Farcy

“ What other man in the world would have borne what you have borne with such fortitude and courage? None—no, not one! But it is for my sake as well as your own, that, instead of taking your revenge upon the wretches who have persecuted you, you schooled yourself to the endurance of their cruelty, in the hope that the day would come when they would be compelled to set you free. ”

“ To me, as to all of us, life has brought bitter trials. These dark robes tell of the loss of one whom I loved as my own soul, and even at this moment I am threatened with terrible calamity—perhaps with exile, perhaps with death. On all sides, there are terrors and anxieties, and the state of society seems to portend catastrophe and the vengeance of heaven, for wickedness can hardly go to any greater lengths than now. ”

“ Even as ye, I am prepared to adventure me, life and limb, that Lust and Murder may cease to be and Innocence and Truth may walk again all unashamed. So shall I lead ye into battles and affrays desperate and bloody, where foes shall be a-many and we, few. ”

“ Tell your child friends that faeries do nothing without having some good end in view, and if they want to please us, they must try and be noble and good, for there is nothing so hateful in the world as wickedness. And now, mortal, I will permit you to see a faery dance, and then you must leave us for ever. ”

“ I muttered. "There is no God! If there were He would not permit such women to live." Even at this distance of time—yes, even though I know that my days are numbered—I am thankful that some mysterious force within me leaped up to fight the demon that would have damned my soul. ”

“ As for your ruin, you have brought it on yourself. This is your signature, not mine. It is your honesty that is at stake, not mine. The villainous old usurer, the devil that is not so black as he is painted, wants only his rights--nothing more. ”

“ He kept on doggedly, however, and although the shadow of his crime waited upon his steps, and made itself felt in the sighing and moaning of the wind, in the bending of every branch, and in the fluttering of every leaf, the craving for human companionship in which there was something of sympathy, and from which he would not be hunted like a dog, imbued him with courage to fight these terrors. ”

“ The other threw himself upon pleasure's tide, and, blind to earnest duty, drank the sunshine of life's springtime in draughts so intemperate that he became intoxicated with poisonous fire, and, falling into the arms of the knaves who thrive on human weakness and depravity, his moral sense, like theirs, grew warped, and he ripened into a knave himself. ”

“ A little spray of blossom, so tiny as to be scarcely perceived, is easily spoiled, but thereby the fruitfulness of a whole branch may be for ever destroyed. And how numerous the little foxes are! Little compromises with the world; disobedience to the still small voice in little things; little indulgences of the flesh to the neglect of duty; little strokes of policy; doing evil in little things that good may come; and the beauty and the fruitfulness of the vine are sacrificed!
We have a sad illustration of the deceitfulness of sin in the response of the bride. ”

“ Prove it to me if you can.' 'You say,' I began, 'that a demon killed your comrade.' 'He did,' persisted the prisoner. 'And,' I continued, 'that he would have killed you if you had not fled from him.' 'He would,' said the prisoner. 'But,' I said, 'demons are more powerful than men. Of what avail would have been your flight? Men can only walk or run; demons can fly. The demon you have invented could have easily overtaken you and finished you as you say he finished the man you murdered.' He was a little staggered at this, and I saw him pondering over it. ”

“ But that any knowing the plague of their own hearts, should deliberately endeavour to lead others into sin, coolly and deliberately, without even the blinding mist of passion to hide the path which they are treading,—this, if I had not known that it was so, I could not have conceived. ”

“ My lords, I did not intend to have trespassed again on your attention, but I cannot repress my indignation. I feel myself impelled by every duty. My lords, we are called upon, as members of this house, as men, as Christian men, to protest against such notions, standing near the throne, polluting the ear of majesty! ‘That God and nature put into our hands!’ I know not what idea that lord may entertain of God and nature; but I know that such abominable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity. ”

