Thomas Mathews

“ Better for him to be in his quiet, out-of-the-way home, than here, where there are so many inducements to evil for a boy without principle, such as has certainly proved himself."
Before Uncle Rutherford had time either to agree or dissent, Thomas announced that Captain Yorke wished to see Mr. Rutherford and Mr. Livingstone, and was told to show the old man into the adjoining library, whither papa and Uncle Rutherford adjourned to see him. ”

“ I say, looking forward with dismay to that dreadful engaged period of "pecking" that I have until now successfully evaded.
"Your governor and mine get on splendidly," says George, in a hopeful voice. "That would surely go for something?"
"That is one of those things no one can understand," I say, shaking my head. "My father has known your father for four years, and they have not quarrelled yet! Mr. Tempest must have the temper of an angel, or papa has never kicked him, because he thought he was so little, and old, and frail!" ”

“ Mathews, and their clever son, have arrived at Paris and dined here yesterday. Mr. Matthews is as entertaining as ever, and his wife as amiable and spirituelle. They are excellent as well as clever people, and their society is very agreeable. Charles Mathews, the son, is full of talent, possesses all his father's powers of imitation, and sings comic songs of his own composition that James Smith himself might be proud to have written. ”

“ I fall down on my knees by his side. Wattie! . . . Wattie! . . . God has taken all else on earth from me, and now he is beckoning you . . . my darling! . . . my darling! . . .
Half an hour later and a man has returned from Pimpernel with the doctor; an hour and he is gone again. He can do no more for the only son of Paul Vasher than the son of a cottager; a few days, or hours even, will determine the issue.
"It is in God's hands," say the servants, as they move to and fro, and the words sound to me in my agony like direst mockery. ”

“ It is not a difficult thing to do, to change one's mind, is it?"
Their eyes met; ay, these two were hot lovers once, but what are they now?
"You have laid me under a great obligation, Mr. Vasher," she says, in her proud young voice. "Pray understand that I am grateful. Good night, Mr. Frere, and forgive me, if you can, for startling you so much."
"Good night! good night!" he says, and so with a hand-shake she goes, and the two men accompany her to the gate.
Now if Mr. Frere had possessed the most rudimental idea of his duty on this occasion, he would have stopped behind with me. ”

“ But no answer comes to me; not a leaf stirs, not a sound is abroad.
Hark! what is that? Hasty footsteps are crushing the gravel, coming nearer and nearer. Who can it be that comes here so late? And farther away I seem to hear lighter steps, that follow after the first. Have the father and mother returned, too late? And my dull heart gives an exultant leap that Silvia should come too late that Wattie died in my arms, not hers. . . . The steps pass on, retreat, come forward again, and in another minute a man steps into the flood of moonlight that fills the room—Paul Vasher. ”

“ Mathews is well known as an able but somewhat eccentric writer, with the grotesqueness, as well as the insight of the humorist, and often miscalculating the avenues to popular favor, while he gave no evidence of lacking the powers which deserve it. ”

“ I look around; no one is to be seen. Dorley is invisible; the governor I saw fast asleep in the library a while ago the coast is clear. In the twinkling of an eye I have swung myself up into the tree, and am shaking with a will. The fruit is falling in a bounteous red shower, when a voice directly below me makes me start so violently, that I drop the bough and lose my footing. But, alas! instead of respectably smiting mother earth with my nose, I remain suspended, petticoats above, legs below. Even in this awful moment, the verse over the barber's shop comes into my mind ”

“ I had seldom been more surprised than on coming close to Mathews on that occasion, and seeing the bust which he possessed in his gallery of his friend Liston. Some of these comic actors, like comic writers, are as unfarcical as can be imagined in their interior. The taste for humor comes to them by the force of contrast. The last time I had seen Mathews, his face appeared to me insignificant to what it was then. On the former occasion he looked like an irritable in-door pet: on the latter, he seemed to have been grappling with the world, and to have got vigor by it. ”

“ Mathews played some 240 characters, very many of them in his own pieces. His most conspicuous successes were obtained in light comedy and farce. Passion and pathos seemed wholly alien from his nature, and even on those occasions when he obtained the most flattering homage an actor can receive and found himself compelled to speak words of gratitude, he remained ‘cool as a cucumber,’ conveying sometimes the idea that the seriousness of those around him perplexed as much as it pleased him. ”

