Conveyancing

“ Brisk, we’ll go see Sapho, though my lord won’t.
CYNT. I’ll wait upon your ladyship.
BRISK. Pray, madam, how old is Lady Sapho?
LADY FROTH. Three-quarters, but I swear she has a world of wit, and can sing a tune already. My lord, won’t you go? Won’t you? What! not to see Saph? Pray, my lord, come see little Saph. I knew you could not stay.
SCENE XII. CYNTHIA alone.
CYNT. ’Tis not so hard to counterfeit joy in the depth of affliction, as to dissemble mirth in company of fools. Why should I call ’em fools? The world thinks better of ’em ”

“ BELL. Well, in this fanatic father’s habit will I confess Lætitia.
SETTER. Rather prepare her for confession, sir, by helping her to sin.
BELL. Be at your master’s lodging in the evening; I shall use the robes.
SCENE V.
Setter alone.
SETTER. I shall, sir. I wonder to which of these two gentlemen I do most properly appertain: the one uses me as his attendant; the other (being the better acquainted with my parts) employs me as a pimp; why, that’s much the more honourable employment—by all means. I follow one as my master, the other follows me as his conductor. ”

“ You will there be brought to understand that deference is due to your superiors, consideration for the feelings of others, respect for opinions that differ from your own, and especially that regard is to be had for les convenances, without which social life would go to pieces, as a chain of pearls that has lost its connecting links. Les convenances may be, and indeed are, in themselves nothing, but they hold society together. ”

“ The rigorous prohibition of coveting has always puzzled me—to covet is such a private feeling. And if you keep it to yourself, what harm does it do? You may spend your life wishing you had your neighbor's large red automobile; but he is none the poorer. ”

“ Still, mend our law-books as we will, one is forced to confess that knaves are often seen in fine linen, and honest men in the most shabby old rags; and still, notwithstanding the exceptions, knavery is a very hazardous game, and honesty, on the whole, by far the best policy. ”

“ Oliv. Immured in a convent! then I'll raise sedition in the sisterhood, depose the abbess, and turn the confessor's chair to a go-cart.
Gasp. So, the threat of the mother-in-law, which I thought would be worse than that of the abbess, does not frighten ye?
Oliv. No, because my father dares not give me one.—Marry, without my consent! no, no, he'll never think of it, depend on't; however, lest the fit should grow strong upon him, I'll go and administer my volatiles to keep it under. ”

“ Lord Derby's words are:—"There is nothing more common among those who have read a little and thought a little than the union of strong convictions with very narrow intelligence ; and next to the absence of conviction altogether, there is no mental condition that is socially less desirable or politically more dangerous." ”

“ Brothers, said Stephen, kill me an you will; but I am no traitor. Jack Straw and I have a quarrel concerneth us two and no other man. One day we 'll settle it in fair fight,—one day when all men are free. I am loyal true to the Fellowship,—and to the King. Are ye all loyal to the King?
Yea,—God bless the King! they cried.
Ye come at the King by me, no man else may go in at the Tower. And will ye kill me and leave the King prisoned with the noblesse?
Fitzwarine!—Fitzwarine! cried a voice at the far edge of the throng. Is 't Stephen Fitzwarine yonder? Wat Tyler hath need of him for a message. ”

“ But, good gentlemen and yeomen, my trusty and faithful servants, of whom no prince hath the like, in my opinion, I most heartily require you to take with me some patience a little while, for I doubt not but that the king, considering the offence suggested against me by my mortal enemies, to be of small effect, will shortly, I doubt not, restore me again to my living, so that I shall be more able to divide some part thereof yearly among you, whereof ye shall be well assured. ”

“ How is it possible that conviction can find its way to our hearts, when we hear the absurd language, and witness the acts of iniquity, of the greatest number of those whose business it is to preach to us? ”

