William Adolphus

“ Vohrenlorf, see the Prince mounted."
Varvilliers laughed; even Wetter smiled.
"All right, you needn't be in such a hurry. I'm going," said William Adolphus.
"But I'm glad you came," said I, laughing again, and, as the door closed behind him, I added, "Most lucky! His evidence will be invaluable. Fortune is with us, Varvilliers."
"A man of ready wit is with us, sire," he answered in his pleasant courtliness; then, as we heard William Adolphus trotting off and Vohrenlorf came back, he went on, "All is ready." ”

“ If you will, he lowered the man to exalt the king; this was of a piece with all his wily compromises.
Victoria arrived, and her husband. William Adolphus's attitude was less apologetic than it had been before marriage; he had made Victoria mother to a fine baby, and claimed the just credit. He was jovial, familiar, and, if I may so express myself, brotherly to the last degree. Happily, however, he interpreted his more assured position as enabling him to choose his own friends and his own pursuits ”

“ It would not only be to end my own line, it would be to install the children of William Adolphus. I did not grant even a moment's hospitality to such an idea. Bederhof was right, the marriage was urgent; I must marry—just as occasionally I was compelled to review the troops. I had as little aptitude for one duty as for the other, but both were among my obligations. I was so rooted in this attitude that I turned to Victoria with a start of surprise when she said to me one day:
"She's very pretty; I daresay you'll fall in love with her." ”

“ When my years and my mood are considered, it may appear that I had enough to do in keeping my own life in the channel of wisdom and discretion. So it seemed to myself, and I was rather amused at being called upon to exert a good influence or even a wholesome authority over William Adolphus; it was so short a time since he had been summoned to perform a like office toward me. Yet after breakfast the next day Victoria came to me, dressed in a subdued style and speaking in low tones; she has always possessed a dramatic instinct. ”

“ Victoria was standing [Pg 231] by, telling her how she ought and ought not to hold the little creature. William Adolphus also had edged near and stood hands in pockets, with a broad smile on his excellent countenance. I paused and watched. He drew quite near to Victoria; she turned her head, spoke to him, smiled and laughed merrily. Elsa tossed and tickled the baby; both Victoria and William Adolphus looked pleased and proud. It is easy to be too hard on life; one should make a habit of reflecting occasionally out of what very unpromising materials happiness can be manufactured. ”

“ He gives more space to William Adolphus than to Wetter! So difficult it is even for superior minds to remain altogether unaffected by the lustre of rank; the old truism could not be better exhibited.
I kept my appointment and went again to Coralie's in the evening. I took with me Vohrenlorf, my aide-de-camp (brother to the General, my former governor) ; there had been a dinner at the palace, and we were both in uniform. I had hardly expected Wetter to come that evening, but he was already there when I arrived. ”

“ But with what face would he hear an honest statement of the case that Wetter was to have the Embassy because the King desired to please Countess von, Sempach? I smiled drearily as I imagined his incredulous indignation. No; everybody was against me, saints and sages, Geoffrey and Hammerfeldt, women and men; even the fools gave no countenance to my folly. William Adolphus thought that I might gradually——! ”

“ Her frown gave place to a smile as she [Pg 182] looked up, saying: "It would be rather fun if you flirted with her."
I raised my eyebrows. Whence came this new complaisance toward my flirtations?
"Just enough, I mean, to disgust William Adolphus," she added. "Then, as soon as he'd given up, you could stop, you know. Everything would be right then."
"Except mother, you mean."
"Why, yes, except mother. And she'd be splendidly wrong," laughed Victoria.
Nobody who studies himself honestly or observes his neighbours with attention will deny value to an excuse because it may be merely plausible. ”

“ His invitation, given with a heartiness that mocked his bidden companions, found no acceptance. We were all for our own planet in the morning. It was abundantly clear that revels must be the exception at Artenberg. Victoria was earnestly of this opinion. In the first place, the physical condition of William Adolphus was deplorable; he leered rueful roguishness out of bilious eyes, and Victoria could not endure the sight of him; secondly, she was sure that I had said something—what she did not know, but something—to Elsa ”

