Thomasine Theobald

“ I started back.
"I cannot interfere," I said. "I have stated my case; I have shown the chart to the Theobalds; it is for them to decide."
"Say no more," he answered. "It was in your power to do a great deal—and I am rich and powerful, and could have——"
He broke off abruptly—his face was the colour of chalk. "I see it is useless to ask you," he said finally.
"It is," I replied. "In a place like the Banda Sea, which is full of islands, there is a possibility of Mr. Raynor being alive. The more Mr. Theobald thinks over this matter, the more anxious he will be to follow up this possibility. ”

“ Theobald didn’t lift his little finger to preserve us. At the first hint that we were tired of waiting, and that we should like the show to begin, he was off in a huff. ‘Great work requires time, contemplation, privacy, mystery! O ye of little faith!’ We answered that we didn’t insist on a great work; that the five-act tragedy might come at his convenience; that we merely asked for something to keep us from yawning, some inexpensive little lever de rideau. Hereupon the poor man took his stand as a genius misconceived and persecuted, an âme méconnue, and washed his hands of us from that hour! ”

“ His sword was attached to a scarf of silver and azure, and from beneath his casque, the visor of which was raised, escaped curls of light hair.
"Grandpapa!" exclaimed Erard, running towards Gottfried, "was it not—?"
"Be quiet, Erard," said his grandfather, ordering him to sit down. "Should a child interrupt an older person who is speaking?"
"This chevalier," resumed Theobald, "advanced towards me, who had also left the ranks, and when all was ready, stopped his horse, and said to me, mildly, but with a deep and manly voice, 'Jesus has shed his blood for us: why would you shed mine? ”

“ It seemed to me that Theobald trembled, when I spoke to him of the love of Jesus; but as soon as I had raised my shield, he became furious, and seizing his sword with both hands, he urged his horse against mine, and struck me on the head with all his force, so that I was overthrown and my casque cleft by the blow. ”

“ Ethbert. He who loves Jesus does not blaspheme his name; and the name of Jesus is written on the Church of Jesus. No, no: the Christian does not hate or revenge himself; and he blasphemes neither his God nor the Church of God!
"It is enough!" said Theobald to the servant. "Leave me—I have need of repose and silence:" and the servant went out.
Meanwhile Gottfried had retired into his room, and, like David, wept and sobbed before the Lord, repeating, with bitterness, "Arnold! my son Arnold! Thou art no more! thy father will never more see thee on earth!" ”

“ The chart, as far as Raynor is concerned, is worthless."
I interrupted him.
"One thing, at least, is clear," I said. "It is the work of an Englishman, and the words on the back allude to a person of the name of Theobald."
"That may be the case; but they do not allude to Mr. Theobald of Rosemary Gardens."
"They allude to someone of the name of Theobald who lives in Kensington, Paddington, Islington, Kennington, or Newington," I answered. "I have seen, with one exception, the Theobalds in those five quarters; your Mr. Theobald is the only one who takes the least interest in the matter." ”

“ He may or may not do so. Oh Lord” (and she turned her eyes prayerfully to Heaven) , “spare my Theobald, or grant that he may be beheaded.”
“My dearest,” said Theobald gravely, “do not let us agitate ourselves unduly. If the hour of trial comes we shall be best prepared to meet it by having led a quiet unobtrusive life of self-denial and devotion to God’s glory. Such a life let us pray God that it may please Him to enable us to pray that we may lead.”
“Dearest Theobald,” exclaimed Christina, drying the tears that had gathered in her eyes, “you are always, always right. ”

“ It was impossible to imagine that men and women would not suffer at the thought of causing suffering to the helpless, if once they realized that suffering clearly. Men and women were not devils! Theobald had always laughed at him for this part of his work, but he felt now, at the close of his life, that he could dwell upon that effort with more pleasure than on any other, although others had won him far more applause, and this had often brought him contempt. ”

