Thomas Traherne Waller

“ Edmund, the second son, inherited the estate, and represented Agmondesham in parliament, but at last turned quaker. William, the third son, was a merchant in London. Stephen, the fourth, was an eminent doctor of laws, and one of the commissioners for the union. There is said to have been a fifth, of whom no account has descended.
The character of Waller, both moral and intellectual, has been drawn by Clarendon, to whom he was familiarly known, with nicety, which certainly none to whom he was not known can presume to emulate. ”

“ Sometime I mean ter look her up. I ain't been able ter do fer her as I 'd ought ter, fer I had bad luck fer too many years—them pesky western wildcat banks cleaned me out twice."
"By what name was the child christened?" asked the Doctor.
"Never was christened thet I know of."
"Oh, Cale, if only they had been happier!" It was Jamie who spoke with almost a groan.
"Wal, thet's the mystery of it," was his quiet answer. Gathering his loose-jointed frame together, he rose. "Guess I 'll go an' look after the hosses; it's goin' ter be a skinner of a night." At the door he turned. ”

“ Oh, if he hadn't been put there, I could have conquered this weakness—"
"Aileen, no! It is no weakness, it is strength."
Father Honoré withdrew his hand, that had been to the broken woman a silent benediction, and walked up and down the long room. "You would never have conquered; there was—there is no need to conquer. Such love is of God—trust it, my child; don't try any longer to thrust it forth from your heart, your life; for if you do, your life will be but a poor maimed thing, beneficial neither to yourself nor to others. ”

“ Ewart asked of Mrs. Macleod.
"Not since the last of October; but Marcia has seen her recently."
He looked at me inquiringly.
"I bought the rag carpet strips of her daughter."
"Is the old woman well?"
"Yes, she is wonderful for her age."
"Ninety-nine next year," said Mr. Ewart. "What a century she has lived!"
"André père must be ninety, then," said Doctor Rugvie. "How well I remember him! He is Mère Guillardeau's brother, as perhaps you know," he said turning to me. "Jamie must have told you of André."
"Yes, of André father and André son; you know them both?" ”

“ Blake and Mrs. Ray, but Mrs. Dade herself, insisted on being made of use,—insisted on being permitted to go to his bedside and there to minister, as only women can, to the suffering and distressed. Waller thought it over and succumbed. The lad was no longer delirious, at least, and if he revealed anything of what was uppermost in his mind it would be a conscious and voluntary revelation. There were some things he had said and that Waller alone had heard, the good old doctor wished were known to certain others of the garrison, and to no one more than Mrs. Dade ”

“ The Doctor was pacing the room in his earnestness. He was not accustomed to beg thus to be allowed to prescribe for his patients. His one word was law, and he was not required to explain his motives.
Mr. Clyde's eyes followed him; then he broke the prolonged silence.
"Richard, you have asked me the one thing to which her mother would never have consented. How, then, can I?"
"Think it over, John, and let me know."
The two men clasped hands.
"Let me take you along in my cab to the reception; it's inhuman to take out your horses on such a night." ”

“ Mrs. Macleod remarked from the corner of the sofa, looking up from her knitting; "it will save so many trips to the village in weather like this."
"Is it a long distance one, Gordon?" said Jamie who was lolling on the other end.
"Yes; I thought we might as well connect with almost anywhere. Our household is rather cosmopolitan. Does this suit you?"
"Suits me to a dot. I can talk with my 'best girl', as they call her in the States, when she is on the wing—as she is now."
"Oh, ho, Boy! Has it come to this so soon?" The Doctor sighed audibly, causing us to laugh. ”

“ I don't see that you need much looking after; a young lady perfectly able to look out for herself, eh, Mrs. Macleod?"
"Perhaps the circumstances warranted some sort of chaperonage, Doctor," said Mrs. Macleod, entering into his fun and frolic as into no one's else. "As Marcia sets it forth, she was alone, except for you, on the platform of the junction nine miles from home, with Cale braced in the pung on the highroad, ready for the horses to bolt." ”