“ I received a letter from you, my dear cousin, when I was in Brittany, in which you talked of our ancestors, the Rabutins, and of the beauty of Bourbilly. But as I had heard from Paris that you were expected there, and as I had hoped myself to arrive much sooner, I deferred writing to you ; and now I find you are not coming at all. You know that nothing is now talked of but war. The whole court is at camp, and the whole camp is at court ”

“ So the Scavenger-king reigned over half the kingdom, and made great preparations for his future marriage.
Meanwhile, some potters coming to get clay from their pit were mightily astonished to find a handsome young man, insensible, but still breathing, hidden away under the clay. Taking him home, they handed him over to the care of their women, who soon brought him round. On coming to himself, he learnt with surprise of the scavenger's victory over the ogre, with which all the town was ringing. ”

“ Mr Coventry shivered. Was this woman making love?
"I married my first husband, Mr Coventry, to please my mother. When I marry again I mean to please myself."
"What--what time is this train due in Brighton?"
"Never mind what time the train is due in Brighton." She smiled.
Some men, who are about to pop the question, delight in the shyness of the maiden. Was it possible that she delighted in the shyness of the youth? ”

“ Men were taken by her conversation like birds in a snare; for she had by nature that genius which necessity bestows on schemes; she advanced from concession to concession, strengthening herself with what she gained to ask for more, knowing well how to retreat with rapid steps when concessions were demanded in return. ”

“ Ever on his guard against the honeyed words by means of which the illusion is produced, he hears nothing, and shuts himself up in this inflexible reasoning:
“The conjurer,” he says, “holds in his hand an object, which he pretends he makes disappear. Well, whatever he may say to distract my attention, my eyes shall not leave his hand, and the trick cannot be done without my finding out how he manages it.” ”

“ Mad. de Sévigné says truly, ‘On est si faible, qu’on se console;’ and we attribute to our strength what we owe to our weakness, to our willingness to be occupied by the weeds, when the flowers are gone. There may be those whose consolations spring solely from religion. I speak but of myself and the majority.
I wish I had some prose subject attractive enough [366] to tempt me to write. Most people are more vain of their dance than their walk, their song than their speech, their verse than their prose. ”

“ If this be law, with conscience, show me your opinion, I pray you." “Forsooth, my lord,” quoth he, “there is some conscience in this case; but having regard to the king’s high power, and to be employed to a better use and purpose, it may the better be suffered with conscience; who is sufficient to make recompense to the church of York with double the value.” “That I know well,” quoth my lord, “but here is no such condition neither promised nor agreed, but only a bare and simple departure with another’s right for ever. ”

“ The 'Vengeance of the Law' is a phrase not easy to forget; but among humane and highly-civilized peoples the word Vengeance should be replaced by another, the best that I can think of is—Regeneration. ”

“ For they understood, by the report of some of the king’s learned counsel, that your case well considered, ye had great wrong: to the which I could make, as me thought, no sufficient answer, but said, “That I doubt not your so doing was upon some greater consideration than my wit could understand.” “Is this,” quoth he, “the opinion of wise men?” “Yea, forsooth, my lord,” quoth I, “and almost of all other men.” “Well, then,” quoth he, "I see that their wisdoms perceive not the ground of the matter that moved me so to do. ”

“ This first stratagem having failed, the same person again advised to place a woman and some children near the tree, because savages commonly are not so shy of them as of men: and he bade them, above all, show her a friendly air, and a smiling countenance. His directions were complied with; a woman, with a child in her arms, came walking near the tree, carrying different sorts of roots and two fishes in her hands, which she held out to the savage, who descended a branch or two to be at them, but went back again. ”

“ The swineherd seeing the other fall upon him, scrambled up, and laying hold of his horn trumpet, beat it about his ears. They grappled and clung so close together that the beggar set his teeth in the swineherd’s cheek, and both of them rolling on the ground, made such a wambling in the swineherd’s belly, that he cast up all he had ate and drunk in the beggar’s face. My uncle, who was the soberest of all the company, asked who had brought so many clergy into the house? ”

