Historical Novels

"Perhaps there is no moment when beloved objects are so much beloved, as on the return from a long absence. … Assuredly meeting after absence is one of — ah, no ! — it is life's most delicious feeling."

"It is a mortifying conviction to arrive at, that of being utterly forgotten even by those to whom we are indifferent."

"THE history of a minute — why, it would give a bird's-eye view of every possible variety in human existence. Wonderful the many events that are happening together — life and death — joy and sorrow— the great and the mean — the common and the rare — good and evil — are all in the record of that brief segment of time."

"... — for nothing is more mournful than man's work and man's skill going to ruin for want of man's care — ..."

"[From Richard Arden]: The mule knows the hidden pitfalls of the morass ; the swallow feels the storm ere it comes upon the air, and wings to the quiet shelter of its nest — they foresee their dangers, and avoid them ; while we blindly rush forward into the depths of the pit and the fury of the tempest ; for we know not what evils await us. No kind foreknowledge gives us even the choice of avoidance."

"[From Richard Arden]: There are whole races marked out as the victims of a blind and terrible fatality; and circumstances, over which they themselves have no control, work out, unshunned and unsought, the wrong whereof they perish."

"Who has not observed in the daily intercourse of domestic life, that the very subject we have been striving to avoid, or planning to disclose, is sure to defeat our best-laid scheme, and start up before us when least expected?"

"[From Sir Robert Evelyn]: Opinion should guide in public affairs, not feeling. Opinion is grounded on circumstance, on observation, and on reflection. Feeling acts from impulse, which sees but half. Excitement leads to enthusiasm, that moral intoxication, whose effects seem incredible to the sober, while the influence which produces the extravagance appears more extraordinary than the act itself."

"The truth is, that people in general are stupified by any great event."

"Did we not daily observe them, we could not believe the instances of hard-heartedness evinced in social life — the neglect, the forgetfulness, and the ingratitude."

"There are some moments, the hues of which are like those on the wing of a butterfly — a touch brushes them away."

"It is curious to mark the many shapes taken by mental suffering. With some it at once assumes the mask and the manner, puts on smiles, and forces the gay and brilliant word. These are they who are sensitively alive to the opinions of others, who, having once been called animated, deem that they have a character to sustain. Such shrink with morbid susceptibility from its being supposed how much they really feel ; and vanity — vanity, by the bye, in its most graceful and engaging form, usually native to such characters — aids them to support the seeming. They cannot endure being thoughtless agreeable; and only in solitude give way to the regret which oppresses them — then exaggerated to the utmost."

"There are words to paint the misery of love, but none to paint its happiness ; that childish, glad, and confiding time, to which youth gave its buoyancy and hope its colours. Its language repeated, ever seems exaggerated or foolish ; albeit there are none who have not thought such sounds "honey-sweet" in their time. The truth is, we never make for others the allowance we make for ourselves ; and we should deny even our own words, could we hear them spoken by another."

"The ideal of liberty — now the excitement of the day — had arisen from three sources. First, from the religious discussions, which led to an extent and to conclusions of which the original agitators of such discussions little dreamed. To claim a right of thinking for yourself in one instance, ends by claiming that right in many ; and when the habit of examination is once introduced, the folly of any exclusive privilege is soon manifest; for most privileges have commenced in some necessity of the time, and a positive benefit has accrued from their exercise to the many as well as to the individual."

"But a thoroughly unselfish temper is singularly alive to the feelings of others."

"[Of Sir Robert Evelyn]: [He might have said, that] if there be one habit more than another the dry-rot of all that is high and generous in youth, it is the habit of ridicule."

"History, it is said, is the past teaching by example. How many false principles have been laid down, how much delusion supported, by reference to the glories of Athens and of Rome !"

"There are some whose sojourn on this earth is brief as it is bitter. For such the world keeps the wasted affection, the hope destroyed, the energy that preys upon itself, the kindly feeling unrequited, and the love that asks for happiness and finds despair or death. The lots in this existence are unequal. Some pass along a path predestined to weariness and tears. Such a destiny have I here recorded ; and ere its truth be denied, I pray those who may turn these pages to think of those they have known, and their memory will witness for me. The kindest, the loveliest, the best, whom they can remember — has not life for them poured forth from its darkest cup ? — have not they known the broken heart and the early grave ? Such natures belong not to our soil — they are of another sphere ; and it is mercy when Heaven recalls its own."