“ The hero of farce is as little affected with impulses from without, as the retired Prince of Tragedians. There is something solid, sterling, almost adamantine, in the building up of his most grotesque characters. When he fixes his wonder-working face in any of its most amazing varieties, it looks as if the picture were carved out from a rock by Nature in a sportive vein, and might last for ever. It is like what we can imagine a mask of the old Grecian Comedy to have been, only that it lives, and breathes, and changes. His most fantastical gestures are the grand ideal of farce. ”

“ I'll have no disobedient daughter in my house. I've had a talk to Farry about it. Thou first will not have him for a husband at my bidding; now thou art taking up with this pestilent preacher Bunyan——"
"But, father, thou didst take me thyself to hear him, and said he was a godly man. It is Farry's evil tongue that hath wrought this change in thee. Prithee, pardon my boldness, but I dare not promise what is against my conscience!"
"It is against thy conscience to obey thy father, girl?" raved the angry farmer. "A pretty conscience in all sooth. ”

“ I seek the everlasting ices of the north, where you will feel the misery of cold and frost, to which I am impassive. You will find near this place, if you follow not too tardily, a dead hare; eat, and be refreshed. Come on, my enemy; we have yet to wrestle for our lives; but many hard and miserable hours must you endure, until that period shall arrive."
Scoffing devil! Again do I vow vengeance; again do I devote thee, miserable fiend, to torture and death. ”

“ I say that in behalf of the three of us; for I know that the count here, and the vicomte, feel the same regret as I. But what else can we do? In our heart of hearts, we regard ourselves as absolutely not responsible for any of the consequences that may result from your visit to our abode. Chance, and your own—very pardonable—curiosity, are to blame. A thousand to one chance—and it went against you! It was your ridiculously unreasonable misfortune to have seen last evening something that no mortal man could be allowed to see: Madame de X.... on the Col de la Mort de Gauthier. ”

“ Receive from a sick man what he can give you. Oh me, oh me, have mercy on so many souls that perish! Do not consider the scandal which occurred in this city, in which surely the devils of hell busied themselves, to hinder the peace and quiet of souls and bodies: but Divine Goodness saw to it that no great harm came from the great evil, but your sons pacified themselves, and now ask of you the oil of mercy. ”

“ It is a High Degree of Inhumanity not to have a Fellow-feeling of the Misfortune of my Brother; but to take Pleasure in my Neighbours Misery, and to make Merry with it, is not only a Brutal, but a Diabolical Barbarity and Folly. ”

“ I'll write the tragedy of Dido, and you shall act the part; but you do nothing at all, unless you fret yourself into a fit; for here the poor lady is stifled with vapours, drops into the arms of her maids, and the cruel, barbarous, deceitful, wanderer, is, in the very next line, called pious Æneas.—There's authority for ye. ”

“ There, unspeakable kindness, tenderness and forbearance, meet them at every turn. So wisely and tenderly are they governed, that their hereditary evils remain dormant— are not excited, or aroused into activity. Here, they are often forced to be spectators of shocking scenes—scenes in which the very malignities of hell pour themselves forth in obscenity, vulgarity, profanity, cruel calumnies, stinging taunts, and acts of violence, hatred and cruelty: There, they witness no exhibitions of turbulent passions or evil feelings in those around them; they hear no vulgar, profane or angry words ”

“ Oh ay!—he must treat his enemies with respect, his friends with indifference, and all the world with contempt; he must suffer much, and fear more; he must desire much, and hope little; in short, he must embrace his ruin, and throw himself away. ”

“ False courage may come to him in such a crisis—to last most likely but for a few minutes, or seconds even, but long enough to do a deed which may bring life-long sorrow to a loving heart—to my loving heart, which beats for you, as yours beats for me. ”

“ Fate seems to have dragged the sufferer into a vault of gloom, to whisper foreboding and inspire dread. These traditions of mischief wrought by malignant men inheriting the wicked craft and vindictive spite of the sorcerers, are uttered at the fireside, or if not so uttered, are brooded upon by a disturbed fancy. ”

“ The painful but necessary duty was accordingly laid on some poor devil, some social outcast, some wretch with whom the world had gone hard, who readily agreed to throw away his life at the end of a few days if only he might have his fling in the meantime. ”

