2723   <   2724   >   2724a       index

a something of’s
 

in progress.
the shorter passages alone (save for year of publication) are listed at 2724a.
 

usages   /   of the expression “a something of”
dictionaries   /   some instances therein
somethings of melancholy   /   for tudo isto é triste
pendings   /   some links not yet pursued
afterword   /   about this project
Ngram viewer   /   a something of   (1800-2008)

bar at left returns to top of page.
 

  1. a something of some few dimensions, a span-long,
    and yet this is but a tanquam nihil

    ...To a blemisht or a deluded eye (and such a one is a mortall eye) my age may be something; a something of some few dimensions, a span-long, and yet this is but a tanquam nihil, a tanquam nihil, unto man, too; as nothing before him: but to thee; to thy eyes (which are brighter then those beames, which dazzle mine) those eyes, substantia mea, purè nihil; no tanquam, there; mine age is nothing; purely nothing, there. Nothing? why? universa vanitas omnis homo, every man is vanity; such a vanity as is stol’n-by; or els, now going; as, yesterday; or, as a watch in the night. And, these have their tanquam nihil, too; are as nothing before thee; so truly nothing, that they make not up an Age, or, a day, but some few houres; enough to make vp the watch of a night; no more.

    tanquam nihil : as if nothing

    ex The Royall Passing-Bell : Or Davids Summons to the Grave. A Sermon preached (lately) in the Parish-Church of Orchard-Portman in Sommerset. At the Funerall of the most hopefull, and truly-noble, Sr. Hugh Portman, Baronet; the great losse and sorrow both of his name and countrie.
    By Humphrey Sydenham... (London, 1630) : 16 :
    link

    Humphrey Sydenham (1591-1650), “royalist divine, famous for his sermons”
    wikipedia : link

  2. The one made as rare a something, of nothing, as ever I heard... Well may these plashes of water, be held

          The truth is, I extreamly admire them both, though I honour them not at all: The one made as rare a something, of nothing, as ever I heard. The other for his skill in Sophistry, is (I confess) a Non-such. Both may be rare Preachers for ought I know; but as he said of one little learned, and lesse modest; who usurped all discourse at the Table: I never heard learning make such a noise: So I never heard a solid Preacher, deliver so many words, for so little matter; so much Oratory, for so little Divinity.
          Well may these plashes of water, be held by some deep Divines: but I presume you may gage their Divinity with one of your fingers. As for their Sermons, (for so men call them; though no otherwise then the Heathen Images are called gods: Nor are they more like Sermons, than Michaels image of goats hair was like David.) I may fitly liken them to a plume of feathers, for which some will give any thing, others just nothing. Or, if I compare them to a Nightingale tongue pye, (as being far more elaborate and costly, than profitable or nourishing;) it is a great Hyperbole.
          Indeed as a Reverend Divine speaks; if I had no other Mistresse then Nature, I would with no other Master then such a Seneca, Cicero, or Demosthenes: but being a Christian, I go not to hear the rarities of human Eloquence, but the eternal Word of God; and more to profit my soul, than to please my senses. A wise man should (yea, a good Christian will) propound to himself some end, some good end of his going to hear: (for he that in his actions, proposeth no mark, or main end to himself; is like a Ship that aimeth at no Harbour; and no wind makes for him, that hath no intended Port to sail unto, neither can he expect any Voyage of advantage.)

    from The People’s Impartial, and Compassionate Monitor; about hearing of Sermons, or, The Worlds Preachers and Proselites lively painted out, for a person of quality, upon occasion of hearing two famous Divines, whose transcendent Wit, oratorie, and Elegancy, made many at their wits end with admiration! Being a rare discovery to Undeceive the Deceived. By R. Younge of Roxwell in Essex. (London, 1653).
    contained in

    A Christian Library; Or, A Pleasant and Plentiful Paradise of Practical Divinity in ten Treatises, of sundry and select subjects, purposely composed to pluck Sinners out of Satans snares, and allure them into the glorious Liberty of the Gospel. By R(ichard). Young, of Roxwell in Essex, Florilegus. (London, 1655) : link

    Richard Younge (fl 1640-70), “Calvinist tract writer”
    wikipedia : link

  3. she is at least aliquid ipsius, a something of that
    that very same, tho not the same it self

          Nox & amor, vinumque, nihil moderabile suadent,
                Illa pudore vacat, Liber amorque metu. Ovid. Am. 1. 1. El.6.
          Night, Love, and Wine, no moderation bear,
          Night knows no shame, and Wine and Love no fear.

