Thomas Parker

“ James, the father of her son Thomas. From the "Plantation manners" of her master, the concubine, "foolishly dissatisfied with slavery," flies to Boston, and takes refuge with her Quaker son, who conceals his mother, and shelters her for a time. But let me suppose that his Honor Judge Curtis, while at Washington, fired with that patriotism which is not only habitual but natural and indigenous to his Honor, informs Mr. Nason of the hiding-place of his female slave, thus betraying a "mistress" to her master, no longer, alas, her "keeper." ”

“ The rage against him was embittered by politics, and indeed sometimes by knavish tricks; the first not being always 'confounded,' nor the last 'frustrated.' So that Parker, on the whole, was a man whom it might be held a duty to hate, and therefore, of course, to knout as often as you could persuade him to expose a fair extent of surface for the action of the lash. Many men purchased a knout for his sake, and took their chance for getting a 'shy' at him, as Parker might happen to favour their intentions. ”

“ Well, that afternoon, up comes Parker to me, choking with rage.
“‘Slick,’ said he, ‘that is the greatest devil of a horse I ever see. He has dashed two carriages all to shivereens, and nearly tuckard the innerds out of me and another man. I don’t think you have acted honestly by me.’
“‘Parker,’ said I, ‘don’t you use words that you don’t know the meanin’ of, and for goodness gracious sake don’t come to me to teach you manners, I beseech you, for I am a rough schoolmaster, I tell you. ”

“ Wendell Phillips, Theodore Parker, Charles M. Ellis, and Richard H. Dana, with a few others, came into the Court room. Mr. Parker and some others, spoke with Mr. Burns, who sat in the dock ironed, between two of the Marshal's guard. After a little delay and conxference among these four and others, Mr. Dana interrupted the proceedings and asked that counsel might be assigned to Mr. Burns, and so a defence allowed. To this Mr. Thomas, the senior counsel for the Slave-hunters, objected. But after repeated protests on the part of Mr. Dana and Mr. ”

“ A Novel. $1.25.
“Mr. Parker here adds to a reputation already wide, and anew demonstrates his power of pictorial portrayal and of strong dramatic situation and climax.”—Philadelphia Bulletin.
The Trespasser. $1.25.
“Interest, pith, force, and charm—Mr. Parker’s new story possesses all these qualities.... Almost bare of synthetical decoration, his paragraphs are stirring because they are real. We read at times—as we have read the great masters of romance—breathlessly.”—The Critic. ”

“ Had it not been for Thomas Paine I could not deliver this lecture here to-night..
It is still fashionable to calumniate this man—and yet Channing, Theodore Parker, Longfellow, Emerson, and in fact all the liberal Unitarians and Universalists of the world have adopted the opinions of Thomas Paine. ”

“ You knew I was going."
"Did you need me?" he asked quietly, and his eyes involuntarily swept to the place where he had seen the heliotrope and scarlet make a glow of colour on the other side of the square. "You were not alone."
She misunderstood him. Her mind had been overwrought, and she caught insinuation in his voice. "You mean Tom Fairing!" Her eyes blazed. "You are quite right—I did not need you. Tom Fairing is a man that all the world trusts save you."
"Kathleen!" The words were almost a cry. "For God's sake! I have never thought of 'trusting' men where you are concerned. ”

“ Thenceforth, though he sometimes occupied Unitarian pulpits, and was, indeed, all his life a kind of "lay preacher," he never assumed the pastorate of a church. The representative of transcendentalism in the pulpit was Theodore Parker, an eloquent preacher, an eager debater, and a prolific writer on many subjects, whose collected works fill fourteen volumes. Parker was a man of strongly human traits, passionate, independent, intensely religious, but intensely radical, who made for himself a large personal following. ”

“ Back again in New York, he wrote: "It just raises my hair to feel I'm not where a Dad ought to be. My blessed, precious family! I tell you there isn't anything in this world like a wife and babies and I'm for that life that puts me close. I'm near smart enough to last a heap of years. Though when I see how my trip makes me feel alive in my head and enthusiastic, I know it has been worth while. . . ." Along in January he worked his thesis up in writing. "Last night I read my paper to the Robinsons after the dinner and they had Mr. ”

