Thomas Selden

“ Selden, immersed in his work, had told himself that external conditions did not matter to a man in his state, and that cold and ugliness were a good tonic for relaxed sensibilities. When an urgent case summoned him abroad to confer with a client in Paris, he broke reluctantly with the routine of the office; and it was only now that, having despatched his business, and slipped away for a week in the south, he began to feel the renewed zest of spectatorship that is the solace of those who take an objective interest in life. ”

“ So you will be good and take me.”
“Why, of course I’ll take you,” he said, and registered a mental vow to give her the best dinner Ciro’s could produce. “I shall be proud to take you!”
“You are very nice, you know,” she said, her head a little on one side. “Sometimes I almost regret that you do not care for me—but no, it is better as it is! I am going to see that you are rewarded. Now do not ask any questions!”
“Very well,” said Selden. “I will call for you at nine,” and he took his leave.
Once in his room, he got into robe and slippers, filled his pipe and threw himself on the chaise-longue. ”

“ A change had come over Selden's face as she spoke. Its guarded look had yielded to an expression still untinged by personal emotion, but full of a gentle understanding.
"I am glad to have you tell me that; but nothing I have said has really made the difference. The difference is in yourself—it will always be there. And since it is there, it can't really matter to you what people think: you are so sure that your friends will always understand you." ”

“ She began to saunter about the room, examining the book-shelves between the puffs of her cigarette-smoke. Some of the volumes had the ripe tints of good tooling and old morocco, and her eyes lingered on them caressingly, not with the appreciation of the expert, but with the pleasure in agreeable tones and textures that was one of her inmost susceptibilities. Suddenly her expression changed from desultory enjoyment to active conjecture, and she turned to Selden with a question.
"You collect, don't you—you know about first editions and things?"
"As much as a man may who has no money to spend. ”

“ We shall not be back till after dark," she said, almost impatiently.
Selden was looking at her with surprise: it took him a moment to regain his usual view of her; then he said, with an uncontrollable note of dryness: "That was not one of our party; the motor was going the other way."
"I know—I know———"She paused, and he saw her redden through the twilight. "But I told them I was not well—that I should not go out. Let us go down!" she murmured.
Selden continued to look at her; then he drew his cigarette-case from his pocket and slowly lit a cigarette. ”

“ Alike in his Latin and in his English works, the style of Selden is prolix and embarrassed. He seems to have possessed a vast memory, and as he thought and wrote this memory seems ever to have suggested to him some collateral subject, and thus painfully to have diverted him from the direct course of his statement or argument. He is perpetually overburdened with the weight of his learning. ”

“ To unfurnished minds they remain, in spite of every enhancement of art, only a superior kind of wax-works; but to the responsive fancy they may give magic glimpses of the boundary world between fact and imagination. Selden's mind was of this order: he could yield to vision-making influences as completely as a child to the spell of a fairy-tale. ”

“ And yet perhaps not, for the face was careless too, with its dark skin and shining eyes and sensuous mouth; not a bad face, but rather a weak one, as of a man who no longer found any cause worth fighting for.
They had paused a moment to get some wraps from the vestiaire, and the countess looked back at him and smiled. Then they passed through the door together, and Selden, shaking himself out of his thoughts, betook himself to his room. ”

“ He lit Selden's proffered cigarette, and continued, in his high-pitched drawling tone: "None of my business, of course, but I didn't introduce her to the Duchess. Charming woman, the Duchess, you understand; and a very good friend of mine; but rather a liberal education."
Selden received this in silence, and after a few puffs Lord Hubert broke out again: "Sort of thing one can't communicate to the young lady—though young ladies nowadays are so competent to judge for themselves ”

“ Bathurst took his place of Vice-Chancellor, a man of good parts, and able to do good things, but he has a wife that scorns that he should be in print. A scornful woman! Scorns that he was Dean of Wells! No need of marrying such a woman, who is so conceited that she thinks herself fit to govern a college or a university.”
The learned Selden has left no good example to antiquaries, in point of gallantry. “It is reason,” says he, “a man that will have a wife should be at the charge of her trinkets, and pay all the scores she sets on him. ”

