheming nature; she knew that no sense of honor, no scruple of any kind, could ever stand between him and his object. He had done those things which, worse than deep crimes, lower a man in the eyes of a woman, and that woman his wife, and that she thus knew and read him he was well aware ”

“ Sewell's policy was what our people call non-intervention; he saw nothing, heard nothing, believed nothing; and I will say there 's a great deal of dignity in that line; and when your servant comes to wake you in the morning, with the tidings that your wife has run away, you have established a right before the world to be distracted, injured, overwhelmed, and outraged to any extent you may feel disposed to appear.”
“Your thoughts upon morals are, I must say, very edifying, sir.” ”

“ Sewell was one of your gentle, dignified men, from whom Heaven deliver an inquisitive female friend! If such people would only get angry, and blow some unbecoming blast, one might make something of them; but speaking, as they always do, from the serene heights of immaculate propriety, one gets in the wrong before one knows it, and has nothing for it but to beg pardon. Miss Emily had, however, a feminine resource: she began to cry—wisely confining herself to the simple eloquence of tears and sobs. ”

“ Sewell to play a game with us, and she says she has no objections,” said a young subaltern, “if Colonel Sewell does not dislike it.”
“I'll play whist, then,” said Sewell. “Who 'll make a rubber?—Cave, will you? Here's Houghton and Mowbray,—eh?”
“No, no,” said Mowbray,—“you are all too good for me.”
“How I hate that,—too good for me,” said Sewell. “Why, man, what better investment could you ask for your money than the benefit of good teaching? Always ride with the best hounds, play with the best players, talk with the best talkers.” ”

“ Sewell continued, gravely,—
"You have the greatest reason to bless the kind Providence which has cast your lot in such a family, in such a [Pg 241] community. I have had some means in my youth of comparing other parts of the country with our New England, and it is my opinion that a young man could not ask a better introduction into life than the wholesome nurture of a Christian family in our favored land."
"Mr. Sewell," said Moses, raising his head, and suddenly looking him straight in the eyes, "do you know anything of my family?" ”

“ Sewell, any of you?” asked Sewell, cavalierly, as he rode up with an open telegram in his hand; and as the persons addressed were for the most part his equals, none responded to the insolent demand.
“Could you tell me, sir,” said Sewell, quickly altering his tone, while he touched his hat to Westenra, “if Mrs. Sewell passed this way?”
“I haven't the honor to know Mrs. Sewell, but I saw a lady ride past, about ten minutes ago, on a black thoroughbred.”
“Faix, and well she rode him too,” broke in an old farmer. ”

“ That Sewell should lose is strange enough: that he should pay his losses is simply incredible.”
“Your opinion of him would seem to be a very indifferent one.”
“Far from it, Cave. It is without any qualification whatever. I deem him the worst fellow I ever knew; nor am I aware of any greater misfortune to a young fellow entering on life than to have become his associate.”
“You astonish me! I was prepared to hear things of him that one could not justify, nor would have willingly done themselves, but not to learn that he was beyond the pale of honor.” ”

“ Well, John Elroy was silenced now. His power looked ridiculous enough.
“We've got to make sure,” Sewell said. He shook himself like a man throwing off a stupor. “And then—when we're sure—we”ve got to be cautious. It's one thing to have the cards—one's got to play them. We've almost too many. It makes one mad—”
He lurched over to Napier's side, and suddenly, as though the limitless vista of the great city, its awakening murmur, conveyed some new thought to him, he lifted his clenched fists above his head in a gesture that was either of salutation or of menace. ”

“ Sewell was not so sure of that. He had no doubt that his wife would set down the heads of a powerful sermon, but he questioned whether any discourse, however potent, would have force to benefit such an abandoned criminal as he felt himself, in walking down his brown-stone steps, and up the long brick sidewalk of Bolingbroke Street toward the Public Garden. ”

“ Sewell in the evening and asked if he could tell him of his wife's condition.
"I was sent for this morning to Harlow House," he answered.
"Is she ill—worse?"
"No. She is fretting. She ought to fret. I gave her some soothing medicine. I am not sure I did right."
"O Sewell, what shall I do?"
"Go to Madame Hatton. She is a good, wise woman. She is not in love with her daughter-in-law, but she is as just as women ever are. She will give you far better counsel than a mere man can offer you."
So late as it was, John rode up to Hatton Hall. ”

“ Born at Gibraltar on 16 June 1808, Henry Sewell came to England in 1815, and was sent in 1817 to St. Saviour's grammar school, Southwark, and at a later date to the school of a young baptist minister called William Giles at Chatham, where Charles Dickens was his companion. In 1825 he returned to his native place, studied mercantile law in his father's office, and acquired a knowledge of French, Spanish, and Italian. He was then articled to Mr. Bridgman, a solicitor at Tavistock, and was admitted attorney and solicitor in January and February 1832. ”

