Exile

“ Who shall count the faces that the exile has known, the voices that have been familiar in his ear, the hands that have pressed his? In every land and in every city, he has met and talked with a score, with scores, with hundreds of men and women all leading the more or less mysterious and uncertain life which has become his own by necessity or by choice. ”

“ Can it be hoped that anything should ever bend thee? that thou shouldst ever be reformed? that thou shouldst dream of any flight? that thou shouldst contemplate any exile? Would, would indeed that the immortal Gods might give thee such a purpose! And yet I perceive, if astounded by my voice thou shouldst bend thy spirit to go into voluntary exile, how vast a storm of odium would hang over me, if not at this present time, when the memory of thy villanies is recent, at least from the passions of posterity. ”

“ How many lie still, in their cold exile sleeping,
Who sought in far lands your lost blackbird to find?
“And many are caught in the net of the stranger,
And all but forgotten the sound of your name,
For other loves call them to help and to save them:
They fell to dishonour—we hold them in shame.
“Oh, why drive me forth from your hearth into exile
And into far dangers? Your house is my own.
Faithful I serve, as I ever did serve you,
Standing together, ourselves—and alone.” ”

“ The exile is sure to find shelter and security here, without encountering suspicion, whether necessity or choice induced him to abandon his country.
Honoured be the land which offers to the stranger a free participation, on equal terms, of all it holds dearest! Hallowed be the institutions which hold out to talent a free field, and where honest ambition knows no limit save the equal law! ”

“ And here was his brother—come back after twenty-three years of exile, acclaimed by the populace, cheered by foreign soldiers—Russians, Austrians, English—anything but French—and driven forth once more to exile after the brief glory that lasted not quite a year.
But this the crowd of to-day has already forgotten with the completeness peculiar to crowds: men, women, and children too, they are no longer mute, they talk and they chatter; they scream with astonishment and delight whenever now from more and more carriages, more and more gorgeously dressed folk descend. ”

“ The mountains of our home stand round about us, and we know it. How can we rest longer on these shores of exile? Exile is for those whose hearts are estranged from Thee. Our hearts are won back to Thee, Deliverer and King. ”

“ No man could be more thoroughly ruined; baffled in theory, undone in practice—an exile from his country, a fugitive from his troops—overwhelmed by the hopelessness of giving a constitution to France, and with nothing but the dungeon before him, and the crash of the guillotine behind. ”

“ Exile, which is still practised by some governments, and imprisonment are, according to the theory of law, for the purpose of reforming the criminal that he may no longer be a menace to society. Logic would say that anyone who wished to obliterate cruelty from the character of another must himself show no cruelty; one who would teach regard for the rights of others must himself be regardful. Yet the story of exile and prison is the story of the lash, the iron, the chain and every torture that the fiendish ingenuity of the non-criminal class can devise by way of teaching criminals to be good! ”

“ It is true that I have been shorn of my honours and privileges, that I live in exile as a prisoner and that the vile insulters of fallen majesty compass me about. I who once dwelt in splendour and issued my commands to the legions of the faithful am treated with contumely by a filthy pack of time-servers, and have nothing that I can call my own except, for the moment, the air that I breathe. ”

“ Art thou ignorant of that most ancient law of this thy country, whereby it is decreed that no one whatsoever, who hath chosen to fix there his dwelling, may be sent into exile? For truly there is no fear that one who is encompassed by its ramparts and defences should deserve to be exiled. ”

“ Who thereupon decreed these laws:—
That brawls and blood-shed to prevent,
All into exile must be sent
Who civil war and strife foment;
And never more should lions come
Within his realms to make their home. ”

“ Believe me, my greatest sorrow is that you, who have sacrificed so much for your loyalty, who have met with such reverses, such pitiful ill return for all your devotion to your King, are now doomed to an exile worse than before—to the acceptance of a rank that is an insult to your condition, to banishment in a savage country far from all those you love—and you accept it all without a murmur. ”

“ And rest proscribed to spurn the fawning set.
O bitter exile, hard, without a term,
Thee I accept, nor seek, not care to know
Who have down-truckled 'mid the men deemed firm,
And who have fled, that should have fought the foe. ”

“ When the horrible excesses of our revolution compelled us to take refuge in England, our emigration produced the liveliest sensation in that country; the arrival of so many illustrious exiles, their past fortunes, and their then forlorn condition, were impressed on every mind, and filled every heart. They became the subject of consideration in political assemblies, in places of divine worship, in fashionable circles, and in private families. That catastrophe agitated every class, and excited every sympathy. We were surrounded by a generous and feeling multitude. ”

“ Hospitably received and nobly treated by the great and chivalrous French nation I must yet remember that I am an exile on a foreign soil, that my country has been laid waste and that my people, so laborious, so frugal and so harmless, have seen their homes destroyed and have themselves been driven ruthlessly forth to cold and hunger and despair. ”

“ For an exile who is ardently attached to his country there is no repose. Forbidden to return to his beloved France, there was no retreat which could make my father forget his griefs, and he continued as restless and as unhappy as ever. ”

“ Are you ready to accept these humiliating conditions, and to be branded as traitors and cowards?’
“‘Never,’ we answered; ‘never! Rather proscription, ruin and death.’
“‘My friends,’ he added, ‘exile is ruin; it is despair, it is desolation. Pause a while and reflect, before forming your resolve.’
“Not one of us flinched, and without hesitancy, we all cried out: ‘Rather than disown our mother country and become apostates, let exile, let ruin, let death, be our lot.’
“‘Your answer is noble and generous, my good friends, and your resolve is sublime,’ said he; ‘then let exile be our [Pg 57] lot. ”

“ But I said that we live as parts of a nation, and that there was no fate so wretched as to be without a country of one's own--what else was exile which so many noble men have thought worse than death, and which all have feared? ”

