Vassall Morton: A Novel

But droop not; fortune at your time of life, Although a female moderately fickle, Will hardly leave you, as she's not your wife, For any length of days in such a pickle.--_Don J...

It was nearly a year since he had landed at New York, and Morton still remained a literary hermit. Society was stale and distasteful to him. He passed three fourths of his day i...

* * * One fire burns out another's burning, One pain is lessened by another's anguish; Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning; One desperate grief cures with another's lang...

In passing the Splugen, Morton journeyed chiefly in the night, making a wide detour over the crusted snow to avoid the station at the summit. By day, he found some safe retreat...

It was a week before "class day,"--that eventful day which was virtually to close the college career of Morton and his contemporaries. The little janitor, commonly called Paddy...

Morton walked down Broadway at a rapid pace, entered his hotel, mounted to his room, seated himself, rested his forehead on his hand, and, with fixed eyes and compressed lips, r...

Morton's evening with Mrs. Ashland, and the story which she told him, removed at least one pain from his breast. He learned that Edith Leslie was not in fault; and that, great a...

Meredith went away, as he had proposed, leaving Morton at New Baden. The latter soon came to the opinion that he had never yet found so interesting a subject of psychological ob...

During the rest of the journey, Morton, on Mrs. Holyoke's invitation, was one of the party. Again and again he was impelled to learn his fate; but recoiled from casting the die,...

"I had an old friend," Buckland began, with some glimmering of his former vivacity,--"De Ruyter,--I don't think you ever knew him. He was the representative of a family great in...

Let the great gods, That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads, Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch, That hast within thee undivulged crimes Unwhipped of justice...

Like bloodhounds now they search me out;-- Hark to the whistle and the shout!-- The chase is up,--but they shall know, The stag at bay's a dangerous foe.--_Lady of the Lake_.

It was three days since he had written to Speyer; and his chief anxiety was, lest his note should have miscarried. Pain and long confinement had wrought heavily upon him. Every...

If it were now to die, 'Twere now to be most happy; for I fear, My soul hath her content so absolute, That not another comfort like to this Succeeds in unknown fate.--_Othello_.

The engagement of Miss Leslie and Morton was to be kept secret till the latter's return. None knew it but Leslie and Vinal. Vinal, within a few weeks, sailed for Europe, meaning...

On the American side of the Niagara, a few miles below the Falls, is a deep chasm, bearing the inauspicious christening of the Devil's Hole. Near it there is--or perhaps was, fo...

Are you called forth, from out a world of men, To slay the innocent? What is my offence? Where is the evidence that doth accuse me? What lawful quest have given their verdict up...

It was nine years since, in an evil hour, Leslie had first seen Miss Cynthia Everille, playing on a harp, and accompanying herself in a thin, sweet voice, with words of her own...

Morton, following the direction of his companion's eye, saw, a little in advance, a tall man, slenderly but gracefully formed, walking slowly, with a listless air, as if but hal...

On a rock, at the end of the promontory which forms the harbor of Beyrout, stood Vassall Morton; and at his side his friend Buckland, whom he had met in New York just after his...

We twain have met like ships upon the sea, Who hold an hour's converse, * * * One little hour! and then away they speed On lonely paths, through mist, and cloud, and foam, To me...

Morton reached New York, and found the person to whom he had been referred by Richards. He proved to be a German, of respectable appearance enough; but Morton could learn nothin...

Mr. Shingles had an acquaintance among the gentlemen of the press; and, chancing to meet his quill-driving friend, he told him Morton's story. It appeared, accordingly, beautifu...

Morton had been for some time of opinion that he had better leave New Baden; yet still the philosophic youth staid on,--a week longer,--a fortnight longer,--and still he lingere...

Morton looked, and beheld a solemn group taking no part in the amusements, but scrutinizing the scene with the air of superior beings. He recognized the familiar countenance of...

Morton, _en route_ for the barbarous districts of which Vinal had expressed his disapproval, stopped by the way at a spot which, though wild enough at that time, had ceased to b...

Beshrew me, but I love her heartily, For she is wise, if I can judge of her; And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true; And true she is, as she hath proved herself; And therefo...

Morton recovered slowly. The influences about him were any thing but favorable to a quick convalescence, and it was months before he was himself again. Even then, though his hea...

Those travelled youths whom tender mothers wean And send abroad to see and to be seen, Have made all Europe's vices so well known, They seem almost as natural as our own.--_Chur...

Morning came, and the Leslies departed. Morton watched the lumbering carriage till it disappeared down the rugged gorge of the Notch, then drew a deep breath, and ruefully betoo...

Art thou so blind To fling away the gem whose untold worth, Hid 'neath the roughness of its native mine, Tempts not the eye? Touched by the artist's wheel, The hardest stone fla...

As if with Heaven a bargain they had made To practise goodness--and to be well paid, They, too, devoutly as their fathers did, Sin, sack, and sugar, equally forbid; Holding each...

A woman's counsel brought us first to woe, And made her man his paradise forego.-- These are the words of Chanticleer, not mine; I honor dames, and think their sex divine.--_Dry...

Descending to the breakfast room, he found Leslie, as usual, quiet, cordial, and gentlemanly, beguiling the moments of expectancy with a newspaper, while his daughter presided a...

The astutest broker pronounced him good; the sagest money lender took his paper without a question. But of late, his signature had lost a little of its efficacy. It was whispere...

On the next morning he was walking near the Court House, when a man accosted him, touching his hat with one hand, and holding out the other in the way of friendly salutation. Mo...

The day brightened as the steamer bore out to sea, and the sun streamed along the fast-receding shore. Morton stood at the ship's stern, gazing back longingly towards his native...