“ Googe; I appreciate that. You must find it hard to see a stranger like myself preëmpting your special claim, as I fancy this one is."
"It used to be when I was a youngster; but, to tell the truth, I haven't cared for it much of late years. The city life spoils a man for this. I love that rush and hustle and rubbing-elbows with the world in general, getting knocked about—and knocking." He laughed merrily, significantly, and Father Honoré, catching his meaning at once, laughed too. ”

“ Is that past, I am trying so hard to eliminate from my life, to present itself here as a quantity with which I must reckon—here in my life in this wilderness? Is there no avoiding it? André is so sure. Jamie knows he is sure; Mr. Ewart knows this too. They can say nothing to me about it—it is a matter of such delicacy; and they do not know who I am; even my journal does not tell that, and I knew this when I gave it into his hands.
"But the Doctor—he knows. He knows from Cale and Delia Beaseley. He knows who I am ”

“ There are a few lines written in the Dutchess's Tasso, which he is said by Fenton to have kept a summer under correction. It happened to Waller, as to others, that his success was not always in proportion to his labour.
Of these petty compositions, neither the beauties nor the faults deserve much attention. The amorous verses have this to recommend them, that they are less hyperbolical than those of some other poets. Waller is not always at the last gasp; he does not die of a frown, nor live upon a smile. There is, however, too much love, and too many trifles. ”

“ The discovery of Rose Trecarrel—an event so unexpected and unlooked for after all that had occurred—seemed to Waller as an omen of future good fortune, and his naturally buoyant spirits rose as he rode on. The expedition was full of excitement, especially for a time: it was an act of courage, mercy, and chivalry, that all Britain should eventually hear of; and Mabel was at the bourne, for which they were all bound. Even poor Denzil, so recently interred, was partially forgotten: soldiers cannot brood long over the casualties of war, especially while amid them ”

“ They 've never seen that light. We 'll get out here," he said, throwing off the robes as Cale drew rein at the edge of the platform, "and you can welcome the Doctor for me if I miss him."
He whisked me out of the pung, giving me both hands as aid, and replaced the robes.
"Keep the horses head on, and don't let the dogs run," were his last words to Cale.
The Quebec express whistled at the curve an eighth of a mile distant from the junction; the sound fell strangely flat in the intense cold. Cale braced himself to handling the horses. I followed Mr. Ewart to the front of the platform. ”

“ The Doctor compressed his lips in a fashion that said as plainly as if he had spoken, "Unsophisticated at twenty-six; I don't believe her!"
"I love Cale, too, and he is my own kind."
"Cale 's all right; I 'm going to know him better before the week is out. And how about Mrs. Macleod?"
"Mrs. Macleod is Jamie's mother, and I like her and respect her—but she 's not easy to love."
"That's true—she is not easy to love. About the salary," he said changing the subject; "I intended to pay it myself until you were installed on the farm; it is a favor to me to be allowed to help out Mrs. ”

“ He settled his long length in the deep easy chair on the other side of the hearth, refilled and relighted his pipe. "Doctor Rugvie is my friend, my very special friend; whoever enters this house, enters it on the footing of friendship with all those who are my friends—"
"Hear, hear! Another tyrant," I said, turning to his mother who was enjoying our chaff.
"—Whose name is legion," he went on, ignoring my interruption. "I'll begin to enumerate them for your benefit. There are the four dogs, Gordon setters of the best breed—and Gordon's setters in fact." ”

“ I shall know you are safely housed—and there is so much to look forward to. Home will be a pleasant place for us, won't it?"
"I thought this, also, was home to you—"
"Only so long as you are here; my home henceforth is where you are."
And, hearing those words, despite the chill air, despite the lack of warm sunshine, despite the fact that old André lay dying in his tent just beyond the camp, despite the fact that Jamie and Mrs. Macleod were to leave me alone in Lamoral, that the Doctor was going away for an indefinite time, my happiness was at the flood. ”

