Sparkle

“ One of these came and asked why he was there, and when he told her, Sparkle said, "You must work for us if you want to earn the golden wand."
"What must I do?" asked Thistle. [Pg 40]
"Many things," answered Sparkle; "some of us watch over the roots of the flowers and keep them warm and safe; others gather drops and make springs that gush up among the rocks, where people drink the fresh water and are glad; others dig for jewels, make good-luck pennies, and help miners find gold and silver hidden in dark places. ”

“ Richard Mortimer,” said Sparkle, as he introduced his friend—“the Hon. Mr. Dashall, and Mr. Robert Tallyho.”
After the mutual interchanges of politeness which naturally succeeded this introduction—“Come,” said Sparkle, “we are horsed, and our nags waiting—we are for a ride, which way do you bend your course?”
“A lucky meeting,” replied Tom; “for we are upon the same scent; I expect my curricle at Hyde-Park Corner in ten minutes, and have no particular line of destination.”
“Good,” said Sparkle; “then we may hope to have your company; and how disposed for the evening?” ”

“ If you’ll let Sparkle look over your comedy, write up Blake’s part, re-cast the plot, and smarten up the dialogue, I’ll bring the piece out under Sparkle’s name, pay him the fees, and—and your fortune’s made. (Alma comes down, C.)
Ned. Let Sparkle hack about my piece? Sparkle, who’s just made this fiasco?
Dick. Sparkle has such a name.
Alma. Yes—for fiascos.
Dick. Never mind what it’s for—he has a name.
Ned. No, Mr. Dick, no!
Dick. You refuse?
Ned. Decidedly. (goes up to L.C., sits at table)
Dick. (taking stage, R.) And yet they say we managers don’t give young men a chance. ”

“ These eyes are the striking feature; for, while the eyes of a poet, they carry in their inky depths a hard, ophidian sparkle both dangerous and fascinating—the sort of eyes that warn a man and blind a woman. ”

“ Indeed, their outer natural faces are frequently, and unfortunately usually, cut away most sacrilegiously by the lapidary, in order that by grinding and polishing on them still more numerous and evenly distributed facets he may increase to the maximum the magnificent play of coloured light with which they sparkle. ”

“ Mrs Sparkler was in the full glow of her gratification, when a double knock was heard at the door. A very odd knock. Low, as if to avoid making a noise and attracting attention. Long, as if the person knocking were preoccupied in mind, and forgot to leave off.
‘Halloa!’ said Mr Sparkler. ‘Who’s this?’
‘Not Amy and Edward without notice and without a carriage!’ said Mrs Sparkler. ”

“ No, no, you ought to consider where you are, what company you are in, and never laugh without a good motive—what is the use of laughing.”
“A philosopher,” said Tom Dashall, “need scarcely ask such a question. The superiority of his mind ought to furnish a sufficient answer.”
“Then I perceive you are not communicative, and I always like to be informed; but never mind, here we shall have something to entertain us.”
“And at least,” said Sparkle, “that is better than nothing.” ”

“ It makes the world of five miles round quite merry. Not to know that there is something wrong at the Dedlocks’ is to augur yourself unknown. One of the peachy-cheeked charmers with the skeleton throats is already apprised of all the principal circumstances that will come out before the Lords on Sir Leicester’s application for a bill of divorce.
At Blaze and Sparkle’s the jewellers and at Sheen and Gloss’s the mercers, it is and will be for several hours the topic of the age, the feature of the century. ”

“ See how her eye sparkles, how her lip wreaths itself in smiles, and how the joyous laugh breaks forth clear, and sweet, and musical, finding expression not only in its own melodious tones, but in every feature--aye, and even in the colour that rises in a gay bashfulness, and spreads suddenly over cheek and brow, as if a ray of morning sunshine had found its way through the green branches and lighted up her face. ”

“ Then Greg did a fire dance with two sparklers. He dances rather well,—not real one-steps and waltzes, but weird things he makes up himself. This one lasted as long as the sparklers burned, and it was quite gorgeous. After that we had a candle-light procession around the garden, and the grown people said that the candles looked very mysterious bobbing in and out between the trees. ”

