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degrades a man ... from his rank in the creation even below the brutes placed under his command.

...

...

2. The young, the healthy, ... and the should not presume on their advantages.

prosperous

...

3. Humanity,... justice,... generosity,... and public spirit are the qualities. . . that chiefly recommend . . . man to

man.

...

4. It is pleasant to be virtuous and good, because that. is to excel many others; it is pleasant to grow better, because that ... is to excel ourselves; it is pleasant to mortify and subdue our lusts, because that... is victory; it is pleasant to command our appetites and passions, because that is empire.

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the art of

6. Of all the discoveries of modern ages printing... has certainly done most... for the improvement of mankind.

7. A man of a polite imagination can converse with a picture... and find an agreeable companion in a statue.

8. This is some fellow

Who, having been praised for bluntness, doth affect
A saucy roughness; and constrains the garb,

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An HONEST mind and plain, he must speak TRUTH.
if not... he's PLAIN.

And they will take it . . . so ;

...

These kind of knaves I know, which in this

Harbor more craft, and more corrupter
Than twenty silly, ducking observants,
That stretch their duties nicely.

... PLAINNESS

ends,

9. GRATTAN'S DENUNCIATION OF MR. FLOOD.

EI

Sir, you are much mistaken if you think that your talents have been as great as your life has been reprehensible. You began your parliamentary career with an acrimony and personality which could have been justified only by a supposition of virtue. After a rank and clamorous opposition, you became

...

on a sudden... silent; you were silent for seven years; you were silent on the greatest questions, ... and you were silent. . . for for... money! You supported the unparalleled profusion and jobbing of Lord Harcourt's scandalous ministry. You, sir, who manufacture . . . stage thunder against Mr. Eden for his anti-American principles, you, sir, whom it pleases to chant a hymn to the immortal Hampden;-you, sir, approved of the tyranny exercised against America, and you, sir,

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voted four thousand Irish troops to cut the throats of the Americans... fighting for their freedom, . . . fighting for your freedom, . . . fighting for the great principle... liberty! But you found, at last, that the court had bought, ... but would not trust you. Mortified at the discovery, you try the sorry game of a trimmer in your progress to the acts of an incendiary ; and observing, ... with regard to prince and people, . . . the most impartial... treachery and desertion, . . . you justify the suspicion of your sovereign... by betraying the government ... as you had sold the people. Such has been your conduct, and at such conduct... . every order of your fellow-subjects... have a right to exclaim! The merchant.. may say to you,... the constitutionalist... may say to you, . . . the American. may say to you, — and I . . . I... now say, and

...

say to your beard, .

...

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you are not an honest man!

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10. THE DEFERENTIAL MAN..

Cowper.

He would not (with a peremptory tone)
Assert the nose upon his face... his own;

With hesitation. admirably slow.

...

He humbly... hopes presumes.

it may

be so.

§ 67. The Narrative Style. (See § 48.)

DEATH OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. Lockhart.

He expressed a wish that I should read to him; and when I asked from what book, he said, "Need you ask? There is but I chose the fourteenth chapter of St. John's Gospel; he listened with a mild devotion, and said, when I had done,

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"Well, this is a great comfort; I have followed you distinctly, and I felt as if I were yet to be myself again." In this placid frame of mind he was again put to bed, and had many hours of soft slumber. . . . .

As I was dressing on the morning of Monday, the 17th of September (1832), Nicholson came into my room, and told me that his master had wakened in a state of composure and consciousness, and wished to see me immediately. I found him entirely himself, though in the last extreme of feebleness. His eye was clear and calm, every trace of the wild fire of delirium extinguished.

66

Lockhart," he said, "I may have but a minute to speak with you. My dear, be a good man; be virtuous; be religious; be a good man. Nothing else will give you any comfort when you come to lie here." He paused, and I said, "Shall I send for Sophia and Anne?" "No," said he, "don't disturb them. Poor souls! I know they were up all night. God bless you

all!"

With this he sank in a very tranquil sleep; and, indeed, he scarcely afterwards gave any sign of consciousness, except for an instant on the arrival of his sons. About half past one in the afternoon, on the 21st of September, Sir Walter breathed his last, in the presence of all his children.

