An American Politician: A Novel, Volume 2

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Chapman and Hall, 1884 - 459 pages
 

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Page 186 - Joe's fair head resting in her unconsciousness upon John's shoulder. Presently she stirred, and opening her eyes, looked up into his face. She drew gently away from him, and a warm blush spread quickly over her pale cheek ; she glanced down at her small white hands and they clasped each other convulsively. John looked at her ; suddenly his gray eyes grew dark and deep, and the mighty passion took all his strength into its own, so that he trembled and turned pale again. But the words failed him no...
Page 180 - That was all he said, but in his words the deep agony of a mortal struggle rang strangely—the knell of the old life and the birth-chime of the new. One by one, the words he had never thought to speak fell from his lips, distinctly; the oracle of the heart answered the great question of fate in its own way. Josephine Thorn sat by his side, her hands lying idly in her lap, her thin white face pressing against the old brown lattice, while a spray of the sweet honeysuckle that climbed over the woodwork...
Page 207 - ... at the nation's heart-strings, gnawing at her sinews, and undermining her strength. The time is coming, is even now come, when two or three parties no longer suffice to express the disunion of the Union. There are three to-day : to-morrow there will be five, the next day ten, twenty, a hundred, till every man's hand is against his fellow, and his fellow's against him. The divisions have grown so wide that the majority and the minority are but the extremities of a countless set of internecine...
Page 12 - They worked quietly, with one immutable political purpose, with which they allowed no prejudiced party view to interfere. Always having under their immediate control some of the best talent in the country and frequently commanding vast financial resources, these men and their predecessors had more than once turned the scale of the country's future. They had committed great mistakes, but they had also brought about noble results.
Page 69 - I thought you were going to faint. You were as pale as death, and you seemed holding yourself up by the curtains.
Page 219 - Choose, then, of your own heart and will, a man, to be our President and our leader. Elect him with one accord, and, as you give your voices in his choice, stand here together, knee to knee, shoulder to shoulder, hand to hand, and let the mighty oath go thundering up to Heaven, " This Union shall not be broken.
Page 12 - No oaths or ceremonies bound them together, for they belonged to a small community of men which has existed from the earliest days of American independence, and which took its rise before that period.

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