Cousin Henry quotes

“I have a conscience, my dear, on this matter,” said an old gentleman to a young lady, as the two were sitting in the breakfast parlour of a country house which looked down from the cliffs over the sea on the coast of Carmarthenshire.

“And so have I, Uncle Indefer; and as my conscience is backed by my inclination, whereas yours is not—”

“Though it will break my heart.”

“That is a flea’s bite. I can brave my ruin easily, but not your broken heart.”

“Why should there be either, Isabel?”

“Do you know any reason why I should think well enough of him to become his wife? I do not.

In marrying a man a woman should be able to love every little trick belonging to him. The parings of his nails should be a care to her.

It should be pleasant to her to serve him in things most menial. Would it be so to me, do you think, with Henry Jones?”

“I don’t care a bit for his wild oats,” Isabel had said, almost playfully, when the idea had first been mooted to her.

“His oats are too tame for me rather than too wild. Why can’t he look anyone in the face?”

Then her uncle had been angry with her, thinking that she was allowing a foolish idea to interfere with the happiness of them all.

“Do not trouble yourself. You may be sure of this, that on no earthly consideration would I take a penny from your hands.”

“We take presents from those whom we love and esteem, not from those we despise.”

“Why should you despise me?” he asked.

Of course they would know that this mystery must have some reference to the will. Thus they would so far have traced the truth as to have learnt that the will had a mystery, and that the mystery was located in that room!

There is a pleasant game, requiring much sagacity, in which, by a few answers, one is led closer and closer to a hidden word, till one is enabled to touch it.

And as with such a word, so it was with his secret. He must be careful that no eye should once see that his face was turned towards the shelf.

“You’d live down that, Squire, if you did your duty, and was good to the people;—and took no more than was your own. But perhaps you don’t like a country life.”

“I don’t like being where I ain’t liked; that’s the truth of it, Mr. Griffith.”

“Who’ll come in your place, if I may be so bold as to ask?”

“Nor am I,” he continued very gently, “the least in the world. Think of it, and you will find that I am right; and then, when next I come, then, perhaps, you will not refuse to kiss me.” And so he went.

Oh, how she loved him! How sweet would it be to submit her pride, her independence, her maiden reticences to such a man as that!

How worthy was he of all worship, of all confidence, of all service! How definitely better was he than any other being that had ever crossed her path! But yet she was quite sure that she would not marry him.

They little knew the torments which the man was enduring, or how unlikely it was that he should laugh in his sleeve at anyone.

We are too apt to forget when we think of the sins and faults of men how keen may be their conscience in spite of their sins.

While they were thus talking of Cousin Henry, he was vainly endeavouring to console himself with the reflection that he had not committed any great crime, that there was still a road open to him for repentance, that if only he might be allowed to …

“No; he can’t eat a fellow. It isn’t that way he does it.

I’ve known some of ’em who looked as though they were going to eat a man; but he looks as though he were going to skin you, and leave you bare for the birds to eat you.

He’s gentle enough at first, is Mr. Cheekey.”

But still there was the resolve the same as ever. There was no other way of escape.

A stag, when brought to bay, will trample upon the hounds.

He would trample upon them. Llanfeare should all be his own.

Griffith came into the room, ostensibly to take away the breakfast things. She had seen the triumphant face of Mr. Apjohn, and knew that some victory had been gained. But when she saw that the breakfast had not been touched, her heart became soft.

The way to melt the heart of a Mrs. Griffith is to eat nothing.

“Laws, Mr. Jones, you have not had a mouthful. Shall I do you a broil?” He assented to the broil, and ate it, when it was cooked, with a better appetite than he had enjoyed since his uncle’s death.

After so great an injury as that inflicted on him by the last change in the Squire’s purpose it was hardly unnatural that the idea of retaliation should present itself to him when the opportunity came in his way.

Not to do that which justice demands is so much easier to the conscience than to commit a deed which is palpably fraudulent!

At the last his conscience saved him, and Mr. Apjohn will perhaps be thought to have been right in declaring that much was due to him in that he had not destroyed the will. His forbearance was recompensed fully.