Thomas Palmer

“ SURREY.
Instantly, good Sir Thomas,
We’ll bring the writing unto our sovereign.
[They write.]
PALMER.
My Lord of Rochester,
You must with me, to answer this contempt.
ROCHESTER.
This is the worst,
Who’s freed from life is from all care exempt.
[Exit Rochester and Palmer.]
SURREY.
Now let us hasten to our sovereign.
Tis strange that my Lord Chancellor should refuse
The duty that the law of God bequeaths
Unto the king.
SHREWSBURY.
Come, let us in. No doubt
His mind will alter, and the bishop’s too:
Error in learned heads hath much to do.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE III. Chelsea. ”

“ William Steward, Esq., Chairman of the Board of Directors; Thomas Marsh Nelson, Esq., Architect.”
A public dinner was afterwards held at the Royal Hotel, George Danby-Palmer, Esq., in the chair.
April 1st.—The election of Guardians had ended in “the signal defeat of the Tories.”
April 15th.—Messrs. C. Davie and D. A. Gourlay had been elected Churchwardens by the Vestry.
April 22nd.—Mr. F. Preston’s shipyard was likely to be given up, thus throwing many men out of employment. ”

“ A man of so many talents and humours was scarcely in tune with university precision. The death of his wife, after a long illness, in 1878, unsettled him, and though he married again in the following year, Palmer grew tired of college life and lectures; he was drawn more and more towards London and away from Cambridge. ”

“ He biles glue and the smell goes through the whole house. You and Lin thought I stunk when I worked in the tannery, you ought to smell Palmer and his art studio.
He has another preacher helping him. His wife is very quiet; she is making the clothes for the panorama; they have a pile of clothes to make. He asked me if I had read "Pilgrim's Progress." He knows the book backwards, so I have to read it and learn it too.
The way he talks this is a regular show, but he won't let you call it a show. The painting looks awful to me but Palmer says it looks all right under the lights. ”

“ They ought to be treated worse than rattlesnakes. But, as you said just now, all this don't help Will Cummins. But Will is all right, John. You know that as well as I do."
"I came up here to hear you say so. I've pretty near lost faith in God and man, I reckon."
"I lost faith in man long ago," answered Palmer, smiling sardonically. "If the fall of Adam and the curse of Cain are fables,—as they are, of course,—they are just as true as Æsop's fables, for all that. They hit off human nature. But man isn't all. I've never belonged to any church, as I've often told you. ”

“ I had always known Palmer as a prudent and sensible man. When I discovered in him stores of enthusiasm and trust, I was greatly surprised. Might he not be one of those who take fire when they see others suffer, and who fall to loving the victims passionately? That is a natural instinct in those who are strong, it is the sublime pity of pure and happy hearts! There were moments when I said that to myself, in order to reconcile me with myself,—when I loved Laurent, for it was his suffering, before and above all else, that attached me to him! ”

“ He knows his business but he ain't got any money. We're waitin' on Jake to come. Palmer owes everybody in town, they won't let him have anything until he pays. The flitch gave out last night, and we had nothin' but corn pone, buttermilk and potatoes. Palmer said he ketched the gout once from high livin', and he did not want to see another human suffer like he did. I guess his wife's dietin' too, as she don't set down to eat with us.
Palmer is a wonderful man. He's got his lecture all wrote out and all the characters and all the costumes for them. He's going to begin the rehearsals tomorrow. ”

“ Witness: I was not present at the inquest on Cook. I can’t say who saw me when I went to the Talbot Arms and went into Cook’s room. One of the servants gave me a candle—either Bond, Mills, or Lavinia Barnes.
Re-examined by Mr. Serjeant Shee: I have known Mrs. Palmer twenty years. I knew her before her husband’s death. I should say she is sixty years of age. William Palmer is not her eldest son. Joseph is the eldest. He resides at Liverpool. He is forty-five or forty-six years of age. I think George is the next son. He lives at Rugeley. He was frequently at his mother’s house. ”