“ Parker heard me with much kindness and seriousness, and conceded various things, conceded among others the reasonableness of miracles, when regarded as produced by a power in nature, but not out of it,—the law of nature on a larger scale.
As I said before, Parker has a Socratic head; he has a pure and strongly moral mind; he is like Waldo Emerson, captivated by the moral ideal; and this he places before his hearers in words full of a strong vitality, and produces by them a higher love for truth and justice in the human breast. Parker, however, as a theologist is not powerful ”

“ Usually he was laden with bundles—provisions, shoes from the cobbler, a tennis-racket restrung, and an armful of books. After greetings, always the question, "How's my June-Bug?" and a family procession upstairs to peer over a crib at a fat gurgler. And "Mother, there never really was such a baby, was there?" No, nor such a father.
It was that first summer back in Berkeley, the year before the June-Bug was born, when Carl was teaching in Summer School, that we had our definite enthusiasm over labor-psychology aroused. ”

“ Parker, "that's the most perfect echo I ever heard. I've no doubt the holy fathers of the Middle Ages knew of it, and used it in some shape to keep the superstitious people in awe."
"It is awesome," said his wife, "here in the moonlight, with the old castle so near: if I were alone, positively I should feel eerie."
"Are you dull at home, Mr. Forrester?" was sent out from the depths of Will's chest, and sent back again just as Bessie came out and joined the party.
"Boys! boys!" she said, "don't be foolish."
"Why, it was what you said yourself," her sister remarked.
"Are you ever dull?" ”

“ Not far from her sat an old man, his hands clasping a chair-arm, a book in his lap, his chin sunk on his breast. The figure, drooping helplessly, had still a distinguished look, an air of honourable pride. Presently he raised his head, his drowsy eyes lighted as they rested on her, and he said: "The fleet has not returned, my dear? Quebec is not yet taken?"
"No, father," she replied, "not yet."
"Phips is a great man—a great man!" he said, chuckling. "Ah, the treasure!"
Jessica did not reply. Her fingers went up to her eyes; they seemed to cool the hot lids. ”

“ I wondered, too, if, in the great opportunity that has come to you, those simple country boys and girls of Washington were to be thus deprived,—were to find not you but your "authorities,"—because Carl Parker refused (even ever so modestly) to learn that Truth, denied the aid of the free imagination, takes revenge upon her disciple, by shutting off from him the sources of life by which a man is made free, and reducing his mind—his rich, variable, potential mind—to the mechanical operation of a repetitious machine. ”

“ His letters are to Senators, Shakers, Professors, Doctors, Slaveholders, Abolitionists, morbid girls, and heroic women: they are all equally rich in spontaneity, simplicity, and point. Keen criticisms of noted men, speculations upon society, homely wisdom of the household, estimates of the arts, and consolations of religion, all packed in plain and precise English, seem to have been ever ready for delivery. If Mr. Parker had not chosen the unpopularity of a great man, he could have had the abundant popularity of a clever one. ”

“ My head is not more natural to my body, has not more grown with it, than my religion out of my soul and with it. With me religion was not carpentry, something built up of dry wood, from without; but it was growth,—growth of a germ in my soul." Thus we see that Parker was not singular in his sources of goodness and nobility: here also have the strong and worthy men of all time received their inspiration. ”

“ Good night, Lady Lawless.” His big hand swallowed hers in a firm, friendly clasp, and he shook it once or twice before he parted from her. He met Sir Duke Lawless in the doorway. They greeted cheerfully, and then Lawless came up to his wife.
“Well, my dear,” he said, with an amused look in his face, “well, what news?”
She lifted her eyebrows at him.
“Something has happened, Molly, I can see it in your face.”
She was very brief. “Gracia Raglan has been conquered; the young man from Boston has been foolish; and Mr. Vandewaters has lost millions.”
“Eh? That’s awkward,” said Sir Duke. ”

“ That was Saturday afternoon. By Monday morning we had decided we would go! Thereupon we wrote West to finance the plan, and got beautifully sat upon for our "notions." If we needed money, we had better give up this whole fool University idea and get a decent man-sized job. And then we wrote my father,—or, rather, I wrote him without telling Carl till after the letter was mailed,—and bless his heart! he replied with a fat God-bless-you-my-children registered letter, with check enclosed, agreeing to my stipulation that it should be a six-per-cent business affair. ”