"Yes, Evelyn !" said Francesca, in a voice of touching sweetness, but calm — not one accent changed. "Yes : and here I am happy. Whatever be the world of which yonder dark sea is the portal, we shall seek it together. It has been upon me from my earliest childhood, a longing for another sphere. I knew that this earth was not my home — that here hopes and affections were to be blighted and to die. Heaven has restored us to each other; it wills that our future be eternal. A deep and a sweet repose is in my heart at this moment, and I wait, as at an altar, that fate which is not of this life."

"The wretched catch at hope, however improbable."

"… she had delicate health, — only those who have this perpetual interest in themselves can understand its enjoyment, — and what with complaints, symptoms, remedies, and ground-ivy tea, it was quite wonderful how time passed unobserved away. It is on such as these that life lavishes its favours ; these are they of the light heart, and yet lighter mind, for whose sake the earth, to whose base clay they are so near allied, puts forth her best; these are they who have the corn and wine of existence. What know they of the sensitive temper which makes its own misery ? — of the deep feeling that cannot change ? — of the hope that looks too high, whose bright wings melt in the glorious flight, and is dashed to pieces in its rude collision with the common and the actual ? What know they of that feverish impatience of the littleness of society, which takes refuge amid the dreams of a haunted solitude, from which it only ventures forth to have those dreams destroyed ? What know they of these ? Nothing, nothing ; and in their ignorance are they happy !"

"Never tell me of the sterner beauties of winter. Winter may have a mighty beauty of its own, where the mountain rises, white with the snow of a thousand years, hemmed in by black pine forests, eternal in their gloom ; where the overhanging avalanche makes terrible even the slightest sound of the human voice ; and where waters that never flowed spread the glittering valleys with the frost-work of the measureless past. But the characteristic of English scenery is loveliness. We look for the verdant green of her fields, for the colours of her wild and garden flowers, for daisies universal as hope, and for the cheerful hedges, so various in leaf and bud. Winter comes to us with gray mists and drizzling rains : now and then, for a day, the frost creates its own fragile and fairy world of gossamer ; but not often. We see the desolate trees, bleak and bare ; the dreary meadows, the withered gardens, and close door and window, to exclude the fog and the east wind."

"How odd it is to think how differently people are employed at the same time, and how sad to think how heavily the burden falls on most ! The contrast of the lot of the few with that of the many rather aggravates the misery : — why should they be thus favoured ?"

"[From King Charles (II)]: Let a miracle have happened only once, and we always expect it to happen again, in our own case. Fidelity is very good as a precedent, — one true lover helps on the vows of a thousand false ones."

"It is a curious fact, but a fact it is, that your witty people are the most hard-hearted in the world. The truth is, fancy destroys feeling. The quick eye to the ridiculous turns every thing to the absurd side ; and the neat sentence, the lively allusion, and the odd simile, invest what they touch with something of their own buoyant nature. Humour is of the heart, and has its tears ; but wit is of the head, and has only smiles — and the majority of those are bitter."

"No torture, though the human race are most ingenious in their devices of hate, can equal the low fever, the wearing depression of suspense."

"But while the common run of ordinary circumstances were going their little round of influence, — small pebbles flung in the great stream of time, whose motion extends not beyond their own narrow eddy, — one of those mighty events was on the wheel of fate which shake the nations with the sound thereof. The generality of individuals perish and are forgotten before the wild flowers have sprung up in the grass sods that cover them. Their home is desolate for a time, and, perchance, missing their care may force their children to grieve for their loss ; perhaps, too, some faithful heart may feel that its life of life has gone from it for ever. But, take the majority of deaths — how little are they felt — how little do they matter ! Strange mystery of human existence, that its most awful occurrence is often its least important ! Death is ever around us, and yet we think not of it; its terrible presence is made manifest, and then forgotten. The most passing interests of life occupy more of our thoughts than its end."