“ Where do purple bubbles swim,
But upon the goblet's brim?
Drink not deep, howe'er it glow
Sparkles never lie below. ”

“ I should very much have liked to start with you; but as Laconic has made me fully acquainted with his affairs, in case he should fall in the intended duel, I must even comply with the contents of his note; though, if he had not actually departed, you may rest assured I would have nothing to do with him or his concerns.”
[417] “Come, come,” cried Sparkle, “grumbling is of no use now; and as the circumstances are not made public, the duellists will escape being laughed at. ”

“ For an hour and three-quarters that busy fertile brain would be pulling and twisting the English verse into Latin shape, converting it into polished Elegiacs or rolling hexameters. Then, sleepily raising his head, and casting a last contemptuous glance over the English copy, Sparkleigh would take up his pen, and in the remaining quarter of an hour [214] scribble out a full and complete fair copy—to the respectful admiration of his neighbour Grubbe, who, covered with ink and surrounded by waste paper, was laboriously grappling with the last couplet. ”

“ The gentle fair on nervous tea relies,
Whilst gay good-nature sparkles in her eyes;
An inoffensive Scandal fluttering round,
Too rough to tickle, and too light to wound; ”

“ He produced a glittering disk, half as large again as a five-franc piece; it gave forth infinite sparkles through the dark of the room. "Look at that! Look hard—and think of nothing else!" he commanded. ”

“ The sparks totter or vibrate from left to right, but they fly distinctly upward: they are like tiny blocks, half gold, half black, rather symmetrically placed behind each other, and they are always in a hurry to efface the roses: sometimes they have come at my call, sometimes by surprise, but they are always equally pleasing. ”

“ He went up to the table, where a half-blown bud in a slender crystal vase charmed him with its crimson beauty.
“What a rich, warm, velvety scarlet rose—the flower of love!” he exclaimed; and pressed his lips on the curling petals. ”

“ Many a brilliant spark is born where the hammers ply, But a lurking thief is there; prompt, with finger sly, Spark on spark he puts them out, sparks which might have soared Perish underneath his touch. ”

“ I wonder whether it is a joy to have bright scarlet spots, and to be clad in the purple and gold of life; is the colour felt by the creature that wears it? The rose, restful of a dewy morn before the sunbeams have topped the garden wall, must feel a joy in its own fragrance, and know the exquisite hue of its stained petals. The rose sleeps in its beauty.
The fly whirls his scarlet-spotted wings about and splashes himself with sunlight, like the children on the sands. He thinks not of the grass and sun ”

“ The perfume of the scarf stole into the senses of the staring company and completed the illusion, delicately brushing with sensuousness what was otherwise an expression of the rhythm of life, the dreaming of an ardent but virginal soul. So a nautch-girl may have danced for the first time before a king, ignorant then of what was expected of her, dissolving in the joy of rhythmical motion, of innocent pride in her own young beauty. ”

“ To plant on thy forbidden snow
⁠The rosebud of a kiss.
The scarlet flower would spread and grow,
⁠Your whiteness change and flush,
Be still, my reckless heart, beat slow,
'T is but a dream that stirs thee so! ”

“ Here, then, in Sparks is not only a medium in which the Macy folks may come the better to know about one another, a bulletin board upon which the heads of the house may from time to time carry very direct and sincere messages to their big family, but a mouthpiece in which the embryo literary genius may become articulate. ”

“ But when soft-trailing saffron and warm rose
Half hide and half disclose
Her glowing beauty rare,—
When living things her sweet breath quaff,
And lift their heads for joy of her, and laugh,
Thou art no longer there. ”

“ I nodded, pointed to the sun, and gave them such a vivid rendering of a thunderclap as startled them. They all withdrew a pace or so and bowed. Then came one laughing toward me, carrying a chain of beautiful flowers, altogether new to me, and put it about my neck. The idea was received with melodious applause; and presently they were all running to and fro for flowers, and laughingly flinging them upon me until I was almost smothered with blossom. You who have never seen the like can scarcely imagine what delicate and wonderful flowers countless years of culture had created. ”

“ But there is one Spark in this world—a grand, glowing, gushing fellow—who has not his equal anywhere. He is old as the hills—perhaps older—and wide as the world—perchance wider. Similar to ordinary sparks in some respects, he differs from them in several important particulars. ”