“ It was therefore a matter of course that the primate should resume the constitutional position which he had inherited from Anselm and Lanfranc and their old-English predecessors. Theobald, however, was now in advanced age and feeble health; and when he fully perceived what manner of man it was to whom he was bound to act as spiritual father and political guide, he felt that to regulate these strong passions, to direct these youthful impulses, to follow these restless movements, was a task too hard for his failing strength. ”

“ In the new home in Paris, to which Theobald returned as often as his military duties permitted, Matilda Tone devoted herself to the education of her children while the fateful months from the end of May, 1797, to the beginning of September, 1798, sped by. During that “crowded hour” of her husband’s glorious life much history was a-making; and now, as always, his wife performed her woman’s part: to watch and wait, and suffer and sacrifice herself to her husband’s—a splendidly tragic destiny—with incomparable and heroic devotion. ”

“ It is interesting to observe how nearly Theobald's plain, homely sense, led him to the necessity of the context. The real points of the allusion can scarcely be expressed in better words than his own:
"Faulconbridge, in his resentment, would say this to Austria, 'That lion's skin which my great father, King Richard, once wore, looks as uncouthly on thy back, as that other noble hide, which was borne by Hercules, would look on the back of an ass!' A double allusion was intended: first, to the fable of the ass in the lion's skin ”

“ If Theobald’s temper was rather irritable he did not vent it upon them.
By nature reserved, if he could have found someone to cook his dinner for him, he would rather have lived in a desert island than not. In his heart of hearts he held with Pope that “the greatest nuisance to mankind is man” or words to that effect—only that women, with the exception perhaps of Christina, were worse. ”

“ THEOBALD'S ACCOUNT OF HIS CONFLICT WITH ARNOLD THE LION—HATRED OP ENEMIES—DISTRESS OF THE FAMILY.
"You are pious people," said the chevalier to Gottfried, in the afternoon of the same day, and while Erard was present. "Religion is a good thing."
"One who loves Jesus is always happy," said the child.
"Let them love Jesus!" replied the warrior. ”

“ To me it seems that those who are happy in this world are better and more lovable people than those who are not, and that thus in the event of a Resurrection and Day of Judgement, they will be the most likely to be deemed worthy of a heavenly mansion. Perhaps a dim unconscious perception of this was the reason why Christina was so anxious for Theobald's earthly happiness, or was it merely due to a conviction that his eternal welfare was so much a matter of course, that it only remained to secure his earthly happiness? ”

“ Fortunately he was safe in doing so, for Dr Skinner, pedant and more than pedant though he was, had still just sense enough to turn on Theobald in the matter of the school list. Whether he resented being told that he did not know the characters of his own boys, or whether he dreaded a scandal about the school I know not, but when Theobald had handed him the list, over which he had expended so much pains, Dr Skinner had cut him uncommonly short, and had then and there, with more suavity than was usual with him, committed it to the flames before Theobald's own eyes. ”

“ The misfortune is that by the law of the land one side only can be heard.
Theobald and Christina were no exceptions to the general rule. When they came to Battersby they had every desire to fulfil the duties of their position, and to devote themselves to the honour and glory of God. But it was Theobald’s duty to see the honour and glory of God through the eyes of a Church which had lived three hundred years without finding reason to change a single one of its opinions. ”

“ While desire for the secular greatness of the Church, her splendour and her wealth, led Henry to scheme and change sides according as he found Stephen or the Empress acting against her interests, Theobald sought a higher [Pg 111] power for her, and attached himself to Bernard, who ruled Christendom by his sanctity and his intellectual gifts. Theobald’s household was the home of a little society of men of like mind with himself. One of them was a young clerk of London, named Thomas, who soon became his chief adviser ”

“ Theobald had never liked children. He had always got away from them as soon as he could, and so had they from him; oh, why, he was inclined to ask himself, could not children be born into the world grown up? If Christina could have given birth to a few full-grown clergymen in priest's orders—of moderate views, but inclining rather to Evangelicalism, with comfortable livings and in all respects facsimiles of Theobald himself—why, there might have been more sense in it ”

