Thomas Dale

“ DALE, THOMAS (1797–1870) , dean of Rochester, was born at Pentonville, London, 22 Aug. 1797. His mother died in 1800, when his father, William Dale, after contracting a second marriage, went to the West Indies to conduct a weekly newspaper; there he soon fell a victim to the climate, and left his son wholly unprovided for. The youth was, however, fortunate in possessing friends, who obtained for him in 1805 a nomination to Christ's Hospital. ”

“ The Targum has the gloss that the rivers flow into the ocean which surrounds the world like a ring, and that they return again through the subterranean channels, but Koheleth knows nothing of such false philosophy.
8 All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. ”

“ With those who have read the Life, there cannot but have been a strong desire to know more of so beautiful a character as S. Francis de Sales. He was a model of Christian saintliness and religious virtue for all time, and one everything relating to whom, so great were the accomplishments of his mind as well as the devotion of his heart, has a charm which delights, instructs, and elevates.”—Church Herald. ”

“ Major Dale was major again, there ready to order, to command—erect, brave, bold, defiant.
Nat never seemed to move.
Tom stood waiting for his orders.
Dorothy and Tavia fell back terrified.
"That scream came from a human being," spoke the major finally. "We must investigate at once. Here, Abe, you take this lamp." Trembling as if he had the ague, the old colored man took the lamp from the mantel. "Tom, you have an ax. Nat, your gun may be handy. Now, girls, don't be alarmed. We are too many for any one here. Just sit there in that corner while we look about." ”

“ The happiest laugh of all was from Dale, himself—that low, inaudible movement of the throat wherewith he expressed his gayest moods. He had been turned out in the pasture of his heart's desire, and was gathering a harvest with feverish hands. Since the first Monday morning after his arrival, when he crept to the schoolhouse at break of day and waited in the opposite thicket with his long rifle to see if Tusk would come again, the mantle of civilization wrapped quickly about him. ”

“ Captain Ripley was there also, with the ill-used air that he could not conceal, although he was conscious that it only aggravated his bad fortune. He took his leave a very few minutes after Dale arrived; for what pleasure was there in looking on while everybody purred over Dale, and told him his ode was the most magnificent tribute ever paid to a youthful Prince? Dale, in his heart, thought the same,—so does a man love what he creates,—but he bore his compliments with a graceful outward modesty. ”

“ He was visibly perturbed. A man come to his years will see a ready rival in every youth, however little other attraction there may be. But perhaps I had treated him too freely already; and now he used me well. I would keep up the jest no longer.
"Once, Sir," I said, "for a while I loved where the King loved, even as I drank of his cup."
"I know, Mr Dale. But you say 'once.'"
"It is gone by, Sir."
"But, yesterday?" he exclaimed abruptly.
"She is a great comedian, Sir; but I fear I seconded her efforts badly."
He did not answer for a moment, but began again [Pg 457] to play with the dog. ”

“ Dale!"
"My dear sir," said the Parson, sinking his voice, and in a mild tone of conciliatory expostulation, "you are so irritable whenever Mr. Egerton's name is mentioned at all."
"Irritable!" exclaimed the Squire, whose wrath had been long simmering, and now fairly boiled over. "Irritable, sir! I should think so; a man for whom I stood godfather at the hustings, Mr. Dale! a man for whose sake I was called a 'prize ox,' Mr. Dale! a man for whom I was hissed in a market-place, Mr. Dale! ”

“ The last subject ought to be carefully studied by all who wish to understand the frightful tyranny of a complicated system of laws, devised not for the protection of a people, but as instruments for grinding them to subjection. Then, after an historical outline of the general growth of the Papal power in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the writers enter upon the peculiarly episcopal and clerical question, pointing out how marvellously every little change worked in one direction, invariably tending to throw the rule of the Church into the power of Rome ”

“ Lord Quinton came to my rescue, and began to enlarge on my devotion to His Majesty's person and my eagerness to serve him in any way I might, apart from the scruple which he had ventured to disclose to the King.
"Mr Dale says none of these fine things for himself," remarked the King.
"It is not always those that say most who do most, Sir," pleaded my lord.
"Therefore this young gentleman who says nothing will do everything?" The King turned to his companion who wore the plaster, and had as yet not spoken at all. "My Lord Arlington," said he, "it seems that I must release Mr Dale." ”