“ Adolphus was equipped from head to foot in a crimson padded jousting suit studded with gilt metal nails; he was the youngest of the four, no more than a youth, noble in appearance, and wholly lovable, fairer than his brother in colouring, but of the same slenderness of make.
Both greeted William with great affection, and Louis, who was clattering in gold-embossed cuirass, cuisses, vambraces, and greaves, broke out laughing with the jest that had so diverted him and Adolphus.
"Highness, we want the old magician to foretell the future for us—he has a spirit who can reveal all things ”

“ Irony was not to be wanting, comedy claimed her accustomed share. The interview which I have already set down might seem enough to have satisfied my sister. It was not; after I had breakfasted Victoria sent William Adolphus to me. ”

“ While others pursue the 'bubble reputation' abroad, Adolphus seeks to be loved at home, and his own fire-side is the scene in which the best energies of his mind, and the purest affections of his heart are expanded. I am reclaimed by his virtues from my visionary absurdities, and shall endeavour to make all the reparation in my power for having wandered so far from the truth by preaching a crusade to the youth of my own sex, who may be inclined to deviate into the labyrinth from which I was myself so happily extricated. ”

“ They passed into Whimple's room, whence the lady emerged some time later. William opened the office door for her, and as she passed out she admonished him to make good use of his time, and "never, never enter law."
"I'm about as near to it as I'll ever get," answered William politely.
CHAPTER V
This is a chronicle of facts, culled from the life of William Adolphus Turnpike and other personages, as distinguished from mere history. Everybody in this age of research and cheap books, to say nothing of magazines and newspapers, knows that history is not true. ”

“ And a Jew!"
"And a man," said Tommy Watson with a note of challenge in his voice.
"I've heard much of his kindnesses," Whimple said, "but know him only by sight."
"He's a great friend of mine," said Tommy; "he spends nearly all his mornings here; has done since he retired from the stage. He's getting feeble, but his mind is as clear as ever, and his heart—well, his heart has never grown old."
"William Adolphus Turnpike, Epstein, retired comedian, Tommy Watson, auctioneer," said Whimple softly, and then looking up he found Watson regarding him with a whimsical smile. ”

“ The birds singing their matins around the poet, and the sun shining brightly through his windows stained with many a figure of poetic legend, and upon the walls painted in fine colours "both text and gloss, and all the Romaunt of the Rose"—is not this a picture of Chaucer by his own hand, on which, one may love to dwell? And just as the poem has begun with a touch of nature, and at the beginning of its main action has returned to nature, so through the whole of its course it maintains the same tone. ”

“ The greater part of his own debt to Albert, which amounted to more than treble this sum, had been taken over by Philip; but an ugly suspicion remains as to Maximilian's motives in the transaction. After Albert, who had been detained by the Gelders War, had himself arrived in Friesland, the rough insolence of one of his sons drove the country into rising once more against his yoke; and he was laying siege to Groningen, which this time had joined hands with its former adversaries, when death overtook him at Emden (September, 1500) . ”

“ William, who made a favourable impression in England by his assiduous performance of his religious duties, gained no other advantage from his visit except an honorary degree at each of the universities.
When the imminent danger of a French invasion at last found credit in the Netherlands, a widespread demand arose for the appointment of William as captain- and admiral-general, partly in hopes of still conciliating Charles, partly for the sake of an Orange leadership should war prove inevitable. ”

“ Who has dwelt with a more potent effect on that catastrophe which the drama of every human life must reach; whose scenes of death in its pathetic, pitiful, reverend, terrible, ghastly forms speak more to the imagination and more to the heart? ”

“ The claims to his sole guardianship of his high-spirited but unconciliatory mother were disputed by his intriguing grandmother, the Princess-dowager Amalia, born Countess of Solms-Braunsfeld, and by his versatile uncle, the great elector, Frederick William of Brandenburg, until a compromise assigned the chief but not undivided authority to the princess royal. ”