“ In painting in stronger colours, therefore, this fatal government, we are not insulting over a fallen enemy, but attacking a still powerful adversary; and if, as I hope, the Ten Years' Exile are destined to increase the horror of arbitrary governments, I may venture to indulge the pleasing idea, that by their publication I shall be rendering a service to the sacred cause to which my mother never ceased to be faithful. ”

“ I have come to the conclusion that all government is but giving the monopoly of opportunity to one set of robbers in order to save the nation from the ravages of most others. It is worse for the higher natures of the governing than for those of the governed; and I have recanted my heresies.
“How weary I grew of the pomp and show of the court, of the dreary round of war and dissipation! I would have given the world for exile into solitude; and yet I dared not secede from the monarch and his following. I had shown myself too resourceful to be allowed to go free in the island. ”

“ It is far from my intention to add to your distress by upbraiding you with the errors of your past life; none of us can recall the past; but, for the consolation of human nature, we possess, with the divine aid, over the future an unlimited and absolute control: to this latter point I am particularly desirous of directing your attention.
The word exile, or banishment, sounds harshly on the ear, and must ever convey to the heart the most acute feeling of anguish. Our native land, containing the scenes of youthful amusements and innocent pleasures, abandoned perhaps for ever! ”

“ Turning to him, therefore, I said—
"I consent to your demand, on your solemn oath to quit Europe for ever, and every other place in the neighbourhood of man, as soon as I shall deliver into your hands a female who will accompany you in your exile."
"I swear," he cried, "by the sun, and by the blue sky of heaven, that if you grant my prayer, while they exist you shall never behold me again. Depart to your home, and commence your labours: I shall watch their progress with unutterable anxiety; and fear not but that when you are ready I shall appear." ”

“ He chooses a penniless exile—he, a butler to the Queen, with three dove-cotes and the perquage—and a Huguenot withal. He is refused; then comes the absent lover oversea, to shipwreck; and our seigneur rescues him, ‘fends him; and when yon master exile is in peril, defies his Queen’s commands”—she tapped the papers lying beside her on the table—“then comes to England with the lady to plead the case before his outraged sovereign, with an outlawed buccaneer for comrade and lieutenant. There is the case, is’t not?” ”

“ And now coming near the Coast of Europe I shall tell you my resolution, that I intend to make my self a voluntary Exile to my own Countrey. In order thereunto I shall shape my course for the Streights, which will harbor my design in disposing of my goods, neither will it be prejudicial to you to accompany me thither, since from thence you may dispose your selves to the best and most flourishing Countries of the World. ”

“ But why predict an exile of just seventy years, unless miraculously directed? [14] He may have used that term for an indefinite period; a common practice. In that case there is no miracle. But on the other hand, if he predicted an exile of just seventy years, the oracle was a failure. The people were not carried into captivity all at once. From which of the two or three times of deportation shall we set out? The books of Kings and Chronicles differ somewhat. ”

“ We occasionally see the Exile in better moods, when he listened to the voice of reason, and thought less of the annoyances inseparable from the state to which his ambition, or as he himself always averred, his destiny, had reduced him. ”

“ To all, the exile in the far country, the riotous living with harlots and the feeding on husks with swine, meant the life of this world with its pomps and vanities, its lusts and sinful desires that become as mast to the soul. ”

“ Every kind of new institution of anything like a secret society will also be punished with death; those of them which are now in existence, are known to us, serve us and have served us, we shall disband and send into exile to continents far removed from Europe. ”

“ Don Manuel de Lara: And so it is of roses and nightingales that you ask tidings, and not of mother and father or brothers! Well, it is always thus with exiles. When I have lain fevered with my wounds very far from Old Castille, it has been for the river that flows at the foot of our orchard I have yearned, or for the green Vega dotted with brown villages and stretching away towards the Sierra.
[285]
Sister Pilar: I am not an exile.
Don Manuel de Lara: An exile is one who is far from home.
Sister Pilar: This is my home.
Don Manuel de Lara: And do you never yearn for your other one? ”

“ I have come into exile rather than submit to the yoke of the oppressors of my country; but I have never thought of attributing aught of blame or censure to those true men who, after having nobly done their duty in the dreadful struggle through which we passed, now, that it has gone against us, remain to share the misfortunes of their people, and to aid and comfort them in their trials ”

“ Nor, indeed, is it credible, that one who returned from so long an exile, and such variety of misfortunes, should come home to his countrymen in the style of revelers breaking up from a drinking-party. ”

“ And many a weary exile in the vast continent beyond the seas, his day’s toil being done, will think with pride and satisfaction of the fact that the tyranny which forced him from his native shores is crushed and trampled on forever. ”

“ The refinements of civilization in all countries alter the sincerity of character, but when a sovereign possesses the unlimited power of exile, imprisonment, sending to Siberia, &c. &c. it is something too strong for human nature. We may meet with men independent enough to disdain favor, but heroism is required to brave persecution, and heroism cannot be an universal quality.
None of these reflections, we know, apply to the present government, its head being, as emperor, perfectly just, and as a man, singularly generous. ”

“ Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.” What exiles, what imprisonments are these which he describes? I blush for this open falsehood. As if imprisonment and exile would be inflicted without judicial sentences! I should like to have a list of these imprisonments and of the various provinces to which he tells us that he was forced into exile. Next there appear to have been numerous imprisonments and an infinite number of exiles; so that he might at least name one of them all. ”

“ A Polish exile,—a man of famous family, ancient and patrician before Christendom had laid eyes on America, once also of great individual wealth, a man of high rank alike acquired and inherited, once holding a high place at the court of the Czar,—became a fugitive from Russian despotism, seeking an asylum here; he came to the circuit court room to lecture on the Roman Law. ”