“ After the death of the earl of Kent in 1639 Selden lived permanently under the same roof with his widow. It is believed that he was married to her, although their marriage does not seem to have ever been publicly acknowledged. He died at Friary House in Whitefriars on the 30th of November 1654, and was buried in the Temple Church, London. In 1880 a brass tablet was erected to his memory by the benchers of the Inner Temple in the parish church of West Tarring. ”

“ Meanwhile, as the dinner advanced through a labyrinth of courses, in which it became clear that Mrs. Bry had occasionally broken away from Lord Hubert's restraining hand, Selden's general watchfulness began to lose itself in a particular study of Miss Bart. It was one of the days when she was so handsome that to be handsome was enough, and all the rest—her grace, her quickness, her social felicities—seemed the overflow of a bounteous nature. ”

“ She is a remarkable woman—much too clever for the prince. But you will see.”
“You have said no word of M. Selden,” the countess pointed out. “Why did you send me such elaborate instructions with regard to him—even some of his articles to read?”
The baron laughed softly.
“If I may say so,” he answered, “I am something of an artist. I like my pictures to be complete and harmonious. We must consider how the world, and especially England, will receive the announcement of this marriage, for its object will be at once plain to [43] every one. Selden is a man of great influence ”

“ There had been a germ of truth in his declaration to Gerty Farish that he had never wanted to marry a “nice” girl: the adjective connoting, in his cousin’s vocabulary, certain utilitarian qualities which are apt to preclude the luxury of charm. Now it had been Selden’s fate to have a charming mother: her graceful portrait, all smiles and Cashmere, still emitted a faded scent of the undefinable quality. His father was the kind of man who delights in a charming woman: who quotes her, stimulates her, and keeps her perennially charming. ”

“ Selden broke into a laugh. "God forbid!" he declared.
She rose with a sigh, tossing her cigarette into the grate.
"Ah, there's the difference—a girl must, a man may if he chooses." She surveyed him critically. "Your coat's a little shabby—but who cares? It doesn't keep people from asking you to dine. If I were shabby no one would have me: a woman is asked out as much for her clothes as for herself. The clothes are the background, the frame, if you like: they don't make success, but they are a part of it. Who wants a dingy woman? ”

“ The boy was curiously like her, but the daughter was of a different and much finer type, and Selden guessed that she carried on the father’s strain. Not strikingly beautiful, but fresh-skinned and wholesome, with a face delicately chiselled and touched just the slightest, when in repose, by sadness or disillusion—just a little too old and too reserved for its years; in this respect more of Europe than of America. ”

“ John Selden, the distinguished legal antiquary, historian, and Oriental scholar, who was styled by his friend Ben Jonson 'a monarch in letters,' and 'vir omni eruditionis genere instructissimus' by Archbishop Laud, was born on the 16th of December 1584 at Salvington, near Worthing, in Sussex. His father was John Selden, a farmer, known as the 'Minstrel' on account of his proficiency in music. ”

“ Selden returned her look with a smile. "I was sorry too that we should have parted in that way; but I am not sure I didn't bring it on myself. Luckily I had foreseen the risk I was taking———"
"So that you really didn't care———?" broke from her with a flash of her old irony.
"So that I was prepared for the consequences," he corrected good-humouredly. "But we'll talk of all this later. Do come and sit by the fire. I can recommend that arm-chair, if you 'll let me put a cushion behind you." ”

“ For it is not only true that a rolling stone gathers no moss, but wishes to gather none; as time goes on, even grows to fear moss, or anything else that mars the hard smoothness which enables it to keep on rolling.
[232] Selden had been rolling, now, for many years. It was his first assignment to foreign work, to cover one of the Balkan wars, which had enabled him to cast loose his anchors, and he had never been seriously tempted to pick them up again. He had come to love rolling for its own sake. The wandering life of the special writer was congenial to his blood. ”