Morton visited his cousin, Miss Fanny Euston, a guest, for a few days, at a friend's house in town. By good fortune, as he thought it, he found her alone; and, as he conversed w...

Morton had left Vienna, and was journeying in the diligence on the confines of Styria. The cumbrous machine had been lumbering on all night. Awaking at daybreak from his comfort...

He had not gone far, when he became aware of a footstep closely following him. He was about to look back, when a little man passed before him, glancing furtively in his face wit...

The requisites of a successful villain are manifold. The toughened conscience, the ready wit, the sage experience, the mind tutored, like Iago, in all qualities of human dealing...

Not that the void was a void to Morton. His nature spurred him into perpetual action; but his wanderings were over at length; and he and Meredith sat under the porch of Morton's...

Some few days after, riding, as usual, in the afternoon, Morton saw on the road before him a lady on horseback, riding in the same direction. At a glance, he recognized the air...

The steamer, in due time, reached Liverpool; but Morton remained only a few days in England, crossing to Boulogne, and thence to Paris. Here he arrived late one afternoon; and t...

Several days had passed, during which Vinal contrived to have more than one private interview with his new acquaintance, Speyer. He had sounded him with much astuteness; found t...

Nobody knew Vinal but Vinal himself. _Know thyself_ was his favorite maxim. He practised upon it, as he flattered himself, with a rigorous and unsparing logic, applying the diss...

"Thank you, sir," replied Mr. Jacobs, to whom the words were addressed; and he followed the assistant among the alcoves in a timid, tiptoe progress, for, to him, the very air he...

Whoever, journeying southward from Coire, passes through the Via Mala, thence through the village of Andeer, and thence turns to the left, following a mountain path up the torre...

Matherton, renowned through both hemispheres for the manufacture of glass ware, stands, unless this history errs, on the line of the Northern Central Railroad, the distance from...

The Honorable Charles Augustus Murray, recreating himself with a hunting tour among the Pawnees, killed a buffalo; and being, as he assures us, ravenously hungry, proceeded to r...

"Your proposal flatters me, Mr. Morton; and, in many points of view, the connection you offer would be a desirable one,--a very desirable one. But I must say to you plainly, tha...

One day the jailer came in at his stated hour. He was, by birth, a German peasant, stupid and brutish enough; but, his calling considered, he might have been worse, and, in the...

Edward Meredith, the affianced bridegroom of Miss Fanny Euston, sailing on a smooth sea, under full canvas, towards the pleasing but perilous bounds of matrimony, was walking in...

Morton sat in the reading room of the National, the grand hotel of Matherton. It was by no means an elegant apartment. In the middle was a table covered with newspapers; at the...

The whispered words of the corporal kindled a spark of hope in Morton's breast; but it was destined to fade and die. Once he was sure that he heard the tones of his voice in the...

Morton rode along the edge of the lake at Matherton. He passed under the shadowy verdure of the pines, and approached the old family mansion of the Leslies. It was years since h...

"It is singular," he thought, "I could never meet her without forgetting myself,--without being betrayed into some absurdity or other. I thought by this time that I had grown wi...

On the next morning, Vinal learned that his wife was ill, and confined to her room in her father's house. On the day following, he was told that she was no better; but on the th...

Among Morton's acquaintance was a certain Miss Blanche Blondel. They had been schoolmates when children; and as, at a later date, Miss Blanche had been fond of making long visit...

Since his illness, Morton had had some of an invalid's privilege. He had been allowed to walk on the rampart for half an hour daily. In the distance, a great mountain range boun...

That day Vinal drove to the Quartier Latin, called upon his friend Richards, and asked him to dine at the Trois Frères Provençaux. Mr. Richards was never known to decline such a...

Morton took possession again of his house in the country, which still remained in the keeping of one of his humble relatives, into whose charge he had given it. He turned the ke...

Morton reported himself to the American consul, and told his story. The wrath and astonishment of that official were great; but they were as nothing to the patriotic fury of thr...

Again the Jersey heights rose on the eye of Morton, and the woods and villas of Staten Island. Again the broad breast of New York harbor opened before him, sparkling in the June...

"I was passing last evening by Professor Speyer's lodgings, and, seeing a light at his window, went in. I told him that I had come to find him in the afternoon with an old acqua...

Morton's day of departure came. It was a comfortless, savage, gusty morning, an east wind blowing in from the bay. The hour to set sail was near; he should have been on board; b...

"Again! You are always on the wing. I supposed that you must have learned, by this time, to value home, or, at least, be reconciled to staying there in peace."

After some days' delay, the brig put to sea, Morton on board. The cliffs behind Gibraltar came in sight at last, and a fresh levanter blew her out like an arrow upon the Atlanti...

Vinal sat alone, propped and cushioned in an arm chair, when a clerk from his office came to bring him his morning letters. He looked over the superscriptions till he saw one in...

That evening Morton arrived at the post house at ----. He was alone, his companion of the morning, whose route lay in another direction, having left him long before. At the head...

With a slow step and a sinking heart, Morton entered Mrs. Ashland's drawing room. He told her of his proposed journey; told her that he should leave the country within a few day...

Leslie was dead; beyond the reach of wounds and sorrow; and the only tie which held his daughter to Vinal was at last broken. She left him, as she had promised, and made her abo...

"What a pile of books you are lugging! Here, let me take half a dozen of them for you. You look as if you were training to be a hotel porter."

When the summer heats set in, Meredith, one evening, drove to Morton's house, and, arrayed in linen and grass-cloth, smoked his cigar under his friend's veranda with as much con...