Thomas Bailey Aldrich

“ The furniture, the carpets, and all the sordid fixtures of the house were just as Richard had known them in his childhood. Everything was unchanged, even to the faded peacock-feather stuck over the parlor looking-glass. As he regarded the familiar objects and breathed the snuffy atmosphere peculiar to the place, the past rose so vividly before him that he would scarcely have been startled if a lean, gray old man had suddenly appeared in one of the doorways. On a peg in the front hall hung his cousin's napless beaver hat, satirically ready to be put on ”

“ It shows what a nation we are.
An oil-lamp on a deal-table cast a dismal glare over the apartment, which was cheerless in the extreme. I thought of our sitting-room at home, with its flowery wall-paper and gay curtains and soft lounges; I saw Major Elkanah Nutter (my grandfather's father) in powdered wig and Federal uniform, looking down benevolently from his gilt frame between the bookcases; I pictured the Captain and Miss Abigail sitting at the cosey round table in the moon-like glow of the astral lamp ”

“ I tried to smile upon her sweetly, but the smile, rippling over my swollen cheek, and dying away like a spent wave on my nose, produced an expression of which Miss Abigail declared she had never seen the like excepting on the face of a Chinese idol.
She hustled me unceremoniously into the presence of my grandfather in the sitting-room. Captain Nutter, as the recognized professional warrior of our family, could not consistently take me to task for fighting Conway; nor was he disposed to do so; for the Captain was well aware of the long-continued provocation I had endured. ”

“ Your arm will be chilled to the shoulder. We don't want to do anything to hurt the good little heart, you know."
"Certainly not," said Margaret. "There!" and she rested her right arm on the table, while Richard placed the hand in the desired position on a fresh napkin which he had folded for the purpose.
"Let your hand lie flexible, please. Hold it naturally. Why do you stiffen the fingers so?"
"I don't; they stiffen themselves, Richard. They know they are going to have their photograph taken, and can't look natural. Who ever does?" ”

“ The Poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich. Boston: Ticknor and Fields. The things which please in these poems are so obvious, that we feel it all but idle to point them out; for who loves not graceful form, bright color, and delicate perfume? Of our younger singers, Mr. Aldrich is one of the best known and the best liked, for he has been wise as well as poetical in his generation. The simple theme, the easy measure, have been his choice ”

“ I glanced across the table at Charley and Talbot eating their breakfast, with the slanted sunlight from the window turning their curls into real gold, and I had not the heart to tell them what had happened.
Of all the prayers that floated up to heaven, that Saturday night, from the bedsides of sorrowful men and women, or from the cots of innocent children, what accents could have fallen more piteously and tenderly upon the ear of a listening angel than the prayer of little James Speaight! He knew he was dying. ”

“ While he was telling it, a gentle wind arose; the miniature sloops drifted feebly about the ocean; the wretched owners flew from point to point, as the deceptive breeze promised to waft the barks to either shore; the early robins trilled now and then from the newly fringed elms; and the old young man leaned on the rail in the sunshine, little dreaming that two gossips were discussing his affairs within twenty yards of him.
Three persons were sitting in a salon whose one large window overlooked the Place Vendôme. ”

“ The tides rose and fell at the Rivermouth wharves; the summer moonlight and the winter snow, in turn, bleached its quiet streets; and the two years had nearly gone by. In the mean time nothing had been heard of O'Rourke. If he ever received the five or six letters sent to him, he did not fatigue himself by answering them.
“Larry's all right,” said hopeful Margaret. “If any harum had come to the gossoon, we'd have knowed it. It's the bad news that travels fast.”
Mr. Bilkins was not so positive about that. It had taken a whole year to find out that O'Rourke had not drowned himself. ”

“ If the men spoke to one another it was in subdued tones or whispers. Two of the horsemen trotted on a hundred yards in advance, like skirmishers thrown out in front of an attacking force. There was something in all this mysterious precaution and reticence which bewildered and exasperated Lynde, who noted every detail. Mary, in a transient spasm of backing, had fallen to the rear; the young man could no longer see the girl, but ever before his eyes was the piteous, unslippered little foot with its arched instep. ”