“ Differences of personality were merged in a warm atmosphere of praise, in which her beauty expanded like a flower in sunlight; and if Selden had approached a moment or two sooner he would have seen her turning on Ned Van Alstyne and George Dorset the look he had dreamed of capturing for himself. ”

“ Selby (6) , a market-town of Yorkshire, on the Ouse, 15 m. S. of York; has a noted cruciform abbey church, founded in the 12th century, and exhibiting various styles of architecture; has some boat-building; manufactures flax, ropes, leather, bricks, &c.
Selden, John, born at Salvington, Sussex; adopted law as a profession, and was trained at Clifford's Inn and the Inner Temple, London; successful as a lawyer, he yet found time for scholarly pursuits, and acquired a great reputation by the publication of various erudite works bearing on old English jurisprudence and antiquities generally ”

“ Selden continued to stand near her, leaning against the mantelpiece. The tinge of constraint was beginning to be more distinctly perceptible under the friendly ease of his manner. Her self-absorption had not allowed her to perceive it at first; but now that her consciousness was once more putting forth its eager feelers, she saw that her presence was becoming an embarrassment to him. Such a situation can be saved only by an immediate outrush of feeling; and on Selden's side the determining impulse was still lacking. ”

“ A sudden thought startled Selden out of his moodiness. What had the prince meant when he promised to give his money to the bank? Why had he smiled so ironically? Which bank?
In a moment Selden was hurrying toward the Sporting Club, and the instant he entered the rooms he knew that his suspicion was correct. That dense crowd around a single table could mean only one thing—somebody was playing the limit. ”

“ He remembered afterward having noticed that only one blind was down. He noticed too that there was a pot of pansies on one of the window sills, and at once concluded that the window must be hers: it was inevitable that he should connect her with the one touch of beauty in the dingy scene.
Nine o'clock was an early hour for a visit, but Selden had passed beyond all such conventional observances. He only knew that he must see Lily Bart at once—he had found the word he meant to say to her, and it I could not wait another moment to be said. ”

“ Salvington (a little village which is gained by leaving the main road two miles beyond Cissbury and bearing to the west) is distinguished as the birthplace, in 1584, of one who was considered by Hugo Grotius to be the glory of the English nation—John Selden. Nowadays, when we choose our glories among other classes of men than jurists and wits, it is more than possible for even cultured persons who are interested in books to go through life very happily without knowledge at all of this great man, the friend of great men and the writer best endowed with common sense of any of his day. ”

“ He was no less conscious than before of what was said of Lily Bart, but he could separate the woman he new from the vulgar estimate of her. His mind turned to Gerty Farish's words, and the wisdom of the world seemed a groping thing beside the insight of innocence. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God—even the hidden god in their neighbour's breast! Selden was in the state of impassioned self-absorption that the first surrender to love produces. ”

“ John Selden, esq., was borne (as appeares by his epitaph, which he himselfe made, as I well remember archbishop Usher, Lord Primate, who did preach his funerall sermon, did then mention scil. as to spe certae resurrectionis) at Salvinton, a hamlet belonging to West Terring, in the com. of Sussex.
His father was a yeomanly man, of about fourty pounds per annum, and played well on the violin, in which he tooke delight, and at Christmas time, to please him selfe and his neighbours, he would play to them as they danced. ”

“ Selden will be in the lounge at 9:45 this evening, he will not only give one of his debtors an opportunity to express her gratitude, but will learn something that may prove of interest.
[5] The writing was unusually firm and characteristic. He was quite sure that he had never seen it before. And it was not in the least sentimental, but decidedly of the world. It was this which persuaded him to come. It is pleasant to have one’s services acknowledged, and he was always willing to be interested. More than once he had been started on a profitable trail in some such unusual fashion. ”