Monday, December 22, 2014

Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott, r. Dec. 2014

p. xxvi Our ancestors were not more distinct from us, surely, than Jews are from Christians; they had "eyes, hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions" [Shakespeare]; were "fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer," as ourselves. The tenor, therefore, of their affections and feelings, must have borne the same general proportion to our own.

p. 52 The walls of the apartment were so ill finished, and so full of crevices, that the rich hangings shook to the night blast, and, in despite of a sort of screen intended to protect them from the wind, the flame of the torches streamed sideways into the air, like the unfurled pennon of a chieftain. Magnificence there was, with some rude attempt at taste; but of comfort their was little, and, being unknown, it was unmissed.

p. 82 At length the barriers were opened, and five knights, chosen by lot, advanced slowly into the area…. It is unnecessary to be particular on these subjects. To borrow lines from a contemporary poet, who has written but too little - "The knights are dust, And their good sword are rust, Their souls are with the saints, we trust" [Coleridge]. Their escutcheons have long mouldered from the walls of their castles. Their castles themselves are but green mounds and shattered ruins - the place that once knew them, knows them no more - nay, many a race since theirs has died out and been forgotten in the very land which they occupied, with all the authority of feudal proprietors and feudal lords. What, then, would it avail the reader to know their names, or the evanescent symbols of their martial rank!

p. 291 These men were Saxons, and not free by any means from the national love of ease and good living which the Normans stigmatized as laziness and gluttony.

p. 304 …Glory, maiden, glory! …

p. 330 Trust me each state must have its policies: Kingdoms have edicts, cities have their charters; Even the wild outlaw, in his forest-walk, Keeps yet some touch of civil discipline; For not since Adam wore his verdant apron, Hath man with man in social union dwelt, But laws were made to draw that union closer." [Old Play]

p. 359 For he that does good, having the unlimited power to do evil, deserves praise not only for the good which he performs, but for the evil which he forbears.

p. 388 …trial moves rapidly on when the judge has determined the sentence beforehand.

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