“ I’ll send the mare down to you at The Pines—is that the name of the place?
Old Dillon fancies that I have something on my mind. He drives me wild with lemons. Lemons for a mind diseased! Nonsense. I am only as restless as the devil under this confinement—a thing I’m not used to. Take a man who has never had so much as a headache or a toothache in his life, strap one of his legs in a section of water-spout, keep him in a room in the city for weeks, with the hot weather turned on, and then expect him to smile and purr and be happy! ”

“ This carried him to Rivermouth; then he thought of Cinderella's slipper, packed away in the old hair-trunk in the closet, and how perfectly the slipper would fit one of those feet which a floating fold of the waterproof that instant revealed to him—and he was in Switzerland again.
"Miss Ruth," he said, looking up quickly and urging his mule as closely behind hers as was practicable, "what are your plans to be when your uncle comes?"
"When my uncle comes we shall have no plans—aunt Gertrude and I. Uncle
Denham always plans for everybody." ”

“ Shackford snapped his fingers disdainfully.
"You ought to have stuck to the sea; that's respectable. In ten years you might have risen to be master of a bark; that would have been honorable. You might have gone down in a gale,--you probably would,--and that would have been fortunate. But a stone-cutter! You can understand," growled Mr. Shackford, reaching out for his straw hat, which he put on and crushed over his brows, "I don't keep a boarding-house for Slocum's hands."
"Oh, I'm far from asking it!" cried Richard. ”

“ It whispers to the criminal in his cell; and the downy pillows and sumptuous drapery around the couch of Wealth cannot keep it away at midnight.
There is not a house but has its skeleton. There is a ghastly one in Flint's.
The silvery lips in Trinity steeple chime the hour of eleven; St. Paul's catch it up, and hosts of belfrys toss the hour to and fro like a shuttle-cork. Then the goblin bells hush themselves to sleep again in their dizzy nests, murmuring, murmuring!—and [Pg 69] the pen of the pale book-keeper keeps time with the ticking of the office time-piece. ”

“ The time was rapidly approaching when even this poor substitute for nourishment would be exhausted. He delayed that moment. He gave himself a long fast this time. The half-inch of candle which he held in his hand was a sacred thing to him. It was his last defence against death.
Finally, with such a sinking at heart as he had not known before, he raised it to his lips. Then he paused, then he hurled the fragment across the tomb, then the oaken door was flung open, and Philip, with dazzled eyes, saw M. Dorine's form sharply defined against the blue sky. ”

“ When Richard was aware of their presence, the glow came into his eyes again.
"Who ordered you to knock off work?"
"That was a foul blow of Torrini's, sir," said Stevens, stepping forward, "and I for one come to see fair play."
"Give us your 'and, mate!" cried Denyven; "there's a pair of us."
"Thanks," said Richard, softening at once, "but there's no need. Every man can go to his job. Denyven may stay, if he likes."
The men lingered a moment, irresolute, and returned to the sheds in silence. ”

“ Margaret listened to him with her cheek resting against his arm, and a warm light nestled down deep under her eyelids.
Mr. Slocum drew a half-pathetic sigh. "I presume I have not done wisely. Every one bullies me. The Marble Workers' Association ruins my yard for me, and now my daughter is taken off my hands. By the way, Richard," he said, interrupting himself brusquely, and with an air of dismissing the subject, "I forgot what I came for. I've been thinking over Torrini's case, and have concluded that you had better make up his account and discharge him." ”

“ Slocum's vertebræ had stiffened over night.
"Leave that to me, sir," Richard replied. "I have been shaping out in my mind a little speech which I flatter myself will cover the points. They have brought this thing upon themselves, and we are about to have the clearest of understandings. I never saw the men quieter."
"I don't altogether admire that. It looks as if they hadn't any doubt as to the issue."
"The clearest-headed have no doubt; they know as well as you and I do the flimsiness of those resolutions. But the thick heads are in a fog. Every man naturally likes his pay increased ”