“ It is something, indeed, that I should have to take the hand of a woman who has done you such horrible injury!"
"She won't come here, mother dear," I say, kneeling down by her side; "and you need only leave cards."
"It is such a pity," goes on mother, "that your father liked the Vashers always: if he were quarrelling with them, as he does with everybody else, there would be no trouble. ”

“ It seems sufficient ‘doom’ for an honest English gentleman, who has met with a mishap, to be brought to a nobleman’s threshold and get foul treatment rather than welcome. Pray for me, Sir, an you will, there’s none so much deserves or needs it. Pray on!”
“Frewen!” beckons His Lordship, as he watches the ’ostlers rubbing down the restored Homing Nell, and confers with Mr. Biggs as to the plunder and the meting out of justice. “Frewen, gain the wretch’s confidence an you can, the whereabouts of all the gold and jewels he has stolen ”

“ Mathews speaks of him as ‘an admirable actor, quite in the style of the old school.’ A prudent and a reserved man, he mixed little in the pleasures of his fellows, and though much respected had few intimacies. ”

“ Little Sam Peabody darted from the Captain's knee and rushed upon the balcony, crying at the top of his lungs, "Grandfather, brother Elbridge is heard from."
"I don't believe it," said William Peabody; the poor old blind sorrel had disappeared from sight into a piece of woods near the orchard, and the merchant had quite recovered his usual way of speaking. "Never will believe it. You hav'nt heard of that youngster,—never will. Always knew he would run away some day—never come back again." ”

“ During the contest the old merchant and his wife had conversed closely, apart; the green shade had lost its terrors, and he could look on it steadily, now; and at the close William Peabody approaching the fireplace, drew from his bosom the old parchment deed, which in his hunger for money had so often disquieted his visits to the homestead, and thrust it into the very heart of the flame, which soon shrivelled it up, and, conveying it out at the chimney, before the night was past spread it in peaceful ashes over the very grounds which it had so long disturbed. ”

“ I ask, suddenly sobered. "Would you rather I were quieter? Only I am so happy, you know, and I never was quiet over that! And if you really mean me to go to court, Paul (I check myself on the edge of another outburst) , I will promise you not to smile even, or turn a somersault—if I can help it; I will be as sober as a judge."
"Will you?" he asks; "I don't think I should know my Nell if she moved slowly and spoke seldom."
"Did you ever think your wife would ever be a bit like me dear?"
"Did you ever think your husband would be a bit like me, Nell?" ”

“ MATHEWS, CHARLES (1776–1835) , English actor, was born in London on the 28th of June 1776. His father was “a serious bookseller,” who also officiated as minister in one of Lady Huntingdon’s chapels. Mathews was educated at Merchant Taylors’ School. His love for the stage was formed in his boyhood, when he was apprentice to his father, and the latter in 1794 unwillingly permitted him to enter on a theatrical engagement in Dublin. ”

“ I say trembling, "some day perhaps, or to-morrow, but not to-day, I cannot because of—of him, you know."
"Him? there should be only one man in the world to you now, Nell."
George Tempest, then," I say, turning crimson; "Lubin, you know."
"What of him?" asks Paul in surprise; "surely you are not bothering your head about him? Poor devil! he must be cut up at losing a little pet like you; but it is not your fault, you can't help it. ”

“ The words I am about to speak die on my lips; my open mouth remains open; my widening eyes enlarge to their fullest extent, and remain fixed. The young men, marvelling, turn to ascertain the cause of my petrification.
"If you please, Miss Helen and Miss Dolly," says Balaam's Ass, appearing in our midst, "your pa says you're to go home and go to bed directly!"
She might have whispered. . . . I do not look at Bobbie or George. I look nowhere; I see nothing. Why does not the earth open and swallow us up? Somehow, I do not know how, to this day, we get ourselves away. ”

