Law chambers

“ Minorities and the rights of property are further protected by the existence of a Second Chamber, with far wider powers than the House of Lords possesses even in theory, and enjoying the popular support that enables it fearlessly to use its legal powers unchallenged. Unsettling legislation, ordinary or financial, even if within the powers of the Federal Congress, has thus to run the gauntlet of two equally powerful Chambers, before it passes into law. ”

“ Civil rights must vary according to status. But such rights as any person may have, those the courts are bound to guard indifferently. If the courts do not perform this, their first and most sacred duty, I apprehend that order cannot be permanently maintained, for this is equality before the law; and equality before the law is the cornerstone of order in every modern state. ”

“ No higher duty, no more solemn responsibility, rests upon this Court, than that of translating into living law and maintaining this constitutional shield deliberately planned and inscribed for the benefit of every human being subject to our Constitution-of whatever race, creed or persuasion. ”

“ The proposition for a law is sent, at the pleasure of the king, to the Chamber of Peers or to that of the Deputies, except a law for the imposition of taxes, which must be sent first to the Chamber of Deputies. Article 18. Every law shall be freely discussed and voted by the majority of each of the two chambers. Article 19. The chambers have the power to petition the king to propose a law upon any subject whatsoever and to indicate what seems suitable for the law to contain. ”

“ Thus the English system of binding precedents is troublesome enough in a civilization in chronic and violent flux like modern civilization, even when applied to ordinary municipal law which may be changed at will by legislation, but it brings society almost to a stand when applied to the most vital functions of government, with no means at hand to obtain a corrective. ”

“ The judge virtually decides in chambers, and he hears the parties in chambers, or, in other words, wherever he may choose to receive them. The client depends as much on external influence and his own solicitations, as on the law and the justice of his case. ”

“ Valerie West is a law unto herself—a law as sweet and good and excellent and as inflexible as any law made by men to restrain women's liberty, arouse them to unhappy self-consciousness and infect them with suspicion. Every one of you are the terrified slaves of custom, and you know it. Most men like it. I don't. I'm no tea drinker, no cruncher of macaroons, no gabbler at receptions, no top-hatted haunter of weddings, no social graduate of the Ecole Turvydrop. And these places—if I want to find companionship in any girl of your world—must frequent. ”

“ These sketches, from the quaint flippancy of their style, may be suspected of fancifulness and exaggeration; yet certain it is, that out of the ten thousand persons said to be employed in this legal metropolis in the solicitation, distribution, and execution of justice, many individuals may even yet be found, in whom it would be possible to trace the lineaments we have described. Such persons as H—— and Nimmo dangle at the elbows of The Law, and can no more be said to belong to its proper body than so many rats in a castle appertain to the garrison. ”

“ And dear, for the first time I really begin to understand now what the shelter of a family means; what it is to have law on my side,—and a man who understands his man's world well enough to fight it with its own weapons;—well enough to protect a woman from things she never dreamed might menace her. ”

“ When the Supreme Court thus undertook to determine the reasonableness of legislation it assumed, under a somewhat thin disguise, the position of an upper chamber, which, though it could not originate, could absolutely veto most statutes touching the use or protection of property, for the administration of modern American society now hinges on this doctrine of judicial dispensation under the Police Power. ”

“ Of course law is a hard problem in enforcement and requires the most serious consideration when it runs counter to the deep wishes of majorities of people in a broad region of the country—and of Virginia.
No one with knowledge of Southern life thinks there is anything easy about dealing with the situations that confront us all.
But the mark of Virginia's political shame is that in this confusion it found no better method than abandoning public education entirely rather than follow the courts' directions about admitting a few Negro children into all-white schools. ”

“ Daylight is a chilly shower-bath. No doubt at all that I'll be pretty well frightened over what I've said and done to-night.... Louis, dear, you simply must take me home this very minute!" She came up to him, placed both hands on his shoulders, kissed him lightly, looked at him for a moment, humorously grave:
"Some day," she said, "a big comet will hit this law-ridden, man-regulated earth—or the earth will slip a cog and go wabbling out of its orbit into interstellar space and side-wipe another planet—or it will ultimately freeze up like the moon. ”

“ The heathenism of western Europe must be regarded, therefore, as a group of religious practices originating in very different strata of civilization, and only fused together in the continuity of tradition. Its permanence lay in the law of association through which a piece of ritual originally devised by the folk to secure their practical well-being remained, even after the initial meaning grew obscure, irrevocably bound up with their expectations of that well-being. Its interest to the student is that of a development, rather than that of a system. ”

“ Hind-Willet, born to the purple—or rather entitled to a narrow border of discreet mauve on all occasions of ceremony in Manhattan, was a dreamer of dreams. One of her dreams concerned her hyphenated husband, and she put him away; another concerned Penrhyn Cardemon; and she woke up. But the persistent visualisation, which had become obsession, of a society to be formed out of the massed intellects of Manhattan regardless of race, morals, or previous condition of social servitude—a gentle intellectual affinity which knew no law of art except individual inspiration, haunted her always. ”

“ Under the Sargasson code, each Community is a law unto itself. If the crew wished to have me rule over them no influence could prevent me from attaining that dignity. Had I already been Fidette’s husband, of course I would have become the commander without question. [Pg 118]
Rebellion was rampant throughout the Sargasso Sea, and although there had not been any signs of mutiny aboard my own vessel, I felt that if I insisted upon becoming captain of the ship it would be fomented. ”

