Claret

“ He comes on the wings of the circular, and clad in the raiment of hyperbole, flagrantly disregarding the adage that good wine needs no bush, and the pages of his catalogues are strewn with false and perjured epithets. So great are his eulogies of what he is pleased to call his “light Clarets” that for the real thing, if he have it, language falls too short for adoration. ”

“ With Port we lose the senses, with Claret we exchange them. The commonplace becomes romantic, the accountant precedes a poet. He has spurned the brute earth, and his hand has touched the shoulder of Pegasus himself. That he cannot mount is no fault of the charger that is ready to bear him heavenwards. Not even Claret is omnipotent. It seems out of the nature of things that man should be drunken, as we use the term, on so admirable a liquor, and so it has ever appeared to me a mistake that Ripton Thompson should have been permitted to drown his five wits in Claret. ”

“ I cannot analyse my heart, though it then stood still within me. But the thing that swayed me to my purpose was not altogether the thought that Captain Claret was about to degrade me, and that I had taken an oath with my soul that he should not. No, I felt my man’s manhood so bottomless within me, that no word, no blow, no scourge of Captain Claret could cut me deep enough for that. I but swung to an instinct in me—the instinct diffused through all animated nature, the same that prompts even a worm to turn under the heel. ”

“ As a whole, the book is a delightful and beautiful work of art. The man of whom Claretie writes becomes a living character to us, and we love him as we would such a man in real life.—Cincinnati Tribune. ”

“ When then comes, Clarice, we shall be satisfied with what happened to us now.”
“When will it come, my Lord?” asked Clarice, in a dreary tone.
“When it is best,” replied the Earl quietly.
“Your Lordship speaks as if you knew!” said Clarice.
“God knows. And he who knows God may be sure of everything else.”
“Is it so much to know God?”
“It is life. ‘Without God’ and ‘Without hope’ are convertible terms.”
“My Lord,” said Clarice, wondering much to hear a layman use language which it seemed to her was only fit for priests, “how may one know God?”
“Go and ask Him. How dost thou know any one? ”

“ Clare always felt himself cheated and empty of ideas when shut up within four walls. The Muse would not follow him to his fireside, but she would frolic with him the live-long day in the open air, filling him with buoyancy, kissing his lips, and smoothing out his wrinkles. Seated inside an old oak, whose heart had gradually passed into the atmosphere, Clare was wont to pour his soul in song, and so fruitful were the hints of his unseen companion that he soon had a great collection of new verses. ”

“ Clarence was profoundly impressed by what he saw in the chapel. The boys—full, in ordinary, of mischief and life—were going about their devotions in earnest.
Clarence was seated next to John Rieler. That youth, when he was not singing lustily with the others, had his face buried in his prayer-book. Religion, Clarence perceived, entered intimately into the lives of nearly all these boys.
He was escorted by Rieler to breakfast, where he inspired much respect among the boys of the particular table at which he sat by his workmanlike way of getting through with the dishes served him. ”

“ Clarice worshipped her parent, who came, during the transition from mere childhood to the period when reflection and observation awaken, to adorn a commonplace existence with all the brilliant adjuncts which enlightened and devoted affection can bestow. He appeared to her like an especial gift of Providence, a guardian angel—but far dearer, as being akin to her own nature. She grew, under his eye, in loveliness and refinement both of intellect and heart. ”

“ Cannot consent, that the History of Clarissa should be looked upon as a mere Novel or Amusement—since it is rather a History of Life and Manners; the principal View of which, by an Accommodation to the present light Taste of an Age immersed in Diversions, that engage the Eye and the Ear only, and not the Understanding, aims to investigate the great Doctrines of Christianity, and to teach the Reader how to die, as well as how to live. ”

“ Dame Briton stood in the cabin door, and her angry tongue was laden with reproaches ready for utterance when Clarice should come within easier reach of her voice.
"I must go," said Clarice to Luke.
"I'll follow you, to-night. Don't work too hard," he answered. "Take care of my heart, Clarice."
A storm broke upon Clarice when she went home to her mother. She bore the blame of her idleness with tolerable patience, until it seemed as if the gale would never blow over. At last some quick words escaped her:—
"Three bushels of weed lie there on the boards ready spread, and drying. ”