    Often in our Love to her, our Love to God is swallowed and postposited. For indeed, Man loves Woman as he ought to love God: With all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his strength. Whether it be from the secret sweetness that gratifie and indulciate all his Spirits at once in his Conversation with her; whether it be from the sense of the fruition and possession of so excellent, and so rational a Creature without himself; or whether it be from the Honour he receives from her by her help of Propagation, whereby even his body weak and corruptible by lengthned successions, draws out toward Immortality; or whether it be from the parity of Natural Union, the being formed at first of the Rib of Man, wherein the Schools observe, there was both Bone, and Flesh, and blood, and Nerves; so that if she be not Idem, she is at least aliquid ipsius, a something of that [324] that very same, tho not the same it self.

    on St. Luke, 14. 20., in Owen Felltham, his Resolves : Divine, Moral, Political. With several new additions both in prose and verse, not extant in the former impressions. In this Eleventh Edition, references are made to the poetical citations, heretofore much wanted. (London, 1696) : 323-324 : link

    Owen Feltham (1602-68)
    wikipedia : link

  4. but Arts too mean a Name,
    ’t must be a Something of superior Frame.

    Surprizing Art! but Arts too mean a Name,
    ’t must be a Something of superior Frame.
    Art may Decays of Nature much restore,
    But to make Nature, must be something more;
    For Arts tyd down to Method, and to Rules,
    By Nature works, as Blacksmiths work by Tools :
    Nor ist inspird, for then ’twould be compleat,
    And all the Organick Hindrances defeat:
    The Soul would talk, scorn the reluctant Ear,
    And by internal Operations hear.
     
    And yet ’tis done, the Supernat’ral’s found,
    They’re taught to form the Words, who know no Sound ;
    They’re taught to speak, who, tho’ they may believe
    They form a Voice, cannot of Voice conceive.
    Strange Power of Art, which thus supplies the Ear,
    And imitates the Sound it cannot hear!

    from [Daniel Defoe], “On the Deaf and Dumb being taught to Speak,” in Mere Nature Delineated : or, a Body without a Soul. Being observations upon the young forester lately brought to town from Germany. With suitable applications. Also, a brief dissertation upon the usefulness and necessity of Fools, whether political or natural. (London, 1726) : 46-53 (48) : link

    The “young forester lately brought to town from Germany” would be Peter the Wild Boy (ca1713-1785; wikipedia)

    On the poem extracted above, see the treatment of “The virtues of dumbness and deafness” in Mihaela Culea, “Addressing the Age-old Question of Human Perfectibility in Daniel Defoe’s Mere Nature Delineated: Or, a Body without a Soul.” Brno Studies in English (2013), at pp 203-204 : link (pdf, via academia.edu)

  5. a sneer, a something of a witty stroke of contempt. It happened

    O TEMPORA! O mores! O! the profligacy the luxury, the venality of this age! cried the unvenal Misanthes, who sold out declamations on virtue, honour, and patriotism, for bread and cheese; and he wrote, and wrote, and wrote, till he had persuaded himself that all the rants of his abusive and injurious pen were precepts of equal authority with those of the twelve tables; he dealt about him, he thundered like a little God of this nether world, and all in the cause of greatness of soul. Nay, I would not swear that there were not certain moments of enthusiastic rapture, when he really mistook the elevated situation of his garret, for a station superior to that of the vile nobility whom he so particularly honoured with his distinctions. Then there was a certain house, a certain rendezvous, near the palace which even raised his humorous contempt. O! the wretches that haunt it are one and all infamous scoundrels thinks Misanthes, and gives them a sneer, a something of a witty stroke of contempt. It happened that a certain very profligate frequenter of that certain house, a great man, had some business with Misanthes, and appointed him to attend on the morrow at his hotel. At the very moment of appointment, he appeared at the noble’s study door. And behold Misanthes!...

    ex Maxims, Characters, and Reflections, critical, satyrical, and moral. (London, 1756) : 153 : link

    authored by Fulke Greville (1717-1806), landowner, known as “a gambler and a dandy,” diplomat
    wikipedia : link
    his wife Frances Greville (née Macartney; c. 1724-89) may have contributed to the volume
    wikipedia : link