“ One morning a blue-jacket was discovered in a perilous plight, half-way up the steeple of the South Church, clinging to the lightning-rod. How he got there nobody could tell, not even blue-jacket himself. All he knew was, that the leg of his trousers had caught on a nail, and there he stuck, unable to move either way. It cost the town twenty dollars to get him down again. He directed the workmen how to splice the ladders brought to his assistance, and called his rescuers “butter-fingered land-lubbers” with delicious coolness. ”

“ When the aunt has a headache, I suffer. Flemming, you must see Miss Denham, if only for a moment."
"Of course I should like to see her, Ned."
"You do not leave until evening," Lynde said, reflecting. "I think I can manage a little dinner for to-morrow. Now let us take a breath of fresh air. I know the queerest old nook, in the Rue de Chantpoulet, where the Bavarian beer is excellent and all the company smoke the most enormous porcelain pipes. ”

“ The party, my dear Jack, was as dreary as possible. A lieutenant of the navy, the rector of the Episcopal Church at Stillwater, and a society swell from Nahant. The lieutenant looked as if he had swallowed a couple of his buttons, and found the bullion rather indigestible; the rector was a pensive youth, of the daffydowndilly sort; and the swell from Nahant was a very weak tidal wave indeed. The women were much better, as they always are; the two Miss Kingsburys of Philadelphia, staying at the Seashell House, two bright and engaging girls. But Marjorie Daw! ”

“ Pendegrast, transfixed in the act of drawing a cigar from his case. "Your name and your face puzzled me, but I could not place you, so I didn't mention it. You must pardon an old man's bad memory. I am confused. When and where have I had the pleasure of seeing you?"
"It was scarcely a pleasure," said Lynde, with bitterness.
"Indeed! I cannot imagine that; it is a pleasure now," returned the doctor courteously. "It was three years ago, at your asylum. As you will recollect, I was brought there by mistake the day the patients"—
"Bless me!" exclaimed the doctor, dropping the ignited match. ”

“ Was there no spot in Stillwater where a broken man could hide himself long enough to collect his senses?
With his hands thrust convulsively into the pockets of his sack-coat, Richard turned down a narrow passage-way fringing the rear of some warehouses. As he hurried along aimlessly his fingers encountered something in one of his pockets. It was the key of a new lock which had been put on the scullery door of the house in Welch's Court. Richard's heart gave a quick throb. ”

“ She had invested in a husband with a view of laying him away for a rainy day—that is to say, for such time as her master and mistress should cease to need her services; for she had promised on more than one occasion to remain with the old people as long as they lived. Indeed, if Mr. O'Rourke had come to her and said in so many words, “The day you marry me you must leave the Bilkins family,” there is very little doubt but Margaret would have let that young sea-monster slip back unmated, so far as she was concerned, into his native element. ”

“ Richard stepped aside to let them pass, eying them curiously as possible comrades. Suddenly a slim dark fellow, who had retained his paper cap and leather apron, halted and thrust forth a horny hand. The others went on.
"Hullo, Dick Shackford!"
"What, is that you, Will? You here?"
"Been here two years now. One of Slocum's apprentices," added Durgin, with an air of easy grandeur.
"Two years? How time flies--when it doesn't crawl! Do you like it?"
"My time will be out next--Oh, the work? Well, yes; it's not bad, and there's a jolly set in the yard. But how about you? ”

“ Jack Harris, Charley Marden, Harry Blake, and myself were fishing off the wharf one afternoon, when a thought flashed upon me like an inspiration.
“I say, boys!” I cried, hauling in my line hand over hand, “I've got something!”
“What does it pull like, youngster?” asked Harris, looking down at the taut line and expecting to see a big perch at least.
“O, nothing in the fish way,” I returned, laughing; “it's about the old guns.” ”

“ A car isn't worth while. You see that bakery two blocks from here, at the right? That's on the corner of Clinton Place. You turn down there. You'll notice in looking over what I've written to Mrs. Wesley that she is to furnish you with some clothes, such as are worn by—by vandals of the North in comfortable circumstances."
"Tom Wesley, you are as good as a straight flush. If you ever come down South, when this cruel war is over, our people will treat you like one of the crowned heads—only a devilish sight better, for the crowned heads rather went back on us. ”