“ Now the first voice which came to break this171 enchantment was, to many, the voice of Thomas Carlyle. It needed for this end, it always needs, a man who could come face to face with Truth. Every great idol-breaker, every man who has delivered the world from the yoke of Forms, has been one who was able to see the substance of things, who was gifted with the insight of realities. Forms of worship, forms of belief, at first the channels of life, through which the Living Spirit flowed into human hearts, at last became petrified, incrusted, choked. ”

“ There now lies, under the shade of a sycamore-tree, with nothing above but the green grass and the eternal vault of heaven, all that earth has to keep of John Clare, one of the sweetest singers of nature ever born within the fair realm of dear old England—of dear old England, so proud of its galaxy of noble poets, and so wasteful of their lives. ”

“ I thought of nothing else; the wedding party and the music ceased to exist, my curiosity was roused to the highest pitch, for my soul passed into the body of the clarionet player.
The fiddle and the flageolet were neither of them interesting; their faces were of the ordinary type among the blind—earnest, attentive, and grave. Not so the clarionet player; any artist or philosopher must have come to a stop at the sight of him. ”

“ But too well does poor Clare's history illustrate that interpretation of the myth which pictures Great Pan secretly busy among the reeds and fashioning, with sinister thought, the fatal pipe which shall "make a poet out of a man." And yet it may be doubted whether, on the whole, Clare's lot in life, and that of the wife and family who were dependent upon him, was aggravated by the poetic genius which we are thus trying to make the scapegoat for his misfortunes. ”

“ In short, he fluttered like a gay Butterfly in the Sunshine of Prosperity; he wandered from the Path that leads to Happiness: In the Bloom of Youth he fell a Sacrifice to his own Folly: his Life was a Life of Violence, and his Death was a Death of Rage.
Whilst the gentle Clarissa's Death is the natural Consequence of her innocent Life; her calm and prepared Spirit, like a soft smooth Stream, flows gently on, till it slides from her Misfortunes, and she leaves the World free from Fear, and animated only by a lively Hope. ”

“ And which of these, my gentle Claribel, (turning to her,) shall I present to you?” Claribel timidly answered, “I am not ambitious of riches, they would but embarrass me; neither do I covet beauty—to be an object of general notice, would to me be only distressing. A contented mind must surely be the greatest of all blessings: at least, I can neither imagine or desire a greater. I shall therefore gratefully accept one of your favourite flowers,” looking at the lilies.
“Amiable girl,” exclaimed the fairy, [29] “there is no fear of your ever repenting of your choice. ”

“ Harlowe, we may draw a noble and most useful Moral; for as in the Body, too rich Blood occasions many Diseases, so in the Mind, the very Virtues themselves, if not carefully watched, may produce very hurtful Maladies. Meekness therefore, and a long Habit of Submission, is often accompanied by a want of Resolution, even where Resolution is commendable. To be all Softness, Gentleness and Meekness, and at the same time to be steadily fixed in every Point 'tis improper to give up, is peculiar to Clarissa herself, and a Disposition of Mind judiciously reserved by the Author for his Heroine alone. ”

“ And then the name Clarissa—Clarissa—called itself back into my mind. Clarissa, with her little gown of canary-colored satin.
CHAPTER III
They can be cold, those nights in April, for spring comes timidly to this little island of ours. I have seen children, like her, peep round a door. There is laughter in their faces; it flows in a silver ripple, quivering shyly on their lips. For one instant they look in on you and then are gone. It is no good your calling. Nothing under Heaven will induce them to come back. ”

“ Art still has truth, take refuge there.'
Could any contrast well be greater than that between the master and his disciple? What is the secret of the spell which the one man cast over the other? How can we account for the hold which the poet and artist gained over the Puritan and the prophet?
The answer to this question is not altogether easy. But, in the first place, it must be remembered that, side by side with a Puritan temper, there was in Carlyle an intellect of extraordinary keenness. ”

“ There, indeed, lay Clarimonde, even as I had seen her at the church on the day of my ordination. She was not less charming than then. With her, death seemed but a last coquetry. The pallor of her cheeks, the less brilliant carnation of her lips, her long eyelashes lowered and relieving their dark fringe against that white skin, lent her an unspeakably seductive aspect of melancholy chastity and mental suffering; her long loose hair, still intertwined with some little blue flowers, made a shining pillow for her head, and veiled the nudity of her shoulders with its thick ringlets ”