“ She would be something of a lady; have a servant under her, perhaps. Thomasine was actually thinking. She would have a parlour to keep locked up; be the equal of the Chegwiddens; far above the village cobbler her father, and nearly as good as the idol-maker of Birmingham. That Pendoggat loved her was certain. He would not have lost his senses and behaved as he had done if he did not love her. Thomasine, like most young women, believed as much as she wanted to, believed that men are as good as their word, and that love and brute passion are synonymous terms. ”

“ His grandfather placed his finger on Erard's lips, and kept it there, as if to enjoin upon the child the greatest secrecy; and Erard, with a sigh, turned his eyes again upon his father.
"But it was he, it was Theobald, who commenced the combat. He ordered his troops forward; and, himself advancing in front of ours, who had also formed themselves in battle array, he provoked us, calling us heretics and infidels, whom Heaven had already cursed, and whom the Holy Virgin, he said, was about to crush beneath her feet. ”

“ Theobald had now settled down to the pursuits of the literary hack, being in all probability dependent on his pen for his livelihood. In 1713 he hurried out a catchpenny ‘Life of Cato’ for the benefit of the spectators and readers of Addison's tragedy which then held the town. Next year he published two poems—‘The Cave of Poverty,’ which he calls an imitation of Shakespeare, presumably because it is written in the measure and form of ‘Venus and Adonis,’ and ‘The Mausoleum,’ a funeral elegy in heroics on the death of Queen Anne. These poems, like all Theobald's poems, are perfectly worthless. ”

“ Theobald, however, had not been kindled by Christina's enthusiasm, so she fell back upon the Church of Rome—an enemy more dangerous, if possible, than paganism itself. A combat with Romanism might even yet win for her and Theobald the crown of martyrdom. ”

“ If Jesus is a Saviour, you say his salvation is a gift. What a faith! Is that your religion?"
Gottfried. I am by nature a wicked man, like all others, but my soul reposes upon Jesus; and I desire to love him, because he has loved me, even unto dying for my sins. His blood has washed my soul; I therefore know that I am saved. Can I love him enough for such grace----?"
"Some one knocks at the door," said Theobald; and on the permission to enter, Ethbert announced that the hour for supper approached, and that his master was expected to attend prayers. ”

“ Shall the Iron-Hearted become a woman?"
"'Jesus wept!' is written in the Gospel," replied Matthew. "And our good Saviour is our pattern in all things."
"You weep, then, here?" said the chevalier, with visible interest; "for here you do in all things like Jesus?"
Matthew, (humbly.) At least, we desire to. Our pious lord—
Theobald. Gottfried is then a nobleman?
Matthew. My master is the Count of Winkelthal.
Theobald, (with agitation.) The Count of Winkelthal, Matthew? Arnold, the Lion, was then his son? Am I then, indeed, in the house of his father?
Matthew. Arnold is the only son of my master ”

“ I need not give Christina’s answer, which of course was to accept. Much as Theobald feared old Mr Allaby I do not think he would have wrought up his courage to the point of actually proposing but for the fact of the engagement being necessarily a long one, during which a dozen things might turn up to break it off. However much he may have disapproved of long engagements for other people, I doubt whether he had any particular objection to them in his own case. A pair of lovers are like sunset and sunrise: there are such things every day but we very seldom see them. ”

“ In history Theobald lives chiefly as the patron of three eminent men: Becket, who began life as a clerk in his household; Master Vacarius, the Italian jurist, who was the first to teach Roman law in England ”

“ Were not this Huss and his friend Jerome infidels?
Arnold. Ah, Theobald! was that John Huss an infidel, who, when the sentence that condemned him to be burned was read to him, immediately threw himself on his knees, exclaiming, "O, Lord Jesus, pardon my enemies! Pardon them, for the love of thy great mercy and goodness?"
Theobald, (affected.) Arnold! did John Huss, indeed, speak thus?
Arnold. He did! John Huss knew Jesus, and, like Jesus, prayed for his murderers. No, Theobald; he who loves—who loves unto death, and who can pray for his executioners—is not an infidel.
"O, Hildegarde! ”