Bluntness

“ Turned as he spoke, and laughter came unwise
Before she answered, and an hour was flown,
Before he joined the rest and she was gone.
O Love! what an absurdity thou art,
How heedless of proportion, whole or part!
Time, place, occasion, what are they to thee?
Thou playest the wanton with Solemnity,
The prince with Poverty, the rogue with Worth,
The fool with all the Wisdoms of the Earth.
Thou art a leveller, more renowned than Death,
For he, when in his rage he stops our breath,
88 Leaves us at least the harvest of our years,
The right to be heroic in our tears. ”

“ I never fail to make her a very low bow, for which she repays me with an extraordinary smile. This working-day side of her character is what especially pleases me in Miss Blunt. This holy working-dress of loveliness and dignity sits upon her with the simplicity of an antique drapery. Little use has she for whalebones and furbelows. What a poetry there is, after all, in red hands! I kiss yours, Mademoiselle. I do so because you are self-helpful; because you earn your living; because you are honest, simple, and ignorant (for a sensible woman, that is) ; because you speak and act to the point ”

“ After that for a long time I heard Mme. Blunt mere talking with extreme fluency and I even caught the individual words, but I could not in the revulsion of my feelings get hold of the sense. She talked apparently of life in general, of its difficulties, moral and physical, of its surprising turns, of its unexpected contacts, of the choice and rare personalities that drift on it as if on the sea ”

“ Oh, human nature—human nature, what a difference there is in you when you are upon the right side of the door from what you are when you are upon the wrong."
"My friend," said Sir Richard Blunt, "that is a very philosophical remark, and I compliment you upon it. But now answer me truly one question, and for your own sake, and for the sake of justice, I beg you to answer me truly."
"What is it?"
"Are you in present fear of death?"
"No. Not while I continue to make the pies." ”

“ Who speaks?"
"Pilot knows me, and John and Mary know I am here: I came only this evening," I answered.
"Great God!—what delusion has come over me? What sweet madness has seized me?"
"No delusion—no madness: your mind, sir, is too strong for delusion—your health too sound for frenzy."
"And where is this speaker? Is it only a voice? Oh! I cannot see, but I must feel, or my heart will stop and my brain burst. Whatever—whoever you are—be perceptible to the touch or I cannot live!" ”

“ How could he ever jeer and jest at others henceforth? He, who had stood so pitiful and exposed a fool before others that morning. In the future, whatever became of him, he could sneer or scoff no more, for fear that in his teeth should be thrown his own idiocy.
But, in place of the little quips and contemptuous insolence he had been wont to pride himself upon, there had come now into his heart a passion, black and venomous, that had taken the place of those other qualities which once he had considered all-sufficient--a passion that was a thirst, a determination for revenge. ”

“ Folly, melancholy, madness, are but one disease, Delirium is a common name to all. Alexander, Gordonius, Jason Pratensis, Savanarola, Guianerius, Montaltus, confound them as differing secundum magis et minus; so doth David, Psal. xxxvii. 5. “I said unto the fools, deal not so madly,” and 'twas an old Stoical paradox, omnes stultos insanire, [179] all fools are mad, though some madder than others. And who is not a fool, who is free from melancholy? Who is not touched more or less in habit or disposition? ”

“ Of that mad world we lived in and its joys:
Such things were sacrilege. I could not see
Unmoved my angel smirched with vanity,
Even though, it seemed at moments, for my sake.
Her laughter, when she laughed, made my heart ache,
And I had spared some pain to see her sad
Rather than thus unseasonably glad.
Who would have dreamed it? Each new idle day,
When, tired with sport, we rested from the fray,
Five jovial shooters, jaded by the sun,
Seeking refreshment at the stroke of noon,—
There, with the luncheon carts all trimly dight,
Stood Lady L., to the fool crowd's delight. ”

“ A few words lightly spoken by the tongue of slander, a significant expression of the eyes, a cruel shrug of the shoulders, with a pursing of the lips,—and then, friendly hands grow cold, the accustomed smile is displaced by a sneer, and one stands alone and aloof with a dazed feeling of wonder at the vague, intangible something that has caused it all. ”