“ As she shook his hand she broke into another laugh. “Really, you looked as if you were afraid of finding him on the steps!”
“If I could only have got near the poor boy,” said Sewell to his wife, as they returned withindoors. “If I could only have reached him where he lives, as our slang says! But do what I would, I couldn't find any common ground where we could stand together. We were as unlike as if we were of two different species. I saw that everything I said bewildered him more and more; he couldn't understand me! Our education is unchristian, our civilisation is pagan. ”

“ Sewell was of this order, and a fine specimen too.
All the men around him were his equals in every respect, and yet there was not one of them who did not accept a position of quiet, unresisting inferiority to him for the sake of his bad temper and his bad tongue. It was “his way,” they said, and they bore it.
He was a consummate adept in all the details of a household; and his dinners were perfection, his wine good, and his servants drilled to the very acme of discipline. These were not mean accessories to any pretension ”

“ Sewell interested me more than her husband. She is still very handsome; she must at one time have been perfectly beautiful. She is very gentle, low-voiced, and quiet, talking with a simplicity that even I can detect only covers a deep knowledge of life and the world. The dread of her husband seems, however, to pervade all she says or does. She changes color when he looks at her, and if he addresses her, she sometimes seems about to faint. ”

“ When the mint-master had grown very rich a young man, Samuel Sewell by name, came a-courting to his only daughter. His daughter—whose name I do not know, but we will call her Betsey—was a fine, hearty damsel, by no means so slender as some young ladies of our own days. On the contrary, having always fed heartily on pumpkin pies, doughnuts, Indian puddings, and other Puritan dainties, she was as round and plump as a pudding herself. With this round, rosy Miss Betsey did Samuel Sewell fall in love. ”

“ Go and send William for Dr Sewell at once.’
‘Where is Mr Hindes?’ said Miss Bostock. ‘Did he not travel with you?’
‘Yes, but he would not enter the Cedars. There was no need, and he feared to intrude on our sorrow at this sad home-coming. But he did everything for me whilst at Dover, and worked night and day in my behalf to save me trouble. I can never repay him for all his goodness. But send for Sewell, Clem, and tell Bradshaw to come here and help me carry poor Nelly to her room. ”

“ Come; we live in the world,—which isn't so bad, though it's pretty stupid. He couldn't change it. Now, what ought he to do?”
Sewell mused a while without answering anything. Then he said with a smile, “It's very much simpler to fit people for the other world than for this, don't you think?”
“Yes, it is. It was a cold day for the clergy when it was imagined that they ought to do both.”
“Well,” said Sewell, rising to follow his friend to the door, “I will come to see Barker, and try to talk with him. He's a very complicated problem. ”

“ Now, although Sir William's letter to Lucy was the sort of document which, admitting no species of reply, usually closes a correspondence, Sewell had not courage to ask the Chief for the rooms in question. It would be too like peremptory action to be prudent. It might lead the old man to reconsider his judgment. ”

“ He was no man to be trifled with, and none other than a fool would at any time, have thought of doing so. The Chief Justice Sewell, also an Anglo-American, was also an exceedingly talented man, but still a man quite of another stamp of mind, to that of Mr. Stuart. Mr. Sewell was thoroughly polished. No man could so well bow to power or so well bend an inferior to his will as Mr. Chief Justice Sewell. ”

“ Colonel Sewell soon uprooted such delusions. He believed in nothing nor in any one. If he had any theory at all of life, it was that the world consisted of wolves and lambs, and that one must make an early choice which flock he would belong to. I 'm ashamed to own what a zest it gave to existence to feel that the whole thing was a great game in which, by the exercise of skill and cleverness, one might be almost sure to win. ”

“ Sewell. "If she were a boy, and you would take her away cod-fishing, as you have Moses, the sea-winds would blow away some of the thinking, and her little body would grow stout, and her mind less delicate and sensitive. But she's a woman," he said, with a sigh, "and they are all alike. We can't do much for them, but let them come up as they will and make the best of it."
CHAPTER XVI THE NATURAL AND THE SPIRITUAL
[Pg 154] "Emily," said Mr. Sewell, "did you ever take much notice of that little Mara Lincoln?" ”

“ The fellow himself must be a consummate muff to be bullied by her; but then the estate is not entailed, they say, and there's a younger brother may come into it all. His chances look well just now, for Lionel has got a relapse, and the doctors think very ill of him.”
“I had not heard that,” said Sewell, calmly.
“Oh, he was getting on most favorably,—was able to sit up at the window, and move a little about the room,—when, one morning Lady Trafford had driven over to the Lodge to luncheon, he stepped downstairs in his dressing-gown as he was, got into a cab, and drove off into the country. ”