“ The rule of the world is pretty binding: know a man before you associate with him. But I am as I am. There's nothing more to be said.”
“You sit down,” commanded Converse. “This is a case where rules of the world can be suspended. For I need the kind of man who dares to face even Symonds Dodd in his office and tell him what he is. Oh, I have just come from there,” he explained in reply to Farr's stare. “He told me.”
“I went merely as a voice, sir.” ”

“ Equity draftsmen instead of drawing conveyances have been glad to get conveyances to draw them; and the common lawyer has forgotten every other motion but locomotion, which, at this season of the year, is almost a motion of course. ”

“ It is the paying of the vow—the performance of some duty, that the language is employed to inculcate. When the heart of any one is opposed to duty, he cannot vow sincerely. That he is not disposed to vow [Pg 103] when the duty presents itself is his sin. And to vow falsely—else than which he could not do in his circumstances, would also be sin in him. He is, therefore, called upon, not to do a sinful act, but, in the use of means, to endeavour to obtain a disposition to vow with cordiality, and then to perform the duty. ”

“ In the second place, we must recognise in all repeated and common expressions of conviction, and in all the motives of a time of action, some really existing ideal. There was a conviction common to many thousands of Parliamentarians in the earlier stages of the English Civil War. ”

“ They will bear about them the traces of the injuries we have inflicted, and can it appear extraordinary that they should, at some future time, demand vengeance for their sufferings. I therefore cannot too forcibly recommend, that in all communications with savages our conduct should be such as to leave no unfavourable impression, either of our moral character or personal qualities. ”

“ But when concession is made, when tears of penitence are wept, and when, in moments of returning confidence, that luckless tendency of temper is candidly confessed, and sincerely bewailed; when all the different acts committed under its influence, are acknowledged to have been wrong, how complete ought to be the reconciliation thus begun, and how zealous our endeavours for the future to avert the consequences of this sad calamity! ”

“ Coventry very angry to see things go so coldly as they do, and I must needs say it makes me fearful every day of having some change of the office, and the truth is, I am of late a little guilty of being remiss myself of what I used to be, but I hope I shall come to my old pass again, my family being now settled again. ”

“ SCENE X. CYNTHIA, LORD FROTH, LADY FROTH, BRISK.
LADY FROTH. Then you think that episode between Susan, the dairy-maid, and our coachman is not amiss; you know, I may suppose the dairy in town, as well as in the country.
BRISK. Incomparable, let me perish. But then, being an heroic poem, had you not better call him a charioteer? Charioteer sounds great; besides, your ladyship’s coachman having a red face, and you comparing him to the sun—and you know the sun is called Heaven’s charioteer. ”

“ These Conventicles, as they were called, were denounced by the law, and their frequenters dispersed by military force. The genius of the persecuted became stubborn, obstinate, and ferocious; and, although Indulgences were tardily granted to some Presbyterian ministers, few of the true Covenanters, or Whigs, as they were called, would condescend to compound with a prelatic government, or to listen even to their own favourite doctrine under the auspices of the King. ”

“ It transpired from the whispers of the Quick Man that the conjurer must have concealed up his sleeve, in addition to the rings, hens, and fish, several packs of cards, a loaf of bread, a doll's cradle, a live guinea-pig, a fifty-cent piece, and a rocking-chair. ”

“ It is not unknown unto you both I am assured, but I have been privy and of counsel in as weighty matters as this is, for I doubt not for my part, but I shall prove and clear myself to be a true man, against the expectation of all my cruel enemies. I have an understanding whereupon all this matter groweth. Well, there is no more to do. I trow, gentleman, ye be one of the king’s privy chamber ”

“ Such a round of pleasures filled us with the happiest anticipations; but—on the same principle that the Church always prefaces her feast days with vigils and with fasts—the convent prefaced our congé with a competition in geography, and with the collection of a “spiritual bouquet,” which was to be our offering to Reverend Mother on her fête.
[Pg 184] A competition in anything was an unqualified calamity. It meant hours of additional study, a frantic memorizing of facts, fit only to be forgotten, and the bewildering ordeal of being interrogated before the whole school. ”