Courting

“ The tribunal is therefore the tribunal of love, and the court is the court of love. He who shall judge mankind is He who judges Peter and the woman who was a sinner, He of whose tenderness and sympathy we have assurance in a hundred acts of mercy, pity, and magnanimity. ”

“ I'll never assume that a rogue or a thief
Is a gentleman worthy implicit belief,
Because his attorney has sent me a brief
(Said I to myself—said I!) .
I'll never throw dust in a juryman's eyes
(Said I to myself—said I) ,
Or hoodwink a judge who is not over-wise
(Said I to myself—said I) ,
Or assume that the witnesses summoned in force
In Exchequer, Queen's Bench, Common Pleas, or Divorce,
Have perjured themselves as a matter of course
(Said I to myself—said I) . ”

“ Her court is more magnificent than any other in Europe, whether you regard the rich and infinite furniture of the household, the number of officers, or the sumptuous entertainments. And the honest chronicler is so struck with admiration of the virtuous beauty of the maids of honor that he cannot tell whether to award preeminence to their amiable countenances or to their costliness of attire, between which there is daily conflict and contention. The courtiers of both sexes have the use of sundry languages and an excellent vein of writing. ”

“ And yet, when they know this fact full well, they will spend their time, day after day, and their means with seeming contentment, saying to themselves, "Oh, if we can only go into the court, and address the court, and say, may it please the court, may it please your honor, may it please you, gentlemen of the jury, O, how joyous we shall be—we shall feel as though we were men of some importance, if we can only get up and strut and splutter before a court." ”

“ We pray, our Father, to bless the proceedings of this court, bless the court, the judge, as he presides, and may there be in every heart and in every mind a reverence to the Great Creator of the world.
We ask Thee, our Father, to help us, every one to find our place in our relation to every other man, so that we can best serve, can best know human interests and can best sympathize with the needs of every heart. ”

“ Truly, Master Judge, he is a man much spoken of; marry, every man's cries are against him, and especially we; and therefore I think we have brought our Lawyer to touch him with as much law as will fetch his lands and my cow with a pestilence.
Thras. Sir, I am the other plaintiff, and this is my counsellor: I beseech your honour be favourable to me in equity. ”

“ Every pleader who acts in the business of another should have regard to four things:—First, that he be a person receivable in court, that he be no heretic, nor excommunicate, nor criminal, nor man of religion, nor woman, nor ordained clerk above the order of sub-deacon, nor beneficed clerk with the cure of souls, nor infant under twenty-one years of age, nor judge in the same cause, nor open leper, nor man attainted of falsification against the law of his office. ”

“ Shining wisdom, they say, brings a man to Court—or should. And, God knows, there is no place like Court for folly! If thou art very beautiful thou may come to it, and if thou art as ugly as hell they will have thee for a laughing-stock and nine-days’ wonder. ”

“ As one of the members of counsel who is not an agnostic, I would like to state the objection from my point of view. Your honor has the discretion to have a prayer or not to have a prayer. There was no exception offered and I can assure the court when we talked it over among ourselves as colleagues, there was no exception felt to the opening of these proceedings by prayer the first day, but I would like to ask your honor whether in all the trials over which your honor has presided, this court has had a clergyman every morning of every day of every trial to open the court with prayer? ”

“ Leaving the body under the earth, accompany the soul passing to a new and unknown region, where she expecteth the sentence of the eternal judge. Imagine with thyself that thou art present at this tribunal, and the whole court of heaven, waiting with deep silence, and great attention, the event and sentence of this judgment, here must be given a strict account of all receivings and disbursements. ”

“ The courtier, the trader, and the scholar, should all have an equal pretension to the denomination of a gentleman. That tradesman who deals with me in a commodity which I do not understand, with uprightness, has much more right to that character than the courtier who gives me false hopes, or the scholar who laughs at my ignorance.
The appellation of gentleman is never to be affixed to a man's circumstances, but to his behaviour in them. ”

“ Go and serve God in this way as well as you can; and remember that you can be as well sanctified in the Court of a King as in a cloister—and better, if it is the Court that is your Vocation. Go and do your best, my son ”

“ Ancient judicial theory and practice comprehended not merely trials before a regular tribunal, in which the merits of a case were duly ascertained by the joint efforts of judge, counsel, and assize, but also an alternative method of arriving at the same result—namely, a solemn appeal to the bar of Almighty God. ”

“ The judges of the land—of Queen’s Bench, Exchequer, and Common Pleas, Chief-Justices, Barons, and Puisne Judges, and Sages of the Court of Probate, Divorce, and Matrimonial Causes—are mostly jaunty, elderly gentlemen of cheerful appearance, given in private life to wearing light neckcloths, buff waistcoats, and pepper-and-salt trousers, and particularly addicted to trotting down to the Courts of Westminster mounted on stout hacks—’tis the bishops, par excellence, who ride the cobs—and followed by sober grooms. ”

“ The free companionship of man and woman had begun. Then and forever ended the old system of courtship, which seems so laughable and even incredible today. One was no longer expected to pay court to one's beloved, sitting stiffly on straight-backed chairs in a chill drawing-room in the non-conducting, or non-conducive, presence of still chillier maiden aunts. ”

“ The court is called the world here as well as at Paris; and nothing more is meant by saying that a man knows the world, than that he knows courts. In all courts you must expect to meet with connections without friendship, enmities without hatred, honor without virtue, appearances saved, and realities sacrificed; good manners with bad morals; and all vice and virtues so disguised, that whoever has only reasoned upon both would know neither when he first met them at court. ”

