Ormond; or, The secret witness, Volume 2 |
Common terms and phrases
acquainted Aleppo amusement answer appeared brother CHAP character choly circumstance claim companion conceal condition confidence Constance Constantia Craig Cyprus daugh desired doubt duction Dudley's easily entered equally event evil excited expedient eyes father favour flowed fluence formed formerly fortune girl guest habit happiness heart Helena hope hope and fear hour incident inclination intercourse interview jects knew lady lena lence listened lute M'Crea mankind manner marriage means melan Melbourne ment merely mind Miss Dudley mistress mode mond motives ness never nine o'clock occasion opinion Ormond passion perceive perhaps person possession present principles racter received reflected regard respect rienced Roseveldt ruminate sake scarcely scene scheme scruples SECRET WITNESS seemed seldom sentiments servant shew Sicilian sion situation spect stance stranger suitable suppose sure tenderness thee thing thou thought tible tion true truth veldt wife wishes
Popular passages
Page 178 - Ormond aspired to nothing more ardently than to hold the reins of opinion, — to exercise absolute power over the conduct of others, not by constraining their limbs or by exacting obedience to his authority, but in a way of which his subjects should be scarcely conscious. He desired that his guidance should control their steps, but that his agency, when most effectual, should be least suspected.
Page 182 - Ormond, but from the community of sentiment, which already existed between them. She was unguarded in a point, where, if not her whole, yet, doubtless, her principal security and strongest bulwark would have existed. She was unacquainted with religion. She was unhabituated to conform herself to any standard, but that connected with the present life. Matrimonial, as well as every other human duty, was disconnected in her mind, with any awful or divine sanction. She formed her estimate of good and...
Page 50 - ... it is difficult to judge but from comparison. To say that Helena Cleves was silly or ignorant would be hatefully unjust. Her understanding bore no disadvantageous comparison with that of the majority of her sex, but when placed in competition with that of some eminent females or of Ormond, it was exposed to the risk of contempt.
Page 48 - Helena Cleves was endowed with every feminine and fascinating quality. Her features were modified by the most transient sentiments, and were the seat of a softness at all times blushful and bewitching. All those graces of symmetry, smoothness, and lustre, which assemble in the imagination of the painter when he calls from the bosom of her natal deep the Paphian divinity, blended their perfections in the shade, complexion, and hair of this lady.
Page 185 - It was otherwise with Ormond. His disbelief was at once unchangeable and strenuous. The universe was to him a series of events connected by an undesigning and inscrutable necessity, and an assemblage of forms to which no beginning or end can be conceived.
Page 32 - We are prompted to conceal and to feign by a thousand motives ; but truly to portray the motives and relate the actions of another appears utterly impossible. The attempt, however, if made with fidelity and diligence, is not without its use. To comprehend the whole truth, with regard to the character and conduct of another, may be denied to any human being ; but different observers will have, in their pictures, a greater or less portion of this truth.
Page 134 - Before we act, we must consider not only the misery produced, but the happiness precluded, by our measures. In no case, perhaps, is the decision of a human being impartial, or totally uninfluenced by sinister and selfish motives. If Constantia surpassed others, it was not because her motives were pure, but because they possessed more of purity than those of others. Sinister considerations flow in upon us through imperceptible channels, and modify our thoughts in numberless ways, without our being...
Page 136 - Her discourse tended to rouse him from his lethargy, to furnish him with powerful excitements ; and the time spent in her company seemed like a doubling of existence. The comparison could not but suggest itself between this scene and that exhibited by Helena. With the latter, voluptuous blandishments, musical prattle, and silent but expressive homage, composed a banquet delicious for a while, but whose sweetness now began to pall upon his taste. It supplied him with no new ideas, and hindered him,...
Page 36 - ... a man may reasonably hope to accomplish this end, when he proposes nothing but his own good. Any other point is inaccessible". Oddly enough, Ormond also believes that a man "must not part with benevolent desire; this is a constituent of happiness .... A wise man will relinquish the pursuit of general benefit, but not the desire of that benefit, or the perception of that in which this benefit consists, because these are among the ingredients of virtue and the sources of his happiness
Page 69 - The constitution of nature, the attributes of its author, the arrangement of the parts of the external universe, and the substance, modes of operation, and ultimate destiny of human intelligence, were enigmas unsolved and insoluble by her.