  6. MOMENTAˊNEOUS or MOˊMENTARY (A.) something of very

    MOMENTAˊNEOUS or MOˊMENTARY (A.) something of very short duration, or that lasts a very small time.

    ex Thomas Dyche, A new general English dictionary; Peculiarly calculated for the use and improvement of such as are unacquainted with the learned language. Wherein the difficult words, and technical terms... (London, 1760) : link

    Thomas Dyche (d c1733), “schoolmaster and lexicographer”
    wikipedia : link

  7. with a something of additional colour

          “You really think then, passing her arm through his, with a smile of intire approbation, that he has not done me justice? on some occasions, I do not know any body that can distinguish better than yourself, and I confess you have corrected my first hasty opinion, for I now think it might have admitted of some alteration, and if Sir Joshua had made my arms a little fuller, my eyes rather more open, my skin whiter, with a something of additional colour in my cheeks, and the vermillion of my lips a little heightened, it would have been still more masterly, and the likeness better preserved.”
    • This critique being decisively established, without a further reference to the judgment of her husband, they returned to her Ladyship’s dressing-room, she convinced that there might have been a more advantageous likeness, and he, that there was no likeness at all....

    from the novel under review, Mrs. Gunning her Anecdotes of the Delborough Family; A Novel (1792), in The Monthly Review; or, Literary Journal, Enlarged, Vol. 8 (July 1792) : 316-321 (319) : link

    Susannah Gunning (1740?-1800), novelist, famed also for a scandal involving her daughter...
    wikipedia : link

  8. a something of absurdity

    He who has studied the philosophy of mind, and been accustomed to view objects through another medium than the magic colourings of passion and of fancy, readily perceives a something of absurdity in ascribing such wisdom to plants and animals.

    ex “The Instructive Naturalist, No. V. : Of integumation, and irritability,” in An Historical Miscellany of the Curiosities and Rarities in Nature and Art. Comprising new and entertaining descriptions of the most surprising volcanos, caverns, cataracts, whirlpools, water falls, earthquakes, thunder, lightning, and other wonderful and stupendous phenomena of nature... Volume the second (London, 1794) : 171 : link

  9. a something of constraint and confusion in many passages

    The last letter Mary received, was from Milan; Lord Auberry had then been absent fix months, — it breathed the same tenderness, the same ardency of passion as usual; yet there was a something of constraint and confusion in many passages, that did not escape my observation, though I made it in silence, because I would not be the first to sow the envenomed seeds of suspicion in a bosom where tranquillity and confidence had taken up their abode.

    ex Mrs. Gunning, Memoirs of Mary, A Novel. Vol. 2 (of 5) (Third edition. London, 1794) : 180 : link

  10. a something of which running water

    But even these uses of running water, confined as they are to a few situations *, are ill adapted to public roads
    * With respect to the idea held out, that every soil and situation affords “a something,” of which running water will make a road, it is much too wild to give chace to...

    ex chapter 4, on “Roads,” in The rural economy of the Midland counties; including the management of livestock, in Leicestershire and its environs: together with minutes on agriculture and planting in the district of the Midland Station. By Mr. Marshall. v. 1 (of 2) (London, 1796) : 43 : link (U California)

  11. aware of a something of the same nature, since

    But, we are aware of a magnitude in whatever concerns India, which does not admit of a sudden opinion : inferences hastily drawn, are exceedingly dangerous; and, indeed, we presume, that both these writers are aware of a something of the same nature, since they have thought proper to publish their sentiments, at a considerable distance of time before the expiration of the present agreement between the India Company and the nation.

    ex “Considerations upon the Trade with India,” being an essay-length review of two recent books on continuation of the East India Company’s monopoly in India, in The Literary Panorama vol. 2 (London; July 1807) : 808 : link

  12. yet a something of consistency with received fable

    ...are already the property of the poet; and may be mingled, with little impropriety, in new series of invention. Yet a something of consistency with received fable is even here desirable : the desperate lion-hearted theme, the idol of an age of chivalry, was at no period of his live such a lover as Reginald de Brune...