“ Shouldn't I take every legitimate means to forge ahead? You heard what the priest said about Mr. Van Ostend's mentioning me to him? Let me tell you such men don't waste one breath in mentioning anything that does not mean a big interest per cent, not one breath. They can't, literally, afford to; and I'm hoping, only hoping, you know—", he looked up at her from his favorite seat on the lowest step of the front porch with a keen hard expectancy in his eyes that belied his words, "—that what he said to Father Honoré means something definite. ”

“ Dryden, who, in his dedication to the Rival Ladies, addressed to the earl of Orrery, thus characterizes Waller.
'The excellency and dignity of rhime were never fully known till Mr. Waller sought it: He first made writing easily an art; first shewed us to conclude the sense most commonly in distichs, which in the verses of those before him, runs on for so many lines together, that the reader is out of breath to overtake it.'
Voltaire, in his letters concerning the English nation, speaking of British poets, thus mentions Waller. 'Our author was much talked of in France. ”

“ But Waller could do neither, for over Polwhele's body there thickly fell a heap of killed and wounded.
After his ammunition was expended, Sergeant Treherne, whom rage and desperation inspired with a fury resembling madness, laid wildly about him, and with the heel of his musket dashed out the brains of more than one tall Afghan. This stalwart son of the Mines had come of a race that in their time had been greater men than miners in Cornwall—Huelwers, who were rulers then in the land before, perhaps, a stone of Windsor or Westminster had been laid ”

“ We heard the dip of the paddles, a call—our camp call. In a few minutes the Doctor was with us.
I made excuse the next afternoon to go fishing with André. I kept saying to myself:
"This thing is impossible; there can be no connection between me and any woman who may have been here in camp, and Mr. Ewart says several have been here to his knowledge. What if I do look like some other woman who, years ago, lived and loved here in this wilderness? What have I to do with her? I 'll settle this matter once for all and to my satisfaction; André will tell me. He is romantic ”

“ I speak as an older woman to a younger. Dear child, I wish you joy; you deserve all that is in store for you—and there is so much for you, so much here in the old manor. I am so happy for you and with you, my dear."
I lifted my face to hers and she kissed me.
"I don't like to leave you here; it goes against me—there is no woman near you; and you cannot remain in the circumstances, you know, my dear, after Mr. Ewart returns. I only wish you would come with us. But that would never do; Mr. Ewart would be my enemy for life, and I could not blame him."
"Cale will be here," I said. ”

“ And one is the dark mount of Sorrow
And one the bright mountain of Prayer.
GO, LOVELY ROSE.
BY EDMUND WALLER.
Edmund Waller was born in Hertfordshire, England, in 1605. He went to King’s College, Cambridge. Later he entered parliament and took an active part in the long parliament. In 1664 he was exiled on account of participating in royalist plots. He returned to England under Cromwell’s administration. He died at Beaconsfield in 1687. Waller’s poems were first published in 1645. ”

“ There isn't any heat, and there is no gas in it. I have to furnish it myself. My landlady is a queer little old woman, Mrs. Turtelot, who has kept lodgers here for thirty years. She has her house filled with the students from the Theological Seminary near by. It's lucky I have this place to come to. I wondered to-day how girls ever get on in this city, without having someone to go to they know is all right. She seems like a Frenchwoman, perhaps a French Canadian. I think she must be, for her mother used to work at Seth White's tavern up home ”

“ That evening we sat late around the camp fire, and before we separated for the night Mr. Ewart said, turning to me:
"I want a promise from you, Miss Farrell."
"What is it?"
"Caution, caution!" said the Doctor.
"That you will make no more solitude à deux excursions, as John calls them, with old André. He is old, despite his seeming strength, and his age is beginning to tell on him. I see that he has failed much since last year."
"You 're right there, Gordon; she should not risk it with him," said Jamie, emphatically. ”

“ The lady was at the time a ward of the court of aldermen, and it was only after some difficulty and the payment of a fine out of her portion that the direct influence of the king enabled the poet to purge his offence in having carried off the lady without the consent of her guardians. After his marriage Waller appears to have retired with his wife to his house at Beaconsfield. ”