“ This it was Mathews's obvious duty to prevent. It was therefore impossible for him to allow the allies to get away to the south while he was waiting for Lestock. He was obliged to fight, and at once. About one o'clock he made the signal to engage; and in the Namur, closely followed by Captain James Cornewall [q. v.] in the Marlborough, ran down towards the rear of the allies, and brought the Spanish admiral to close action. ”

“ We cannot, however, pass over his boast about uttering forth his loud behest till mountain, lake and rivers shall obey him—for the fact is that his threat is vox et preterea nihil, like the countryman’s nightingale in Catullus; the issue showing that the mountains, lakes and rivers—all very sensible creatures—go fast asleep upon the spot, and pay no attention to his rigmarole whatever. Upon the “large commands” it is not our intention to dwell. The phrase is a singularly mercantile one to be in the mouth of “a Power.” It is not impossible, however, that Mr. Mathews himself is ”

“ Mathews; “but I am sure you will not be hard upon poor Captain Mathews’ frailties. ’Tis his misfortune to be over-susceptible to the charms of new faces. Who can blame him when the trait was born with him? After all, constancy is an acquired virtue.”
“True, madam, quite true,” said Major O’Teague. “But, Mrs. Mathews, I beg of you to permit me to say that if a gentleman who is fortunate enough to be married to so charming a lady as yourself does not acquire constancy, we may well distrust your theory.”
“I vow, sir, you overwhelm a simple country-bred woman with your flattery,” said she. ”

“ After reaching his sixty-sixth year, Mathews set out on a tour round the world, in which was included a third visit to America, and on his return in 1872 he continued to act without interruption till within a few weeks of his death on the 24th of June 1878. He made his last appearance in New York at Wallack’s theatre on the 7th of June 1872, in H. J. Byron’s Not such a Fool as he Looks. ”

“ And the chief Malietoa, [22] coming into the presence of Mrs. Williams, cried:
"Alas, Williamu, Williamu, our father, our father! He has turned his face from us! We shall never see him more! He that brought us the good word of Salvation is gone! O cruel heathen, they know not what they did! How great a man they have destroyed!"
John Williams, the torch-bearer of the Pacific, whom the brown men loved, the great pioneer, who dared death on the grey beach of Erromanga, sounds a morning bugle-call to us, a Reveillè to our slumbering camps ”

“ For "Indian Rock" was a dangerous spot, unless one trod it with care, or had the guidance and support of a strong, firm hand.
"Papa," said Mamie, as her father helped her up to the top of a slippery ledge, "I'm sure I do not think the breakwater could be more dangerous than this, and I don't see why you could not let me go there just as well as here. Lily's mamma lets her go there with only Nora or Tom, and I'm sure I don't see why I can't." ”

“ The reverent, simple voice ceases for a moment. "And now," he says, drawing my hands gently away from my eyes with one hand, while he gathers me to him with the other, "I have my reward; have I not, my darling?"
Ay! he has his reward, as I recoil from his embrace, slip away out of his arms, and stand looking at him with a measureless suffering in my eyes, with a deadly pallor on lips and cheek. A faint dread comes into his face, and dashes the surpassing brightness out, a terrible suspicion grows in his eyes, and dwells there. ”

“ I look at the girl, she is riding slowly by; she has not lifted her head or moved one hair's-breadth. I feel rather than hear the sigh of relief he gives (surely it is relief?) when she lifts her eyes, looks full in his face, then, it is all in a moment, the reins slip from her hands, she sways and falls headlong to the earth. She does not touch it though, for Paul Vasher has leapt the gate, has caught her in his arms, and is looking down on her with a strange expression as the groom hastily dismounts and catches his mistress's horse.
Bring her in!" says Mr. Frere, pale with alarm. ”

“ I am no highwayman.”
“I am used to quibbles, Mr. Kidde; I know that now you are no robber, but merely a prisoner under sentence of death.”
“What!” cries she. “’Tis not possible that a man is taken, tried, disallowed to prove himself, and put out of the world, betwixt sunrise and breakfast, in the reign of His Majesty George the Third!”
“’Tis so,” answers the Curate, pulling the rope and leathers, and pushing Her Ladyship around a bit toward the east, as he points what he considers a salutary finger. “Yonder’s the gibbet, Mr. Kidde, and from it you must hang by eight. ”