    a review of Francis Lathom, his The Fatal Vow; or, St. Michael’s Monastery (1807) in The Annual Review, and History of Literature; for 1807. Arthur Aikin, editor. Vol. 6 (London, 1808) : 666 : link

    Francis Lathom (1774-1832), playright, novelist (historical fiction, Gothic, satirical)
    wikipedia : link
    an interesting figure, unknown to me until now.
    the book itself (U California copy/scan, via hathitrust) link

  13. a something of diffuseness and protraction may be

    These volumes are an honour and an ornament to British literature: a something of diffuseness and protraction may be forgiven, for information so complete, and instruction so sound.-(A. R.)

    from an extended review of Malcolm Laing, his The History of Scotland (2nd edn, 4 vols), in The Monthly Repertory of English Literature, Arts, Sciences, etc. 16:4 (July 1808) : 373 : link

  14. a something of the same nature whenever

    She was a little surprised that he could spend so many hours with Miss Crawford, and not see more of the sort of fault which he already observed and of which she was almost always reminded by a something of the same nature whenever she was in her company; but so it was.

    Jane Austen, Mansfield Park (1814) : vol 1, p 135 : link

    Here was again a want of delicacy and regard... Here was again a something of the same Mr. Crawford who she had so reprobated before. ..
    vol 3, p 39 : link

  15. but also a something of personal malice. It is unworthy

          He then dutifully congratulates Hanover on the restoration of its old illustrious line — speaks a word of comfort to the injured Hollanders — and ends with an anticipation of restoration and peace.
          [In all this there appears to us not only a good deal of party bitterness, but also a something of personal malice. It is unworthy of both parties. Why, says Dugald Stewart, do not men of superior talents learn, for the honour of the arts which they love, to conceal their ignoble enmities from the malignity of those whom mortified pride and conscious incapacity have leagued together as the covenanted foes of worth and genius From the Eclectic Review, a very unequal work, but occasionally displaying much ability, we have extracted the following article, which, while it is marked by good sense and taste, breathes a spirit of candour not to be found in the Edinburgh oriticism.]

    a laudatory review of Carmen Triumphale, for the commencement of the year 1814. By Robert Southey, Esq. Poet Laureat., and attack on the vituperative and sarcastic criticism of certain “Edinburgh Revewers”
    in The Analectic Magazine, “containing selections from foreign reviews and magazines of such articles as are most valuable, curious, or entertaining” 4 (Philadelphia; July 1814) : 19-24 (20) :
    link

    Analectic Magazine
    wikipedia : link

  16. still a something of the day

    Perchance she died in youth: it may be...
     
    Perchance she died in age — surviving all,
    Chars, kindred, children — with the silver grey
    On her long tresses, which might yet recal,
    It may be, still a something of the day

    When they were braided, and her proud array
    And lovely form were envied, praised, and eyed
    By Rome — But wither would Conjecture stray?
    Thus much alone we know — Metella died...

    ex Canto IV, 102-103 of “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” in The Works of the Right Hon. Lord Byron, vol. 2 (of 2); (London, 1815) : 54 : link

  17. a something of wholeness and connection seems wanting

    An Appendix contains Letters on Sumatra, which are nine in number; and some tables of the thermometer and barometer, as observed in different parts of Hindostan.
          This handsome work is illustrated by maps, by coloured plates, and by various views of the objects described. If it is more replete with instruction than with amusement, consults more the useful than the agreeable, and aspires to be serviceable rather than to supply entertainment, we hope that these considerations will operate as additional motives with purchasers to patronize so meritorious an effort. The portions of the volume were composed progressively at distant times and places; and they are not arranged in strict chronological order, nor grouped according to their contents: so that a something of wholeness and connection seems wanting. All its parts, however, display a completeness of information, and a soundness of judgment, which place the author high among the writers of travels., Still, we think that the old method, of putting down observations when and where they occur, is more conducive to a lively interest, than this subsequent classification and condensation of them into distinct dissertations. We have here a box of pearls, but the string seems wanting which should give them cohesion, and unite them in one conspicuous ornament. The traveller should not lose that character. in the duties of the geographer, and commix the notices of others with his own: his local details delight as steps of a progress in which the reader is become interested for its own sake: but, as parts of a statistical survey, they are often insufficiently important.

    a review, with extracts of, Tracts, Historical and Statistical, on India; with journals of several Tours though various Parts of the Peninsula: also an Account of Sumatra, in a Series of Letters. By Benjamin Heyne.
    in The Monthly Review. Vol. 79 (March 1816) : 311-320 :
    link

  18. a something of resentment
    a something of pleasing connection

    Harriet expressed herself very much, as might be supposed, without reproaches, or apparent sense of ill usage; and yet Emma fancied there as a something of resentment, a something bordering on it in her style, which increased the desireableness of their being separate. — It might be only her own consciousness; but it seemed as if an angel only could have been quite without resentment under such a stroke.