"How unutterably do the wretched feel the least expression of kindness !"

"Strange the unconscious comfort which it is to exaggerate our self-importance, and that crime and sorrow are redeemed from the commonplace by stamping them with the character of fate !"

"Terror dwells amid the works of man, not amid the works of nature. We tremble beside the tomb — we shrink from the icy vapour of the charnel-house — the foot walks unsteadily over the stones placed above the dead ; but the green grass and dewy flowers create no fear."

"There is something in the shadowless sky and the unbroken moonshine which mocks us with repose. We have no part in it ; our own unrest has no sympathy with the blue and spiritual horizon, whose hope is not with this life. The calm and quiet light is not of our busy and careful world; it belongs to sleep, to silence, and to dreams ; and, alas we gaze on it with the beating heart and the fevered pulse, while the thousand vain delusions of past and future cast their various shadows before our eyes. Who stands watching in the sleepless midnight, but one from whose pillow repose is banished by one all-present thought? Ambition, hate, love, alike have their vigils; and what have they in common with the cloudless sky, where the moon wanders, placid as the spirit of the good when resigned to die, and confident and filled with another and holier sphere ?"

"But there is a love that is stronger than death, and deeper than life ; for whose sake the sacrifice is light — ay, even unfelt. It is a love which, born of the pure and fresh feelings of youth, grows with your growth and strengthens with your strength — a love which would give sweetness to a palace and glory to a cottage — a love prepared to suffer, to endure, and yet suffice unto its own happiness — tried by time, by doubt, even by despair, and yet living on — the heart's deepest hope, and life's dearest tie."

"Considering what a useful thing deception is — the first and last lesson taught by what is called knowledge of the world — it is woful to observe how much of it is wasted. In nine cases out of ten, the most ingenious invention not only does not answer, but even defeats its own purpose. How much attention is thrown away, how often is flattery mistaken, and how many of our devices, like ostriches, blind their own eyes, and fancy others are blinded too !"

"… self-possession is the most provoking thing in the world."

"When I have marked, as all must do, the disappointment that rewards the noblest efforts, the agony that attends the most generous affections, I have asked, is it not better to waste life than to use it ? The vain question of a mood of profitless dejection— the most unprofitable state in which we can indulge !"

"Besides, there is a strong current of romance in every feminine nature, that delights in the hazardous and the mysterious, especially in love affairs."

"But ill-nature is inevitable in those who "season their discourse with personal talk"."

"Well, nature makes some wise provisions, it must be confessed. We should be envious of others' happiness if, in nine cases out of ten, we did not despise it."

"In the ordinary course of daily life, it is wonderful how little we think of the morrow. That sufficient for the day is the evil thereof, is a truth unconsciously, but universally acknowledged. Instinct clings to the immediate ; but when we do think of the future, uninfluenced by any present hope — by any strong tide of anticipation carrying us along its darkening depths — how terrible does that future ever appear ! — what may it not have in store for us! Sickness, sorrow, poverty, age, and even crime — all that we should now indignantly disclaim, but that to which we may yield under some strong and subtle temptation. The guiltiest have had their guileless and innocent hour. Who knows what may await them of degradation and despair ? Death, too ! — that awful spectre, which stalks over the morrow as his own domain, opens before us his many graves — our own the last ! — no rest till we are worn with weeping for the loved and lost ! At such times, how we marvel at our usual recklessness, and pause, as it were, shrinking from the busy and inevitable current which is hurrying us on to eternity !"

"Child of the Earth's old age, America is the favourite on whom a double portion has been lavished. The glorious sky, the fertile soil, the mine rich beneath, and, more than all, a brave, free, and intelligent race, who but must feel that the world's great destinies are yet unaccomplished, when the mind dwells on the glorious promise which kindles the far shores of the broad Atlantic ? The most creative imagination avails not to picture the noon of that mighty hemisphere now in its infancy."

"Wealth acquired by commerce must always bring with it its portion of intelligence, and a desire of security. We would not lightly lose what we have hardly earned. Security can be obtained but by defined rights, and these can be ensured only by equitable laws. … Liberty has been called the daughter of the mountains — she ought rather to be styled the daughter of commerce ; for her best and most useful rights have been founded and defended by states embarked in trade."