“ In a day when sore moved are the keepers of the house, and the mighty mortals sadly perplex themselves, and the grinding maids are idle because there is little to grind, and the ladies look into gloom through the windows ”

“ Why surely, Mr. Dale," said Mrs. Hazeldean, with spirit, for she always resented the least contradiction to her lord and master; perhaps as an interference with her own special right and prerogative: "why, surely if it is necessary to have stocks, it is necessary to repair them."
"That's right, go it, Harry!" cried the Squire, chuckling, and rubbing his hands, as if he had been setting his terrier at the Parson. "St—St—at him! Well, Master Dale, what do you say to that?" ”

“ I bowed very low and raised my head with a cheerful and gay smile.
"Most willingly," I answered.
"And what of reservations, Mr. Dale?"
"May it please your Majesty, they do not hold across the water."
"Good. My brother is more fortunate than I. God be with you, Mr Dale."
At that I smiled again. And the King smiled. My errand was a strange one to earn a benediction.
"Be off with you," he said with an impatient laugh. "A man must pick his words in talking with you." ”

“ Joe Curtis’s eyes flashed with temper. “Obadiah Dale and his money can go straight to the devil,” he roared, in a voice which startled the entire ward and made the lawyer jump.
“Calm yourself, Sir,” urged Hezekiah. “Undue excitement is injudicious in your physical condition. Bless my soul, there may be grounds for differences over the sum tendered, but I can see no reason for intense anger.”
Down the aisle came Miss Knight, stern of face. “Say,” she demanded, “do you think that this is a livery stable, Joe? If you do, you had better wake up. That rough stuff doesn’t go around here. ”

“ The eldest daughter, Sarah, married T. M’Kean Pettit, Esq., a judge of the District Court, in Philadelphia, and is dead, leaving issue. Elizabeth, the youngest, is the wife of Com. George Campbell Reed, of the navy, and has no issue.
In considering the character of Dale, we are struck with its simple modesty and frank sincerity, quite as much as with its more brilliant qualities. His courage and constancy were of the highest order, rendering him always equal to the most critical duties, and never wearying in their performance. Such a man is perfectly free from all exaggeration. ”

“ The Doctor stood waiting for him, smiling and keeping his hand in his pocket.
"Jim!"
The Doctor turned and saw his wife at his side. Dale fell back, lifting his hat, at the sight of the pale distressed face and clasped hands.
"Do come home, dear!" she said, with an appealing glance.
Philip took Dale's arm.
"Come," he said, "let's reason with Johnstone."
Dale allowed himself to be led away, not knowing that death had stared him in the face; for it was a loaded revolver that Roberts let fall back into the recesses of his pocket when his wife's touch recalled for a moment his saner sense. ”

“ Dale—he disclaims the "Rev." as a rag of priestcraft—I never met, combining as he does in no ordinary measure the laureate's desiderata of manhood,—"heart, head, hand." His practice squares with his theory of life to a nicety. His soul is in his work. Like Cromwell, he prays to God, and keeps his powder dry. What good, he is never tired of asking, is the petition, " Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," if a man is not prepared at the call of duty to take off his coat and descend into the political arena to wrestle with the powers of Conservative darkness? ”

“ I found nothing to say; if I repeated my fiction of a message, the French gentleman, justly enraged, would betray me.
"M. de Perrencourt seemed lonely, sir," I answered at last.
"A little loneliness hurts no man," said the King. He took out his tablets and began to write. When he was done, he gave me the message, adding, "Read it." I read, "Mr Simon Dale will remain under arrest in his own apartment for twenty-four hours, and will not leave it except by the express command of the King." I made a wry face.
"If the Duke of Monmouth wants me——" I began. ”

“ As to Dale's poem, who knows the value of Dale's poem? By what rod shall you measure——" He broke off with a laugh at Dale's gesture of protest.
"I'm making the deuce of a lot of money," [Pg 3] said Dale in an awestruck tone. "It's rolling in. I don't know what to do with it."
"Littlehill will swallow it," said Philip.
"You don't mean that he sticks to that idea?" exclaimed Arthur. "You don't, do you, Dale?"
"I do," answered Dale. "I'm not going permanently. I'm not going to forsake our old ways or our old life. I'm not going to turn into a rich man." ”