    Jane Austen, Emma (1816) : vol 3, p 290 : link

    ...and how much more might have been said but for the restraints of propriety. — The charm of her own name was not wanting. Miss Woodhouse appeared more than once, and never without a something of pleasing connection...
    vol 2, p 245 : link

  19. there is a something of hospitality

    In your reception at a western Pennsylvania tavern, there is a something of hospitality combined with the mercantile feelings of your host.

    ex Morris Birkbeck, Notes on a Journey in America : From the Coast of Virginia to the Territory of Illinois. With proposals for the establishment of a colony of English. (Philadelphia, 1817) : 43 link
    Morris Birkbeck (1724-1865) : wikipedia : link (quite a story here)

  20. an air of reproof in this remark; a something of asperity, that Cornelia could not understand

          “Not ask his name!” repeated Cornelia, looking down upon the deathly face on her lap; “what has he done to be ashamed of it?”
          Louis turned almost of the same ashy hue: “do men never seek concealment but from infamy?”
          “I would not think so ill of any man you could love;” replied she, “and certainly not of this;” her eye again falling on the finely composed features before her; “for here the finger of heaven seems to have written true nobleness.”
          “Cornelia;” returned he, “when we obey the commands of Him who told of the Samaritan binding up the wounds of the stranger, and bade us do likewise; he did not say, inquire of his virtues first; but behold his misery, and relieve it!”
          There was an air of reproof in this remark; a something of asperity, that Cornelia could not understand; and instead of its raising doubts in her mind relative to the character of the stranger, she cast down her eyes in silence, to conjecture what she had done to merit such unusual harshness from the unerring candour of her beloved cousin. The features her meditating gaze dwelt on, were to her an unimpeachable witness of good within. But what would she have felt, could she have been told at that moment, that the object of Louis’s distracted thoughts, and her own then unqualified pity and admiration, was the delusive, treacherous, and out-lawed Duke Wharton!

    ex The Pastor’s Fire-Side, A Novel, in Four volumes. By Miss Jane Porter, author of Thaddeus of Warsaw, Sidney’s Aphorisms, and the Scottish Chiefs. Vol. 4. (London, 1817) : 347 : link (Bodleian copy/scan)
    U California copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link

    Jane Porter (1776-1850)
    wikipedia : link

  21. Catherine’s mind was greatly eased by this information, yet a something of solicitude remained, from which sprang the following question, thoroughly artless in itself, though rather distressing to the gentleman: — “But, Mr. Tilney, why were you less generous than your sister? If she felt such confidence in my good intentions, and could suppose it only a mistake, why should you be so ready to take offence?”
          “Me! — I take offence!”

    Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey (published together with Persuasion in 1818), vol 1 (of 4) : 216 : link

    A something of languid indifference, or of that boasted absence of mind which Catherine had never heard of before, would occasionally come across her; but had nothing worse appeared, that might only have spread a new grace and inspired a warmer interest. But when Catherine saw her in public, admitting Captain Tilney’s attentions as readily as they were offered, and allowing him almost an equal share with James in her notice and smiles, the alteration became too positive to be past over. What could be meant by such unsteady conduct, what her friend could be at, was beyond her comprehension.

    Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey (published together with Persuasion in 1818) vol 2 (of 4) : 52 : link

  22. They were in Union-street, when a quicker step behind, a something of familiar sound, gave her two moments preparation for the sight of Captain Wentworth. He joined them; but, as if irresolute whether to join or pass on, said nothing — only looked. Anne could command herself enough to receive that look, and not repulsively. The cheeks which had been pale now glowed, and the movements which had hesitated were decided. He walked by her side.