“ She glanced up at him with a smile in her clear eyes--the smile that never failed to make him think that he had lit on some woman belonging to another world than his, it was so full of innocence as well as a simple trust that would have well befitted a little child--and laid her hand upon his arm as though to assure him that he had done nothing to affright her. ”

“ Men's laughter into tears—ay, heaven's and hell's.
How did it happen? There was that upon
Their faces at the door more than the tone
Of their replies, that warned us of the thing
We had not looked for in our questioning;
And our lips faltered, and our ears, afraid,
Shrank from more hearing. What was it they said
In their fool's jargon, that he lay upstairs?
He? Manton? The dispenser of our cares?
The mountebank young reveller? Suffering? Ill?
And she, poor soul, that suffered at his will!
A sinister case? Not dying? Pitiful God! ”

“ Praises are pleasant, be they ne'er so plenty;
And some, the foolish ones, are thus soon caught
Seeking to justify the flattery taught.
These are the spendthrifts, dear ingenuous souls,
Whose names emblazoned stand on pleasure's rolls,
Manning the hosts of mirth. Apart from them,
More serious or less eager in their aim,
The wise ones wait like birds that hold aloof,
Conscious of danger and the cloven hoof. ”

“ One could tell of his encounter with the soul of a sinner in the other world, which was flung at him red-hot and burnt his shoulder and cheek, though when relating his adventure, even if it were in the depth of winter, and however light might be his dress, the saint would sweat as if it were the dog-days. ”

“ Without following the inquiry into farther detail,4 we 274 may conclude that vulgarity consists in a deadness of the heart and body, resulting from prolonged, and especially from inherited conditions of “degeneracy,” or literally “un-racing;”—gentlemanliness, being another word for an intense humanity. And vulgarity shows itself primarily in dulness of heart, not in rage or cruelty, but in inability to feel or conceive noble character or emotion. ”

“ With regard to guilt or innocence, blushing offers no evidence whatever. There is a great troop of people who blush without any{51} reason for feeling guilty. The most instructive thing in this matter is self-observation, and whoever recalls the cause of his own blushing will value the phenomenon lightly enough. ”

“ You that wonder at my folly may perchance go further and with less cause, when the touch of the blind god comes to you as to me. As for you who smile on, knowing no better, from your lonely height, you have missed wholly the inwardness of life and its savor, and so my pity may well match your own and with the greater reason. ”

“ Perhaps, Gentlemen, you will suppose I am guilty of a great deal of Vanity, in imagining myself capable of so grossly imposing on the Understanding of a Lady of such refined sense as Miss Blandy was acknowledged to be. In answer to which I can only say, that when Love has taken possession of the Heart, it leaves but very little Room for Reflection. That this was Miss Blandy's case, I will give you some few instances of the violence of her Passion, and then leave you to judge to what extravagant Lengths that might carry her. ”

“ By his side was a lady, herself no longer young, and, consequently, unmasked; a woman with a sweet, sad face, who might have given to any onlooker the idea that her thoughts were little enough occupied with the affairs of this world--an idea that would, perhaps, have been increased in the minds of those who should regard her by the appearance of delicate health which her face wore. ”

“ She laughs at me, indeed, for keeping a diary at all. "Of all things," cried she, "a sentimental man is the most despicable."
I confess I was somewhat nettled. The thrust seemed gratuitous.
"Of all things," I answered, "a woman without sentiment is the most unlovely."
"Sentiment and loveliness are all very well, when you have time for them," said Miss Blunt. "I haven't. I'm not rich enough. Good morning." ”

“ Now--even in the days which seemed to those who lived in them to be degenerate ones with all the flame and excitement of life departed, and which seem to those who have lived after them to have been so full of a strong, masterfully pulsating, full-blooded existence, perfumed with all that goes to make life one long romance--these men might have appeared to be anything except sober citizens or honest bourgeois carrying on steady, reputable callings. ”

“ And it was well for me that I did hear it; for nothing less could have cured my infatuation. I always said and thought, that I would never believe a word against you, unless I heard it from your own lips. All the hints and affirmations of others I treated as malignant, baseless slanders ”