"They forget that tyranny and caprice are the attributes of the many as well as of the one, — that the ingratitude of the mob is as proverbial as that of the court; and that an equal subserviency is required by either."

"Between the future and the soul there is some mysterious sympathy — imperfect and broken in our present state of existence."

"Think of a young, beautiful, and delicately nurtured female, giving up not only the world, with its vanities and its pleasures, but all comfort, all companionship, all feminine employment, not denied to the nun of the strictest order. She renounced them all to live in seclusion, silence, and perpetual dread ; for what but a cruel death could have awaited her had her secret been discovered save when dying. And this melancholy, this isolated existence, was dragged on, unsupported by any hope, for no change of circumstance could affect her position; and unsoothed by the thought that her great devotion was held precious by him for whom it was exercised. Not one of the ordinary motives — the vanity or the selfishness which people call by the name of love — actuated her through this long trial ; she had everything to fear, and nothing to expect. What creation of the poet ever exceeded this terrible reality of love sepulchred in this living tomb ?"

"One after another the parti-coloured fragments of each fragile fabric were strewed over the table, till gradually his hand became accustomed and steady — wall and roofs were properly balanced, and the mimic Babels mounted high in air, — fittest symbols of all the graver plans and trials that agitate human existence. Scarcely is one scheme overthrown ere another is raised out of its ruins, but destined, like its predecessor, to destruction ; and yet, it would seem, the more we know the chances against our efforts — how a breath may demolish, nay, what our own weariness will soon destroy, — the more earnestly do we pursue them to the end."

"Ah ! if the doctrine of amelioration be true, what a mighty debt does the future owe to the past ! And alas for those who have gone before ! Methinks the struggle has been but ill repaid."

"The body and the soul are not friends, but enemies. The one curbs and confines, the other wears and shatters. Perpetual is the terrible struggle, till death parts the mortal and the immortal ; and life, the riddle, is lost in the deeper secrets of eternity."

"But, however deeply and entirely a man may love, he can only yield to its influence the hurried moment, the occasional thought. Every day brings its toil and its struggle ; and to meet these demands his mind must give its utmost energies. He cannot pass weeks, months — ay, and years — the eye fixed upon its daily task, but the fancies wandering far, far away. His soul must be in its labour : all the active paths in life are his own, and he must bring to their mastery, hope, thought, patience, and strength ; he may turn sometimes to the flowers on the way-side, but the great business of life must be for ever before him. The heart which a woman could utterly fill were unworthy to be her shrine. His rule over her is despotic and unmodified ; but her power over him must be shared with a thousand other influences."

"Good Heaven ! when we observe what egregious nonsense other people talk, what woful follies other people commit, sure we must be tempted to turn upon ourselves and ask — "What do I do that is equally silly ?” … … Human egotism is very much exaggerated. No one in reality occupies less of our thoughts than we do ourselves. We seriously consider the qualities of others, we dilate on their folly, question curiously on the motives of their actions, and investigate all the recesses of their minds into which we can penetrate. We never do so by ourselves. Who ever sits down to think over himself? Self is the only individual we take for granted. Were the character of any one of our friends to be sketched with tolerable accuracy, we should recognise the likeness at once ; but let our own, drawn to the very life, be brought before us, we should not know it, and even when told, we should in all probability deny the acquaintance."

"… And herein lies the difference between the love of man and that of woman. In his active and hurried career, it is impossible that love should hold the lonely and undivided empire it does over an existence of which it is at once the occupation and the resource. It is in solitude that the imagination exercises its gigantic power ; and where are a woman's feelings nurtured but in solitude ? The one passes so few hours alone, the other passes so many. What impassioned thoughts, how much of that poetry which first creates and then colours the future, haunt the lonely mornings and the long evenings, when the tapestry grows almost mechanically beneath the hand, but when the mind is wholly given up to the heart ! A young girl has rarely anything to call forth that romance inherent in every nature but the idea of her lover; and what a world of deep and beautiful feeling is lavished there ! Every reverie in which she indulges is a poem, filled with the fanciful, the true, and yet the unreal."