    Jane Austen, Persuasion (1818) : 278 : link

    [aside : what music in those sentences !, commas as if bars, measures ]

  23. There is a something of distrust and overniceness in it; but this may wear off

    There are two new singers here, Miss TREE from Bath, and Mr. PHILIPPS who has returned from America, Miss TREE is an acquisition to the theatre. If she is not of the first class of singers, she is one of the very first of the second rate; and we suspect that in a room, her vocal powers would show themselves in a still higher and plea santer shape, to those who prefer feeling and execution. This will shew our readers wirat kind of a singer we think her. What she wants as a stage singer is power, both of execution and voice. In the former she is uneasy and forced; and the latter she does not seem able to throw out to any great distance. It is not to be thought however what is generally understood as a weak voice. She cannot pour it forth in a continued stream till it fills a large theatre, nor dart it out in that triumphant manner like lightning, as CATALANI used to do. But it is not thin and feeble in itself. If it is no great traveller, it is an excellent solid homester. The lower tones sometimes strike one as too rich, but the middle ones are to our ears perfect, natural, and delicious; and she seems quite at home in songs that hold a middle place between the ballad and the scientific. Miss Stephens manages both these extremes better; but Miss Tree would be a most valuable fellow-performer with her, taking the instance the parts which though somewhat inferior in singing, are superior in rank of character, — as that of a lady, where the other might act the country girl: for besides being a genteel singer in the best sense of the word, she has a greater air of polite life in her manners. — People will differ about her looks, in respect to handsomeness. Those who think the late Miss RAY (Mrs. HORN) beautiful, will perhaps think Miss TREE so. The expression of her face when quiescent does not appear to us handsome. There is a something of distrust and overniceness in it; but this may wear off, with the uneasiness of a first appearance. When her features are in motion, there is a very different look in them, mixed up of a languour in the eyes and good-natured vivacity about the mouth. She is also a graceful figure, slender but not thin.
          We wish we could speak as well of Mr. Phillips...

    ex “The Theatrical Examiner, No. 376,” performances at Covent Garden, in The Examiner No. 612 (London; Sunday, September 19, 1819) : 603 : link

  24. do you mean a something of... do you mean a sort of inward light?

    2. By religion do you mean a mere outward obedience to certain rules and regulations of an ecclesiastical nature? Do you mean a something of a political kind? Do you mean a sort of inward light? Or, do you mean the practice of virtue? Do you mean an influence, which prevents men from committing extortionate, cruel, and tyrannical acts; that will not suffer them to oppress the poor, to imprison or or kill men on false charges, or under false pretences?

    ex “Letter II to Mr. Canning,” Cobbett’s Weekly Political Register 35:5 (London, Saturday, April 15, 1820) : 311 : link

  25. and a something of interest

          Lady Courteney, who was a woman of grave composed manners, of austere morals, and of strict religious principles, possessed no relish for this gay and bustling scene; she would much rather have held with those holy men of her creed, who promulgate and explain the Gospels, social conversation, which oscillating between the upper and nether world, would alternately take into consideration the conversion of the unbelievers here on earth and the bliss of the elect in heaven. But such as these sought not nor found admission in such tumultuary scenes; occasionally employed therefore on the contemplation of her own pious thoughts, to which she made, in defiance of the gay crowd, faithful and frequent recurrence, she sat in the temple where the refreshments were spread, and which overlooked the sprightly scene, a tranquil but indifferent spectator. Yet strange to tell, the natural apathy of her character seemed for an instant to abandon her, as she beheld major Blandford lead Miss Courteney to join the dancers at the commencement of the third set; and a something of interest gave a new-born expression of animation to her cold features, while she inquired of a lady who sat next her concerning the gentleman’s character and expectations. Whatever might have been the information which lady Courteney received on this occasion, it had, after some minutes of deep meditation, a most happy effect in relaxing into a kind of smiling complaisance her usually grave countenance. She appeared to observe with pleasure the major’s polite attention to her daughter, and when on a summons to supper, the company withdrew from the gardens into the house, she committed, with an affable and frank confidence, the young lady to his protection.
          Geraldine, disciplined for the last eight years in the severe school of rigorous self-denial, could no otherwise account for this extraordinary condescension in her frigid mamma towards major Blandford, but by supposing that gentleman endued with superlative perfections.