“ A hundred facts of milieu will have put this beyond question. Every one will realise then that incoherently melodious bluster is the appointed form of expression for a timid and sensuous nature struggling hard to be courageous and self-secure. ”

“ Was it folly in him to watch her window from the street, and rate its scantiest gleam of light above all diamonds; folly in her to breathe his name upon her knees, and pour out her pure heart before that Being, from whom such hearts and such affections come!
If these be follies, then Fiery Face go on and prosper! If they be not, then Fiery Face avaunt! But set the crunched bonnet at some other single gentleman, in any case, for one is lost to thee for ever! ”

“ And yet, at times, a sombre shadow over-clouds his brow even in her presence, but evidently the result of despondency rather than of ill-humour, and generally occasioned by some display of her ill-regulated temper or misguided mind—some wanton trampling upon his most cherished opinions—some reckless disregard of principle that makes him bitterly regret that she is not as good as she is charming and beloved. ”

“ Other men knew better what to do than I--could fool women, for a pastime, into loving them, could lead them on to madness and then grow weary and fling them contemptuously aside. And I despised such men. ”

“ But in pity, mademoiselle, not so much for me, her father, as her own innocent, helpless little self—think of her, poor little babe, in that man's—in any man's power!—tell me all you know. Tell me, I implore. ”

“ Let your eyes be blind to all external attractions, your ears deaf to all the fascinations of flattery and light discourse.—These are nothing—and worse than nothing—snares and wiles of the tempter, to lure the thoughtless to their own destruction. ”

“ BLUFF. Synonyms:
Bluff is a word of good meaning, as are frank and open. The bluff man talks and laughs loudly and freely, says and does whatever he pleases with fearless good nature, and with no thought of annoying or giving pain to others. The blunt man says things which he is perfectly aware are disagreeable, either from a defiant indifference to others' feelings, or from the pleasure of tormenting. ”

“ For I have bought to-day a young fellow--as much out of pity as for any use he is like to be, such a poor, starved radish of a young man is he--who protests and swears that 'tis all a mistake his being here, and that some dreadful villainy has been practised on him. For he says that, though not a lord himself, he is the son and heir of one, ay! and of a marquis, too, in the future."
I cried out at this, for my girl's curiosity was aroused, and Miss Mills exclaimed, "'Tis ever the old story. They have talents, these servants, tho' they apply them but ill. ”

“ To me the eye tells everything, and I have never yet looked directly into a person's eyes without being able to satisfy myself as to their disposition. Cruelty, vanity, deceit, temper, sensuality, and all the other vices display themselves at once; and so with vulgarity—the glitter of the vulgar, of the ignorant, petty, mean, sordid mind, the mind that estimates all things and all people by money and clothes, cannot be hidden; "vulgarity" will out, and in no way more effectually than through the eyes. ”

“ I knew I could do the poetry, and I firmly resolved that I would read it through, from beginning to end, in a clear, well-modulated voice, that could be heard by all, including the minister and Belle Marigold. I would not blush, or stammer, or get a frog in my throat. I swore solemnly to myself that I would not. Some folks should see that my bashfulness was wearing off faster than the gold from an oroide watch. Oh, I would show 'em! Some things could be done as well as others. I would no longer be the laughing-stock of Babbletown. My past record should be wiped out! ”

“ His habits of circumgyration, with sudden stops and starts,—his strange air of abstractedness, a sort of excogitative look, apparently puzzled to find something out,—odd way of talking to himself, as if he himself were some other person, saying, “what a noise the fellow makes,” “I think the fellow’s a fool,” and striking his face in apparent anger,—strange mode of mentioning names once familiar to him,—putting a question,—seeming to listen, and giving an answer quite foreign to it, are most striking, and such as no descriptive powers can enable another to conceive, without seeing him. ”

“ Blunt, in an unrefined tone, that made me open my eyes, which were well opened before, still wider.
He turned to me with that horrible trick of his of commenting upon Mills as though that quiet man whom I admired, whom I trusted, and for whom I had already something resembling affection had been as much of a dummy as that other one lurking in the shadows, pitiful and headless in its attitude of alarmed chastity.
“Nothing escapes his penetration. He can perceive a haystack at an enormous distance when he is interested.” ”