“ At his friend Thiers's exit, we'll know by our next.
THE TRIUMPHS OF FARCE. Our earth, as it rolls thro' the regions of space,
Wears always two faces, the dark and the sunny;
And poor human life runs the same sort of race,
Being sad on one side—on the other side, funny.
Thus oft we, at eve, to the Haymarket hie,
To weep o'er the woes of Macready;—but scarce
Hath the tear-drop of Tragedy past from the eye,
When lo! we're all laughing in fits at the Farce. ”

“ The youth, who seem'd to watch a time for sin,
Approach'd the careless guide, and thrust him in;
Plunging he falls, and rising lifts his head,
Then flashing turns, and sinks amongst the dead.
⁠Wild, sparkling rage inflames the father's eyes,
He bursts the bands of fear, and madly cries,
Detested wretch—but scarce his speech began,
When the strange partner seem'd no longer man. ”

“ Why am I called upon to do this, oh cruel, most cruel destiny? Cannot I fly from the horrid scene? Cannot I rather run a dagger into my heart? But no, 'tis plain my fate is ordained, sealed, fixed! and in vain I struggle,—I must fulfil the task appointed for me! ”

“ Beggars began life with schemes as wonderful and ideas as large, that their stories are as true, that the line between Tragedy and Farce was never so fine drawn as when, stepping across it, they plunged into the profession of having come down in the world. ”

“ In that foul obliteration of every natural instinct, what could he do, what could any man do? Can there be equity among raging wild beasts, when they roar for their prey and are unfed?
All that the miserable king could do was to rend his clothes in horror and to pass on, and as his starving subjects passed by him on the wall they saw that he wore sackcloth beneath his purple, in sign, if not of repentance, yet of anguish, if not of prayer, yet of uttermost humiliation. ”

“ Ay, ay, 't is the night o' the fairies—when spirits pervade the air. Then will I tell you other truths; but now—They call me. She is fair, and passing fair, and by her beauty, suffering shall come upon thee; but 'tis by suffering that men are made, and because of pride, shame shall come on her ”

“ Some experience, which would be nothing but a hideous cruelty and outrage to ask too closely about—one, perhaps, which he could, even if he would, poor fellow, give no account of—has put him temporarily at the world’s mercy. ”

“ But there are two sorts of madness, the one that which the revengeful Furies send privily from hell, as often as they let loose their snakes and put into men's breasts either the desire of war, or an insatiate thirst after gold, or some dishonest love, or parricide, or incest, or sacrilege, or the like plagues, or when they terrify some guilty soul with the conscience of his crimes ”

“ It would be difficult to describe the horrors of that night! the {405} savage yells, mingled with the sound of thunder, and report of musketry. The miserable desperado, by the lightning’s glare, could be perceived on the ground, streaming torrents of blood from his wounds, and his unhappy soul about to quit the agonizing body, to find in eternity the chastisement due to its crimes. What else could the minister of God do, in such a circumstance, but pray the Father of Mercy to perform a miracle of grace in favor of the criminal. ”

“ All these things shall manifestly appear in them unto all people, and they, day by day, shall wax more wicked and hard-hearted; and when their wickedness and deceits shall be found out, then shall their gifts cease, and then shall they go about their houses hungry, and as mad dogs looking down upon the earth, and drawing in their necks as doves, that they might be satisfied with bread. Then shall the people cry out upon them, "Woe be unto you, ye miserable children of sorrow. The world hath seduced you, the devil hath bridled your mouths; your flesh is frail, and your hearts without savour ”

“ Fortress. Give me credit for at least an average amount of intelligence. It is not possible for me to be blind to the fact that there has been a mystery in our family."
"It is you who say so, sir, not I."
"I know, and know, also, that of your own prompting you will say little or nothing. To what can I appeal? To your womanly sympathies, to your sense of justice? Until this moment I have been silent. As a boy I had to submit, and latterly as a man. My parents were living, and their lightest wish was a law to me. ”