Sir Jasper Carew: His Life and Experience

Ysaffich's retreat was a small cottage about two miles from Dinant, and on the verge of the Ardennes forest. He had purchased it from a retired “Garde Chasse” some years before,...

The second day was chiefly occupied in examining witnesses,--old acquaintances of my father's, for the most part, who had known him on his return to Ireland, and who could bear...

From an early hour on the following morning, the company began to pour in to Castle Carew, then style and retinue being as varied as may well be imagined,--some arriving in all...

I arrived in Paris a few days after, and took up my abode at the Hôtel Quillac, then one of the most splendid in the capital. Mr. Fox and Colonel Canthorpe received me most cour...

When I come to reflect over the space I have devoted in these memoirs of my life to slight and unimportant circumstances,--the small incidents of a purely personal character,--I...

MacNaghten's object in seeking an interview with Fagan was to ascertain, in the first place, who that claimant to the estate was whose views he advocated; and, secondly, what pr...

It was on one of the coldest of a cold December days, when a dry north wind, with a blackish sky, portended the approach of a heavy snow-storm, that I was standing at my usual p...

If I could have turned my thoughts from my own desolate condition, the aspect of Paris on the morning after the battle might well have engaged my attention. The very streets pre...

The diligence passed our door, and the conductor had orders to stop and take me up, as he went by. That supper was a sorrowful meal to all of us. They had come to think of me as...

My father had walked several streets of the capital before he could collect his thoughts, or even remember where he was. He went along, lost to everything save memory of his ven...

Shall I own that Margot's story affected me in a very different manner from what the good Abbé had intended it should? I could neither sympathize with the outraged pride of the...

Why do we all refer to the period of boyhood as one of happiness? It is not that it had not its own sorrows, nor that they were really so light,--it is simply because it was the...

For some years after the death of Margot, my life was like a restless dream,--a struggle, as it were, between reality and a strange scepticism with everything and every one. At...

The 27th of May, 1782, was the day on which Parliament was to assemble in Dublin, and under circumstances of more than ordinary interest. The great question of the independence...

I had often heard that the day which should see the Count restored to us would be one of festivity and enjoyment. Again and again had we talked over all our plans of pleasure fo...

What I have heretofore mentioned of the events which followed immediately on my father's death were all related circumstantially to me by MacNaghtan himself, who used to dwell u...

It has sometimes occurred to me that the great suits of armor we see in museums, the huge helmets that come down like extinguishers on the penny candles of modern humanity, the...

I will not attempt to describe the welcome that met me on my return, nor the gratitude with which my mother overwhelmed my kind protector. The whole school, and no inconsiderabl...

The little incident which forms the subject of the last chapter occurred some weeks before my father's return to Ireland, and while as yet the fact of his marriage was still a s...

My first care on arriving in England was to resign my post as an “Agent secret.” This was not, however, so easily accomplished as I thought; for the Royalists had more than once...

The last few pages I mean to append to these notices of my life might be, perhaps, equally well derived from the public newspapers of the time. At a period when great events wer...

The venality and corruption which accomplished the Legislative Union between England and Ireland admit of as little doubt as of palliation. There was an epidemic of baseness ove...

To do the honors of another man's house is a tremendous test of tact. In point of skill or address, we know of few things more difficult. The ease which sits so gracefully on a...

In these memoirs of my father, I have either derived my information from the verbal accounts of his friends and contemporaries, or taken it from his own letters and papers. Many...

Our journey was a dreary and wearisome one. The diligence travelled slowly, and as the weather was dull and rainy, the road presented nothing of interest, at least of interest s...

It was not the custom of the day for the lady of the house to present herself at dinner when the party consisted solely of men, so that my mother's absence from table appeared n...

The day of my beloved father's funeral was that of my birth! It is not improbable that he had often looked forward to that day as the crowning event of his whole life, destining...

Scarcely had my father laid himself down on the bed, when he fell off into a heavy sleep. Fatigue, exhaustion, and loss of blood all combined to overcome him, and he lay motionl...

Preceded by the waiter, who was about to point out the places destined for us at the table, I walked up the room, holding Margot by the hand. The strangers made way for us as we...

Guided by the clew afforded in some of my father's letters, Dan proceeded to Wales, ascertained the cottage where they had passed their first month of married life, and found ou...

On the second day of the trial, the court-house was even more densely crowded than on the first. The rank and station which the accused had held in society, as well as the myste...

By the details of my last two chapters, I have been obliged to recede, as it were, from the due course of my story, and speak of events which occurred prior to those mentioned i...

I had taken up my quarters in one of the small streets which lead from the Strand to the river; a very humble abode it was, and such as suited very humble fortune. When I arrive...

I cannot attempt to describe my feelings on awaking, nor the lamentable failure of all my efforts at recalling the events of the night before. That many real occurrences seemed...

Accustomed all his life to the flattery which surrounds a position of some eminence, my father was not a little piqued at the coldness of his friends during his illness. The inq...

Having already acquainted my reader with the source from which I have derived all these materials of my family history, he will not be surprised to learn that MacNaghten's impri...

The scene is at the foot of the Splugen Alps, in a little village begirt with mountains, every crag and eminence of which is surmounted by a ruined castle. There is a grandeur a...

One of the noted characters about Paris at this time was a certain Captain Fleury; he called himself “Fleury de Montmartre.” He had been, it was said, on Bonaparte's staff in Eg...

I was liberated from prison at the end of eight days. I begged hard to be allowed to remain there, but was not permitted. This interval, short as it was, had done much to recrui...

Only ye who have felt what it is after long years of absence, after buffeting with the wild waves of life, and learning by heart that bitter lesson they call the world, to come...

I do not know how far other men's experiences will corroborate the opinion, but for myself I will say that more than once has it occurred to me to remark that some of the most m...

Among the members of the Viceregal suite who were to accompany his Grace on a visit was a certain Barry Rutledge, a gentleman usher, whose character and doings were well known i...

“Marry in haste,” says the adage, and we all know what occupation leisure will bring with it; unhappily, my father was not to prove the exception to the maxim. It was not that h...

There could not have been a readier process of disenchantment to me, as to all my boyish ambitions and hopes, than the routine of my daily life at this period. I was lodged, wit...

I can more easily imagine a man being able to preserve the memory of all his sensations during some tremendous operation of surgery than to recall the varied tortures of his min...

The celebrated money-lender and bill-discounter of Dublin in the times we speak of, was a certain Mr. Fagan, popularly called “The Grinder,” from certain peculiarities in his de...

A long, low line of coast loomed through the darkness, and towards this we now rowed through a heavy, breaking surf. More than once did they lie on their oars to consult as to t...

Shall I own it that when I once more found myself at liberty, and with means sufficient for the purpose, my first thought was to leave England forever? So far as I was concerned...

If the triumphs of genius be amongst the most exalted pleasures of our nature, its defeats and reverses are also the very saddest of all afflictions. He who has learned to live,...

I was now domesticated with Ysaffich, who occupied good quarters in Kehl, where the Polish Legion, as it was called, was garrisoned. He treated me with every kindness, and prese...

“I have often thought,” said he, hastily, “that if another were joined with me in this task, its completeness would be more certain; while to trust myself alone with this secret...

to your meal without appetite. You could not speak to me; or, in a few words you dropped, I could read the bitter chagrin that was corroding your heart. You owned to me, that in...