“ Palmer'll try this here slab he'll find it'll come out easy enough. Seems to me one of the men could prize it out with his crow by means of this chink.' 'Ah! thank you, Worby,' says the Dean; 'that's a good suggestion. Palmer, let one of your men do that, will you?'
"So the man come round, and put his bar in and bore on it, and just that minute when they were all bending over, and we boys got our heads well out over the edge of the triforium, there come a most fearful crash down at the west end of the choir, as if a whole stack of big timber had fallen down a flight of stairs. ”

“ To the practice of the law Palmer brought a mind as keen and subtle as that of one of the great mediæval schoolmen, a rare power of easy and persuasive speech, a learning and knowledge of affairs equally wide, profound, and exact, the abstemiousness of an ascetic, a vigorous constitution, untiring energy, and a high and chivalrous sense of the duty of the advocate. Though the equity bar was never stronger than in his day—among his many rivals were Richard Bethell (afterwards Lord Westbury) [q. v.] ”

“ Palmer, however, conscious of his inaptitude for business, looked around him for an active agent, and believed he had found one in a Mr. Gray, a man of captivating manners and good connexions, but almost as useless a person as the General himself. ”

“ It certainly seemed so, and thus the future looked all the darker before her, for, humiliating as it was to confess it, she knew that Ray Palmer was all the world to her; that life without him would be almost like a body without a soul, a world without a sun. ”

“ I thought you called it the Free Lance."
"You can say what you like about plays in general."
Peter then and there resigned. But he was too good a pen to lose. His editor borrowed a gallery ticket from a London daily paper, and sent Peter to attend debates in the House of Commons as an impartial critic of Parliamentary deportment and intelligence. Three weeks shattered all Peter's fixed ideas of English public life. He forgot to detest the futility of the party game—as he had at the Oxford Union so persistently contrived to do—in sincere enjoyment of a perpetually interesting comedy. ”

“ Palmer occupied a seat in the reformed corporation as a representative of the south ward. In 1854 he was elected mayor, and was re-elected in the following year. He also served as deputy-lieutenant for the county of Suffolk. He was the chief promoter of the Victoria Building Company; the erection of the Wellington pier was in great measure due to his energy; and he took a prominent part in the establishment of the assembly and reading rooms. In 1830 he was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. He died at his residence, Villa Graham, Great Yarmouth, on 24 Sept. ”

“ The position of Palmer at this time was very remarkable. The foremost advocate at the bar, he was known to have declined the highest prize in the profession rather than promote a measure of which he disapproved; a very prominent member of the House of Commons, whose action had been more than usually independent of party, he had separated himself from his political friends and maintained a position as the dignified and forcible opponent of disestablishment. ”

“ It happened that, when the trouble came up between Jake and Palmer, the entire party were quartered at a modest little tavern kept by a Pennsylvania Dutchman of large girth and little patience. Palmer had failed to induce him or his good wife, who did all the cooking, to buy pictures or books. "Ve vant no more picturs und ve don't reat der pooks," was the argument with which the old fellow met all of Palmer's solicitations.
After one of their arguments, Palmer, as usual, lost his patience: "What sort of humans are you? You belong to no church. Where are you bound for? ”

“ Partners they might be to him in name, and, since they were all well-tried and trusted men, they no doubt were of assistance to him; but as far as executive power was concerned, they might as well have been junior clerks in some other firm, for Palmer went on his way automatically, self-balanced on the topmost crest of the huge wave of prosperity that was flooding America, quicker than the whole of the rest of the New York Market to scent coming trouble or prosperity in the world of money, prompter than any to take advantage of it. ”

“ They're here, waiting for the announcement to be made and—well, the water users' association is still in charge; but it won't be when Prather says the word."
"And you have no plans?" Jack asked.
"None."
"And the Doge?"
"None. What can the old man do? Though nobody exactly blames him, a good many aren't of a mind to consult him at all. The crisis has passed beyond him. Three or four men, good men, too, were inclined to have it out with John Prather; but that would have precipitated a general fight with Leddy's gang. The conservatives got the hot-heads to wait till you came. ”