“ So far there had been but one man supreme in the new world as a great painter of sunlight and of women. There could not be two. And he already felt the approach of a shadow menacing the glory of his sunlight—already stood alert and fixedly observant of a young man who had painted something disquieting into an unfinished canvas.
That man and the young girl whom he had painted to the astonishment and inward disturbance of José Querida, were having no easy time in that new world which they had created for themselves. ”

“ Article 209 Without prejudice to the application of Article 150, the Chambers and the Provincial Assembly may legislate, each within its own jurisdiction, on any matter not included in the list of those exclusively assigned to them. ”

“ The racking concentration of attention on one subject during a long course of years, to the neglect of all other healthy objects—the constant temptation to dissimulation under a constraint which left no choice between avowed profession and moral and legal outlawry—the effects of an ultra-austere code of morals, which allowed no excuse for natural impulses—the confounding effect of a system which subordinated all the really weighty matters of the law to the mechanical fact of a signature—produced results on the general surface of society of a kind by no means pleasant to contemplate. ”

“ Chamber business may be done, and often is done, on the street, in the judge's own house, at the hotel where he stops, when absent from home, or it may be done in transitu, on the cars in going from one place to another within the proper jurisdiction to hold court. Mr. Justice Field could, as well, and as authoritatively, issue a temporary injunction, grant a writ of habeas corpus, an order to show cause, or do any other chamber business for the district in the dining-room at Lathrop, as at his chambers in San Francisco, or in the court-room. ”

“ There is no rule of law involved. There is only opinion or prejudice, or pecuniary interest. The judges admit frankly that this is so. They avow that they try to weigh public opinion, as well as they can, and then vote. In 1911 Mr. Justice Holmes first explained that the Police Power extended to all great public needs, and then went on to observe that this Police Power, or extraordinary prerogative, might be put forth by legislatures "in aid of what is sanctioned by usage, or held by ... ”

“ Love grew as the winter sped glittering toward the far primrose dawn of spring; work filled their days; evening brought the happiness of a reunion eternally charming in its surprises, its endless novelty. New, forever new, love seemed; and youth, too, seemed immortal.
On various occasions when Valerie chanced to be at his studio, pouring tea for him, friends of his sister came unannounced—agreeable women more or less fashionable, who pleaded his sister's sanction of an unceremonious call to see the great painted frieze before it was sent to the Court House. ”

“ What is the use of our ever trying to understand ourselves?"
Hélène laughed, too:
"No use, dear. Leave it to men who say they understand us. It's a mercy somebody does."
"Isn't it," nodded Valerie; and they kissed each other, laughing.
"My goodness, it's like the embrace of the two augurs!" said Ogilvy. "They're laughing at us, Kelly!—at you, and me and Harry!—and at man in general!—innocent man!—so charmingly and guilelessly symbolised by us! Stop it, Hélène! You make me shiver. You'll frighten Annan so that he'll never marry if you and Valerie laugh that way at each other." ”

“ It was a swift rush to Dartford through the night; bareheaded he bent forward beside the chauffeur, teeth set, every nerve tense and straining as though his very will power was driving the machine forward. Then there came a maddening slowing down through Dartford streets, a nerve-racking delay until Sam Ogilvy's giant brother had stowed away himself and his satchel in the tonneau; then slow speed to the town limits; a swift hurling forward into space that whirled blackly around them as the great acetylenes split the darkness and chaos roared in their ears. ”

“ The colour began to come back into her face—swifter, more swiftly: the vast blank window with its amber curtains stared at her; she lifted her tragic gaze and saw the sheet of glass above swimming in crystal light. Through it clouds were dissolving in the bluest of skies; against it a spiderweb of pendant cords drooped from the high ceiling; and she saw the looming mystery of huge canvases beside which stepladders rose surmounted by little crow's-nests where the graceful oval of palettes curved, tinted with scraped brilliancy.
"What a dreamer you are!" he called across the studio to her. ”

“ Old New Yorkers all, knowing no other city, no other bourne north of Tenth Street or west of Chelsea—silent, serene, drab-toned people, whose drawing-rooms were musty with what had been fragrance once, whose science, religion, interests, desires were the beliefs, interests and emotions of a century ago, their colourless existence and passive snobbishness affronted nobody who did not come seeking affront. ”

“ For she never pictured herself as standing still to await the man she loved.
When Hélène left, Valerie had the place to herself; and, without any disloyalty to the little countess, she experienced a new pleasure in the liberty of an indolence which exacted nothing of her.
She prowled around the library, luxuriously, dipping into inviting volumes; she strolled at hazard from veranda to garden, from garden to lawn, from lawn to farmyard.
About luncheon time she arrived at the house with her arms full of scented peonies, and spent a long while selecting the receptacles for them. ”

“ And into and out of the studio passed male models of all statures, all ages, venerable, bearded men, men in their prime, men with the hard-hammered features and thick, sinewy necks of gladiators, men slender and pallid as dreaming scholars, youths that might have worn the gold-red elf-locks and the shoulder cloak of Venice, youth chiselled in a beauty as dark and fierce as David wore when the mailed giant went crashing earthward under the smooth round pebble from his sling. ”

“ You know I am devoted to your happiness!—your real happiness—which those blinded eyes in that obstinate head of yours refuse to see. Believe me—believe me, dear, that your real happiness is not in this pretty, strange girl's keeping. No, no, no! You are wrong, Louis—terribly and hopelessly wrong! Because happiness for you lies in the keeping of another woman—a woman of your own world, dear—of your own kind—a gently-bred, lovable, generous girl whom you, deep in your heart and soul, love, unknowingly—have always loved! ”