“ To influences other than those of the countryside, Clare remained unimpressionable. To be in London was to long for Helpstone, the commons and pools of which were more precious to the poet than all the glories of Westminster Abbey, and the expanses of the artificial lakes. While he sojourned in the Metropolis the right spark would not fall from heaven, but as soon as he wandered once more among the scenes so long familiar to him, the Muse was his unfailing companion. ”

“ Conservative Senate, }
“Luxembourg, April 29th. }
“I have a fancy for commencing the portrait of Clari. She is not what the world calls a beauty, but every one agrees in pronouncing her an agreeable woman. She is twenty-eight or twenty-nine years old, and she is neither more nor less blooming than she ought to be at twenty-eight. Her figure is good, her carriage is graceful and unaffected. Clari is not thin; she is only slight and refined. Her complexion is not brilliant, but she has the special charm of looking fairer in proportion as she is in a stronger light. ”

“ The first time Clarence had observed the young artist, he had taken a deep interest in his appearance. Pale, thin, undersized, and slightly deformed, the sanctifying mind still shed over the humble frame a spell more powerful than beauty. ”

“ On the whole, we do entirely agree with those old Monks, Laborare est Orare. In a thousand senses, from one end of it to the other, true Work is Worship. He that works, whatsoever be his work, he bodies forth the form of Things Unseen; a small Poet every Worker is. The idea, were it but of his poor Delf Platter, how much more of his Epic Poem, is as yet 'seen,' halfseen, only by himself; to all others it is a thing unseen, impossible; to Nature herself it is a thing unseen, a thing which never hitherto was;—very 'impossible,' for it is as yet a No-thing! ”

“ Do you meditate too much or sit too immovably? Poetry, I mean the composition of it, does not always sweeten the mind as much as the reading of it. There is always an anxiety, a fervour, an impatience, a vaingloriousness attending it which untranquillizes even in the sweetest-seeming moods of the poet. Like the bee, he is restless and uneasy even in collecting his sweets. Farewell, my dear Clare, and when you have leisure and inclination, write to me again.
Sincerely yours,
GEORGE DARLEY." "London, 5 Upper Eaton Street, Grosvenor Place,
March 14th, 1829. ”

“ And thus the Chaldee seems to have understood the place, though it be not explicit.
I lie even among them that are set on fire - I seem to be among coals. It is no ordinary rage and malice by which I am pursued: each of my enemies seems determined to have my life.
Verse 5
Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens - Let the glory of thy mercy and truth be seen in the heavens above, and in the earth beneath. Several of the fathers apply what is said above to the passion of our Lord, and what is said here to his resurrection. ”

“ As for Example; the Behaviour of Lovelace to his Rosebud must strike every one, at first View, with Admiration and Esteem for him; but when his Character comes to blaze in its full Light, it is very apparent that his Pride preserved his Rosebud, as well as it destroyed Clarissa; like Milton's Satan, he could for a Time cloath himself like an Angel of Light, even to the Deception of Uriel.
For neither Man, nor Angel can discern
Hypocrisie ”

“ Christ, says Calmet, having declared himself to be the light of the world, which should blind some while it illuminated others, [782] , continues his discourse, and, under the similitude of a shepherd and his flock, shows that he was about to form his Church of Jews and Gentiles, and that into it he would admit none but those who heard his voice. The unbelieving and presumptuous Jews, who despised his doctrine, are the sheep which hear not the voice of the shepherd: the proud and self-sufficient Pharisees are those who imagine they see clearly while they are blind. ”

“ Clare's swan-song, we fervently hope, will live as long as the English language.
For the last ten or twelve years of his existence the poet suffered much from physical infirmities. Previously he was allowed to go almost daily into the town of Northampton, where he used to sit raider the portico of All Saints' Church, watching the gambols of the children around him, and the fleeting clouds high up in the sky. When these excursions came to be forbidden, he retired to his window-recess in the asylum, reading little and speaking little; dreaming unutterable dreams of another world. ”