“ Perhaps all this fine fragrance is but the overflow of its soul’s delight at being young and chastely beautiful, and trembling in the ultra violet darkness on that delicious verge of life that waits the wooer. I half fancy that this is true of all perfume of flowers, that it is less a call to butterfly or bee to come to their winning than it is a radiation of delight from their own pure hearts at the dawning of the full joy of living. ”

“ Sweet Flower, thy Blossom and thy Winding sheet!
In the Procession of SPRING there is a fine series of allegorical
Images.
Advancing SPRING profusely spreads abroad Flowers of kinds, with sweetest fragrance stor'd: Where she treads LOVE gladdens every plain; Delight on tip-toe beats her lucid train; Sweet Hope with conscious brow before her flies, Anticipating wealth from summer skies. ”

“ Her rose-bud mouth to mine was prest—
Scarf, curl, and kiss, are with me now.
That kiss has been kept like the leaves
Of the young rose, or ere the sun,
Like love, has opened the sweet flower,
It fades while it is shining on. ”

“ The beauty and perfume of the Rose are celebrated in those sweet sonnets of Shakspeare, so familiar to all lovers of true and graceful poetry.
Oh! how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
The canker blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumed tincture of the roses;
Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly,
When Summer's breath their masked buds discloses.
But for their virtue only is their show,
They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade ”

“ This girl, who if she had been fed on poetry and works of imagination, might have become a Miss Sparkes, now rather gives herself the airs of a calculator and of a grave computist. Though as in the case of the cat in the fable, who was metamorphosed into a lady, nature will breath out as soon as the scratching of a mouse is heard; and all Ph [oe] be's philosophy can scarcely keep her in order, if any work of fancy comes in her way. ”

“ Then, one day, like one of the prisms that you love so well, little girl, you danced into my life, and flecked my dreary old world with dashes of the purple and gold and scarlet of your own bright cheeriness. ”

“ But the fairy colors were less strongly suggestive than something impalpable, invisible, indescribable, yet voluptuously enchanting which clung to the fan spirit-wise—a tender little scent—a mischievous perfume—a titillating, tantalizing aroma—an odor inspirational as of the sacred gums whose incense intoxicates the priests of oracles. Did you ever lay your hand upon a pillow covered with the living supple silk of a woman's hair? ”

“ Poor, dry, musty flowers! Who would believe you ever danced in the wind, drank in the evening dews, and spread sweet fragrance on the air? A touch now breaks your brittle leaves. Your odors are like attic herbs, or green tea, or mouldy books. Your forms are bent and flattened into every ugly and distorted shape. Your lovely colors are faded,—white changed to black, yellow to dirty white, gorgeous scarlet to brick color, purple to muddy brown. ”

“ The world is made brighter and sunnier by flowers of such a hue. Even perfume, which otherwise is the soul and spirit of a flower, may be spared when it arrays itself in this scarlet glory. It is a flower of thought and feeling, too; it seems to have its roots deep down in the hearts of those who gaze at it. Other bright flowers sometimes impress me as wanting sentiment ”

“ Her enthusiasm terrifies, her energy offends, and if her taste is ever challenged, it is to the figures upon a quilt or in a flower-garden, where the passion seems to be to make flowers grow in stars, and hearts, and crescents. ”

“ They loiter through the world’s flower-gardens, and I—sometimes there comes swiftly past a whiff of perfume. They drain deep the different wines of pleasure, while into my tiny cup, bar-fastened, is poured a few drops of water. They move abroad under the broad sunlight, and I—moveless in this wee shadow. They hear ever that great symphony, the world’s laugh, and I—no one ever laughs alone. ”

“ I did have thinks about sparky things as I did come on home. Now I have knowings of these. Cats are sparky—black ones on a cold night. Stoves are sparky on cold days. Rocks are sparky—flint ones when you give them a thump. The chore boy says some people are sparky. He does n’t know what he is talking about.
When I was come into the house we live in, I gave the baby a gentle thump. It squawked, but there were no sparks. Then the mamma came in the back door. She had not knows why it squawked, but she did tell me to mind it. I so did. The mamma went out again to the house of Elsie. ”