“ To appeal from an incompetent judge, or an inferior court, to a competent judge, or higher court, is no swearing. To say, I take the king for my witness, or I appeal to the king, is not to swear by the king; but to say, I take God to witness, or I appeal to God as the judge of the truth of what I say, is to swear by God. But to appeal to God as a righteous Judge, against the injustice or cruelty of men, without relation to his attesting or judging any affirmation or negation of our own, is no swearing by him, because there wanteth the matter of an oath. ”

“ There is also shewn in the plays the most perfect knowledge of Court etiquette, and of the manners and the methods of the greatest in the land, a knowledge which none but a courtier moving in the highest circles could by any possibility have acquired. ”

“ Sir John. Ay, Mr. Blunt, provided my worthy Neighbour, Broadbottom, turns not a mere Courtier, by going to Court, he shall have all our Consents to stay at Court and rise there.
Blunt. A Man may rise in the Army and Navy, and meritoriously; but what dirty Work must a Man trudge thro’ to rise at Court?
Over. Why should a Man be obliged to do more servile Work at Court than in the Church, where we see the Learned and Pious rise, and are translated every Day?——I expect my good Friend here, Mr. Roseband, to rise to a Deanery soon, now his Patron has taken a Stride to Court. ”

“ Through all the Employments of Life Each Neighbour abuses his Brother; Whore and Rogue they call Husband and Wife: All Professions be-rogue one another: The Priest calls the Lawyer a Cheat, The Lawyer be-knaves the Divine: And the Statesman, because he's so great, Thinks his Trade as honest as mine.
A Lawyer is an honest Employment, so is mine. Like me too he acts in a double Capacity, both against Rogues and for 'em; for 'tis but fitting that we should protect and encourage Cheats, since we live by them. ”

“ What do you think of the patience of a people who have submitted to seeing a pimp set up as our honorable judge, to seeing him bring his strumpet with him and have her sit close beside him on the judicial bench, while he delivered his unrighteous rulings? ”

“ The philology is from the old French cort or curt. It is curious that it means something narrow. There are the suggestions of the lists, of heralds, of trumpets, of banners and knights in armor, of prancing steeds, of fair ladies watching, of joust, tournaments, and trials by battle. There is something royal about the word. We think of pomp and magnificence and purple robes, of kings on their thrones, with courtiers standing about. The conception of Diety to the simple man who visualizes, immediately takes on the form of a court. We speak of the Courts of Heaven. ”

“ I having no counsel, and never having stood in a Court of Justice before; in hearing my husband hooted and groaned at by the crowd, when the case was explained; in hearing his assertion respecting his breach of contract proved false, by evidence tendered on oath; in hearing the solicitor to my trustees tell him,—a magistrate, a peer's brother,—the father of my sons,—that it was expected the signed contract would have bound him " as a man of honour;" or, in other words, that he was_ not a man of honour; and seeing him shrink silently, unable to repel this insult ”

“ We take witness that we take an oath on the book, a lawful oath; we pray God so to help us two in this light and in the next, as we lay it on our honour that we believe with all our hearts that Mord will so plead this suit as he knows to be most truthful, and most just, and most lawful, and that he hath not brought money into this court in this suit to help himself, and that he will not offer it, and that he hath not taken money, nor will he take it, either for a lawful or unlawful end. ”

“ The good-breeding 'de la ville et de la cour' [of the city and of the court] are different; but without deciding which is intrinsically the best, that of the court is, without doubt, the most necessary for you, who are to live, to grow, and to rise in courts. In two years' time, which will be as soon as you are fit for it, I hope to be able to plant you in the soil of a YOUNG COURT here: where, if you have all the address, the suppleness and versatility of a good courtier, you will have a great chance of thriving and flourishing. Young favor is easily acquired if the proper means are employed ”

“ I cannot bear to think of dear Court Royal passing into other hands. Now, if you marry, you must marry so as to recover the property from its embarrassments. Such an opportunity presents itself. I will speak to you more fully on this when we meet. ”

“ There is a great deal of form, but no compassion; considerable interest, but no sympathy. Take the Old Court for example. There sit the judges, with whose great dignity everybody is acquainted, and of whom therefore we need say no more. ”

“ And he who summons another shall walk with witnesses to the home of that man, and, if he be not at home, shall bid the wife or any one of the family to make known to him that he has been summoned to court. ”

“ But here is an advocate without us, in heaven and with the Father. The proper office and business of an advocate is with the judge; with him he pleads the client's cause. The Judge with whom our advocate pleads is the Father, his Father and ours. ”

“ I will fall at the feet of the judge, fill the town with my lamentations, and the daughters of the city will aid me in imploring the judge to be merciful, to have compassion, and spare the life of the innocent youth. ”

“ And since words that carry no meaning of importance are vain and puerile, the Court Lady must have not only the good sense to discern the quality of him with whom she is speaking, 178but knowledge of many things, in order to entertain him graciously; and in her talk she should know how to choose those things that are adapted to the quality of him with whom she is speaking, and should be cautious lest occasionally, without intending it, she utter words that may offend him. ”

“ How many courtiers there are who go into the presence of the king a hundred times, not to speak to him or listen to him, but merely to be seen by him, and to show by this assiduity that they are his servants. ”

“ These rules, together with various amendments, now constitute the etiquette of courtship.
Suppose, for example, that you are a young gentleman named Richard Roe desirous of entering upon a formal courtship with some refined young girl of fashion. You are also, being a college graduate, engaged in the bond business. One morning there comes into your financial institution a young lady, named Dorothy Doe, who at once attracts your attention by her genteel manners, as exemplified by the fact that she calls the president of your company “father.” ”

“ Everyone knows the saying of the old courtier, who, when someone asked him how he had achieved the rare distinction of living at court till he reached old age, replied, "By receiving wrongs and returning thanks for them." ”