“ In 1832 Joseph Parker retired from business, retaining, however, his share in the Bible Press until his death in 1850.
Mr. John Henry Parker, his nephew, was the son of John Parker, merchant, of the City of London, and was born in the year 1806. After receiving a good education at Dr. Harris’s school at Chiswick, he entered the bookselling trade in 1821, and was consequently fully prepared, eleven years later, to occupy the position just vacated by his uncle.
Mr. John Henry Parker is known almost as well as an antiquarian, and as a writer on architecture, as a publisher. ”

“ Parker to his wife as they drove to the railway-station in the moonlight.
"Very," said Mrs. Parker; "and Mr. Forrester is a nice lad. I hope he and Miss Ormiston will make it out: I did my best for them."
"They'll be quite able to do the best for themselves: it is always better to let things of that kind alone."
"I don't know that," said Mrs. Parker: "if a little shove is all that is needed, it is a pity not to give it."
"But what if your shove sends people separate? That's not what you intended, I fancy?"
"No fear: people are not so easily separated as all that." ”

“ He was a Liberal in politics, though not partisan. He took an active part in suppressing the rebellion of 1837, and served as quartermaster-sergeant. After his children left home he sold his farm, and lived retired in Bradford, where he died on the 7th July, 1881, in the 84th year of his age, and was interred in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto. Dr. Parker’s mother, Sarah Sutherland, still surviving, and resident in Bradford, was a most intelligent and hearty sympathizer and co-operator with her husband in all his business plans, his home hospitality and religious duties. ”

“ And the hill-dwarf laughs in the young wife’s ear, When the devil comes back to town— C’est la!”
It was crooned quietly, but it was distinct and melodious, and the cat purred an accompaniment, its head thrust into his thick black hair. From where Parpon sat he could see the House with the Tall Porch, and, as he sang, his eyes ran from the miller’s doorway to it.
Off in the grounds of the dead Seigneur’s manor he could see a man push the pebbles with his foot, or twist the branch of a shrub thoughtfully as he walked. At last another man entered the garden. ”

“ Any good citizen will say the same. I believe Parker to be a brave man; and all you colored people should look at it as we white people look at our brave men, and do as we do. You see Parker was not fighting for a country, nor for praise. He was fighting for freedom: he only wanted liberty, as other men do. You colored people should protect him, and remember him as long as you live. We are coming near our parting-place, and I do not know if we shall ever meet again. I shall be in Rochester some two or three days before I return home ”

“ His father was a baker in that parish, and had his shop near the turnstile. It was afterwards burnt down. He rented it of the dean and chapter, from 1761 to 1793, and acquired a little land near to Exeter as his own. Young Parker received a good education, and at the age of twelve went to sea. He served in the Royal Navy as midshipman and master’s mate. But he threw up his profession on his marriage with Anne McHardy, a young woman resident in Exeter, but of Scottish origin, a member of a respectable family in Aberdeen. ”

“ Her voice rose slowly up like a bubble from the bottom of a well, and she spoke.
"Ah man pethe benin, when it come, you are not here, my Jean. I take it to the Greffier to read for me. It is great news, but the way he read so sour I do not like, ba su! I see Maitre Damian the schoolmaster pass my door. I beckon, and he come. I take my letter here, I hold it close to his eyes. 'Read on that for me, Maitre Damian—you,' I say. O my good, when he read it, it sing sweet like a song, pergui! ”

“ They were earnest youths, eager and alive, curious about the world, reading, discussing all sorts of topics vigorously, and yet far more of the earth earthy than Parker, who was so mystical and dreamy that constant association with him would have been something of a strain. ”

“ The twelve-and-a-half-cent Parkers at Del Monte! That was one spot we had never seen ourselves even riding by. We got our beloved Nurse Balch out to stay with the young, and when a brand-new green Pierce Arrow, about the size of our whole living-room, honked without, we were ready, bag and baggage, for a spree such as we had never imagined ourselves having in this world or the next. We called for the daughter of the head of the Philosophy Department. Max had said to bring a friend along to make four; so, four, we whisked the dust of Berkeley from our wheels and—presto—Del Monte! ”