It was a beautiful day; so warm that every window was wide open, and so perfectly still that the sound of all others most delicious to his ear, the gentle ripple of the Tweed over its pebbles, was distinctly audible as we knelt around the bed and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes.

§ 68. The Colloquial Style. (See § 52.)

1. THE BUSY BEE.

In his "Bleak House" Dickens makes Mr. Skimpole say: "He had no objection to honey, but he protested against the overwhelming assumption of Bees. He didn't see at all why the busy bee should be proposed as a model; he supposed the Bee liked to make honey, or he would not do it, nobody asked him. It was not necessary for the Bee to make such a

merit of his taste. If every confectioner went buzzing about the world, banging against everything that came in his way, and egotistically calling upon everybody to take notice that he was going to his work and must not be interrupted, the world would be quite an insupportable place. He must say he thought a Drone the embodiment of a pleasanter and wiser idea. The Drone said, unexpectedly, 'You will excuse me; I really cannot attend the shop; I find myself in a world in which there is so much to see, and so short a time to see it in, that I must take the liberty of looking about me, and begging to be provided for by somebody who doesn't want to look about him.' This appeared to Mr. Skimpole the Drone philosophy,

and he thought it a very good philosophy, always supposing the Drone to be on good terms with the Bee, which, so far as he knew, the easy fellow always was, if the consequential creature would only let him, and not be so conceited about his honey!"

2. THE DUKE ARANZA TO JULIANA. John Tobin.

I'll have no glittering gewgaws stuck about you,
To stretch the gaping eyes of idiot wonder,
And make men stare upon a piece of earth
As on the star-wrought firmament; no feathers
To wave as streamers to your vanity;

Nor cumbrous silk, that, with its rustling sound,
Makes proud the flesh that bears it.

She's adorned

Amply that in her husband's eye looks lovely, —
The truest mirror that an honest wife

Can see her beauty in!

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Thus modestly attired,

A half-blown rose stuck in thy braided hair,

With no more diamonds than those eyes are made of,
No deeper rubies than compose thy lips,

Nor pearls more precious than inhabit them;

With the pure red and white which that same Hand
Which blends the rainbow mingles in thy cheeks;
This well-proportioned form (think not I flatter)
In graceful motions to harmonious sounds,

And thy free tresses dancing in the wind,

Thou 'lt fix as much observance as chaste dames
Can meet without a blush.

3. A PLEA FOR DUNCES.

Thackeray.

Let us, people who are so uncommonly clever and learned, have a great tenderness and pity for the poor folks who are not endowed with the prodigious talents which we have. I have always had a regard for dunces; those of my own school-days were amongst the pleasantest of the fellows, and

have turned out by no means the dullest in life; whereas many a youth who could turn off Latin hexameters by the yard, and construe Greek quite glibly, is no better than a feeble prig now, with not a pennyworth more brains than were in his head before his beard grew.

Master Hulker, at Dr. Birch's, is the most honest, kind, active, plucky creature. He can do many things better than most boys. He can go up a tree, jump, play at cricket, drive and swim perfectly, he can eat twice as much as almost anybody (as Miss Birch well knows), he has a pretty talent of carving figures with his hack-knife, he makes and paints little coaches, he can take a watch to pieces, and put it together again. He can do everything but learn his lesson; and there he sticks at the bottom of the school, hopeless. As the little boys are drafted from Miss Raby's class (it is true she is one of the best instructresses in the world) they enter and hop over poor Hulker. He would be handed over to the governess, only he is too big.

If you could see his grammar, it is a perfect curiosity of dog's-ears. The leaves and cover are all curled and ragged. Many of the pages are worn away, with the rubbing of his elbows, as he sits poring over the hopeless volume, with the blows of his fists as he thumps it madly, or with the poor fellow's tears. You see him wiping them away with the back of his hand, as he tries, and can't do it. The doctor has operated upon Hulker (between ourselves), but the boy was so little affected you would have thought he had taken chloroform. Birch is weary of whipping now, and leaves the boy to go his own gait.

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