“ My room is up amongst the branches of the trees, and the birds and the butterflies fly in and out, and the green branches shoot in at the open windows, and the lights and shadows of the clouds come and go with the rest of the company. The scent of the flowers, and indeed of everything that is growing for miles and miles, is most delicious. ”

“ There had been a slight stirring of originality in the series of comedies produced by T. W. Robertson at the Prince of Wales’s theatre, where, under the management of Bancroft (q.v.) a new school of mounting and acting, minutely faithful (in theory at any rate) to everyday reality, had come into existence. But the hopes of a revival of English comedy seemed to have died with Robertson’s death. One of his followers, James Albery, possessed both imagination and wit, but had not the strength of character to do justice to his talent, and sank into a mere adapter. ”

“ In the English translation of Ranke's Englische Geschichte the reigns of William and Mary, and of William, which form a most important part of the work, occupy vols. iv. and v., besides ample illustrations in the Appendix to vol. vi. By far the most elaborate survey, and vindication as a whole, of the European policy of William III, however, is Onno Klopp's monumental Der Fall des Hauses Stuart, vols. i–ix., Vienna, 1875–8. In view of William's family and political connection with the house of Brandenburg, Droysen's Geschichte der preussischen Politik (vols. iii. 3–iv. 1, 1865–7) is useful. ”

“ Miss Whimple appeared in the hallway and extended a hand to William, who squeezed it heartily and hoped the lady was well. She was, she said.
"Well, I'm glad to hear it," said William.
"Umph—it doesn't take the boys long to follow the example of the men. Now, you don't really care a cent about my health, and you know it!"
"You're wrong, Miss Whimple," he answered, and there was earnestness in his tone. "I like people I know to be well—most of them anyway." ”

“ I am a husband and a father. God knows how much he has to forgive in me—God—knows. Those I love best—my wife—my little girl—they could never dream. But—will you try to remember, sometimes, some of these things?"
William put out his hand and the judge shook it warmly. The boy was late getting back to the office, and Whimple was testy. "Where on earth have you been, William?" he asked, sharply; "there's a good deal of work to do, and we can hardly catch up to it to-day."
"I'm sorry. I've been listening to a man," said William, quietly. ”

“ Where is mirrored with equal power and variety the working of those passions in the mastery of which over man lies his doom? Here, above all, Shakespeare as compared with his predecessors, as well as with his successors, “is that nature which they paint and draw.” ”

“ Future generations may, for this very reason, be perplexed and irritated by what we merely stumbled at, and may wish that what is an element hardly separable from many of Dickens’s compositions were away from them, as one wishes away from his signature that horrible flourish which in his letters he sometimes represents himself as too tired to append. ”

“ His father had tried once or twice, but his evident embarrassment, his halting sentences, and his fear lest William should misunderstand, had frightened, rather than impressed, the boy. But the judge was saying the things William knew his father had tried to say, and he was losing none of them. The sacredness of the body, his lordship was emphasising this, and dilating upon it: the purity of the heart and mind; respect of woman; the honour of a man; reverence to God. William afterwards wrote the words out almost as fully as though he had taken them all down at the time. ”

“ William laughed happily. "Oh, but he's a pippin, a real pippin; and me thinking he was a dub. If he wakes up, and I'm asleep, nurse, you can tell him from me that I'm a mutt. He's the real thing, is Lucien." Then he looked down at his hands, swathed in bandages, and grinned. "Kinder early for winter mitts," he said. "Gee, but my hands sting! Has my Ma and Pa been here?" ”

“ No process is more hazardous than that of distributing a poet's works among the several periods of his life according to divisions of species—placing his tragedies or serious stories in one season, his comedies or lighter tales in another, and so forth. Chaucer no more admits of such treatment than Shakspere, nor because there happens to be in his case little actual evidence by which to control or contradict it, are we justified in subjecting him to it. ”