“ Who could talk like that about Dale, if he were sane? Arthur would have chaffed his friend, laughed at him, ridiculed him, perhaps slyly hinted at the illicit charms of rank and wealth, for which the poet's old mistress mourned deserted. But to speak in hate and rancor! And what was he plotting?
But when he heard the plot, his face cleared, and he laughed.
"I think you're hard on Dale," he said; "but, after all, it will be a good joke."
"Johnstone will do it," exclaimed the Doctor, pausing in his stride. "His shop window will be full of them. He'll have sandwich-men all over the place. ”

“ Perhaps he had some sick person to visit, and he might get a snack at the Barradine Arms or one of the cottages. It was said that his father had been a rich linen-draper in some North of England town; and that he himself would have inherited this flourishing business and its accumulated wealth, if he had not insisted on joining the ministry. But he threw up all to preach the Gospel. Dale thought of the nature of the faith that would make a man go and do a thing like that. It must be unquestioning, undoubting; a conviction that amounted to certainty.
He did not see Mavis approaching. ”

“ I said it in all honest simplicity, meaning only to excuse myself for the disrespect I had shown to the Duke; but I phrased the sentence most vilely, for I said:
"When His Royal Highness questioned me, Sir, I had to speak the truth."
Monmouth burst into a roar, and a moment later the King followed with a more subdued but not less thorough merriment. When his mirth subsided he said,
[Pg 117]
"True, Mr Dale. I am a King, and no man is bound to speak truth to me. Nor, by heaven—and there's a compensation—I to any man!" ”

“ Deriving its profound appreciation of Scripture from the writings of the early Fathers, it is only what every student knows must be true to say that it extracts a whole wealth of meaning from each sentence, each apparently faint allusion, each word in the text.”—Church Review.
“Stands absolutely alone to our English literature; there is, we should say, no chance of being superseded by any better book of its kind ”

“ One bright morning, while he was at his camp-fire, the tame cougar gave a low, growling warning. Dale was startled. Tom did not act like that because of a prowling grizzly or a straying stag. Presently Dale espied a horseman riding slowly out of the straggling spruces. And with that sight Dale's heart gave a leap, recalling to him a divination of his future relation to his kind. Never had he been so glad to see a man! ”

“ THOSE DALE GIRLS 1CHAPTER I
“Julie Dale, you’re the laziest thing in creation! Come down from that window-seat and help.”
“Can’t, my dear,” a gay young voice responded. “I’m as ‘comfy as comfy can be.’”
“Look at her, Peter Snooks,” said Hester to a fox-terrier at her side; “just look at her! She’s curled up in a heap, reveling in that fascinating Kipling, with her mouth all screwed up for this popcorn, which she thinks we will take in state to her ladyship. But we’ll fool her—eh, Snooks? We’ll fool her completely. We’ll just sit complacently on the floor and eat it all up ourselves.” ”

“ But I'm not lookin' for a movin' target when I meet up with Beasley. I'm a hossman, not a hunter. You're used to shootin' flies off deer's horns, jest for practice.”
“Roy, can we make my camp by to-morrow night?” queried Dale, more seriously.
“We will, if each of us has to carry one of the girls. But they'll do it or die. Dale, did you ever see a gamer girl than thet kid Bo?”
“Me! Where'd I ever see any girls?” ejaculated Dale. “I remember some when I was a boy, but I was only fourteen then. Never had much use for girls.” ”

“ You were acquainted with him when he was in the suite of the French Ambassador? You carry a message, sir?"
I listened keenly to all that the Duke's words told me. M. de Fontelles bowed low, but his confusion was in no way abated, and he made no answer to his Grace's question. The Duke turned to me, saying with some haughtiness,
"This gentleman is a friend of mine, Mr Dale. Pray why was your hand on your sword?"
"Because the gentleman's pistol was in his hand, sir."
"You appear always to be very ready for a quarrel, Mr Dale," said the Duke, with a glance at Carford. "Pray, what's the dispute?" ”