“ Peter was bringing Lady Mary her sausage with the grave intentness of someone specially elected.
"Hullo, Mary. Hullo, Peter. You seem to be eating well."
"Yes," said Lady Mary. "This is my third sausage."
"What does Peter say?"
"I've at last met someone who takes breakfast seriously."
"I take everything seriously," said Peter, returning into gloom.
"You needn't be so unhappy about it," said Marbury. "One good thing about an election is that it makes one realise the importance of being [Pg 197] earnest. Even the local paper becomes an immensely serious thing." ”

“ It's the man that counts. See what you have made of yourself!"
"Ah, yes, but I feel that I have missed something. When I am settled here
I shall be able to make up for lost time, with your help, sir."
"Every pigeonhole in my mind will be open at your call!" said the Doge, glowing at the prospect.
The favor that Prather found in the eyes of Jasper Ewold partly accounted for what favor he found in Little Rivers' eyes.
"Prather has certainly made a hit with the Doge!" quoth Bob Worther. "As the Doge gets older I reckon he will like compliments better than persiflage. ”

“ Dear Muz:
The first night is the most terrible thing one can go through. We had a hard time of it; Palmer became excited and cussed; Tom did well as long as I told him; Mrs. Palmer filled in all the stops with music and this helped but if it hadn't been for me it would have been a bad failure. It was all I could do to keep it going; I nearly worked myself sick. I'm going to ask Palmer to raise my wages. Palmer praised all of us, but I know he was lying because every time Jake or Tom made a mistake he cussed. Palmer does all the talking for all the characters ”

“ It was an axiom of the circle in which she had been trained that no one was more susceptible to old world charm of her kind than self-made American millionaires.
"A good-looking woman," thought Peter, "and lots of style."
He was delighted to be better acquainted with her, as he must become in that five hours' ride. The car was a limousine, the cushions soft, the autumn day fair, and Madame Ribot was spinning webs as the rubber tires spun over the road.
"America must be wonderful," she said.
"It's a growing country," Peter replied. ”

“ Only in this way can you have that solidarity, that harmonious efficiency which means victory."
"An autocracy, a tyranny over the lives of all the adult males in countries that boast of the ballot and self-governing institutions!" she put in.
"But I hope," he went on, with the quickening pulse and eager smile that used to greet a call from Feller to "set things going" in their cadet days, "that I may take out a squadron of dirigibles. After all this spy business, that would be to my taste." ”

“ This feeling had first invaded him as at York he had seen his baggage mysteriously vanishing, by no act of his own, into a strange car which started off even as he himself was being wrapped in warm rugs for the race to Highbury. It was confirmed later, when, reaching his room with Marbury, he had found the things which had so swiftly vanished at York faultlessly spread for his evening wear. Peter was rapidly putting forth roots in this new soil. Every moment some unexpected thing appeared, to be at once included in his total impression of a new life, to become part of the common round. ”

“ Lady Mary sadly shook her head.
"Your first word to me was of the Chief Whip," she reminded him.
Haversham was touched. He put his hand gently on his sister's arm.
"We do not belong to ourselves," he pleaded. "This act of yours is a public thing."
"I have a personal thing still left to do," she said. "Peter is coming to-night. You must leave him with me."
"That will be easy," he assured her. "They're all political people this evening. We shall go on afterwards to the House."
The talk at dinner was all of Wenderby's [Pg 258] resignation. ”

“ Lady Mary caught at Peter's wrist upon the oars.
"You will believe in me always, Peter?"
"Always."
"My life may take me away from you," she desperately urged. "We read things differently."
A burst of laughter came from the deck of the wherry. Lady Mary withdrew her hand from Peter's wrist.
"Nothing in the world can shake my belief in you," said Peter, still pausing on the oars.
"That is easily said."
Lady Mary cried out in pain at the light heart of the boy she loved.
"I mean it in every fibre," Peter insisted. "I am utterly yours."
"Row in to the boat," said Lady Mary. "This is the end." ”