    ex Mrs. Kelly [author of The Matron of Erin &c.], The Fatalists; or, Records of 1814 and 1815. A Novel. Vol. 1 (of five); (London, 1821) : 24 : link
    Bodleian copy
    vol 4-5 (via google books) : link

    these links provided to ensure I can find these vols again —
    BL copy/scan (vols 1-3), via google books : link BL copy/scan (vols 4-5), via google books : link

    Bodleian copy —
    vols 1-3 : link (pdf)
    vols 4-5 : link (pdf)

    Her The Matron of Erin : A National Tale (London, 1816) : link

    I am confused about the author; the title page describes Mrs. Kelly as author of The Matron of Erin which is known to be authored by Isabella Kelly (or at least is thus catalogued at the Bodleian : permalink). If Isabella, this would be Isabella Kelly (née Fordyce, later Hedgeland), ca 1759-1857 : link (bio at Eighteenth Century Women Poets: An Oxford Anthology), and
    wikipedia : link
    but none of this is clear.

    Isabella Kelly is known as a Gothic novelist.

    I have no access to Yael Shapira, “Beyond the Radcliffe Formula: Isabella Kelly and the Gothic Troubles of the Married Heroine” in Women's Writing 26:3 (2019) : 245-263 : link
    abstract —
    Though largely forgotten today, Isabella Kelly (c.1759–1857) was a successful Gothic novelist who published regularly with William Lane’s Minerva Press and was given a prominent place in the press’s publicity materials. One plausible reason why contemporary criticism has overlooked Kelly is that writers of her publishing profile tend to be dismissed as mere “imitators” of their famous contemporary Ann Radcliffe. This essay attempts to challenge that belief by demonstrating Kelly’s suggestive divergence from the Radcliffe Gothic pattern with regard to one central plot element: marriage. Recognizing women’s vulnerability in marriage, Radcliffe’s novels seem to promise that a particular kind of woman can avoid the Gothic potential of wedlock. Kelly, by contrast, seems to have far fewer illusions about the ability of any woman to avoid marital suffering, and presents instead a recurrent narrative in which the heroine’s own marriage devolves into Gothic hostility and violence, and then sets itself to rights again. As the essay argues, the changing critical notion of a “female Gothic” may gain further nuance by factoring in popular women writers like Kelly, whom Radcliffe’s “canonization” has relegated to the ignored margins of the Gothic phenomenon.

    Yael Shapira’s publications : link

    She may also be Elizabeth Kelly, wife of Dennis Kelly, born and educated in Ireland, a pastor and writer, whose Posthumous Sermons (1867) contains a dedication by one Elizabeth Kelly. link

    over the whole surface of his composition a something of

    And withal, there was diffused over the whole surface of his composition a something of opulent and luxurious and stately, which was well calculated to inspire lofty hopes, and to lend even to visible defects the appearance of so many pledges of future excellence.

    ex review (not wholly positive) of [The Rev. H. H.] Milman’s The Martyr of Antioch : A Dramatic Poem, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 42:11 (March 1822) : 267 : link
    Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868, wikipedia)

  26. of mind; and a something of

    In his whole deportment, however, there was visible a certain dignity of mind; and a something of conscious superiority, which could not at all times be suppressed or wholly withdrawn from observation.

    Charles Symmons, The Life of John Milton (London, 1822) : 435 : link

  27. which anticipates in these sounds a something of moment to come

    . . . For these reasons, not even a short strain, consisting of the same sound, can be melodious. I consider, then, more than a single sound in succession to be essential to melody. I have, it is true, in all the instances I have yet brought, adduced examples connected with words, and consequently with definite ideas. If we take passages of repeated single sounds — such as are to be found in Haydn’s symphonies for instance — we shall perceive they are agreeable principally as they tend to rouse expectation. They are made interesting, as it were, by the anticipation of what they announce. In themselves, as melody, they are nothing. The simple question then to be solved is, whether melody can be made of one single sound, and it appears to me that it cannot. Etymology sometimes helps us out of a difficulty of this kind. The Greek word μέλος is translated carmen modulatum — modulated song; which word modulated, I apprehend, implies variety of inflexion, and if so, sets all doubt at rest.
          Let us now proceed to consider the effect of more than one interval. As the least removed from a single sound, I shall instance the chromatic opening of the symphony to the recitative, “For behold darkness shall cover the earth,” in Handel’s Messiah. This passage is constructed chiefly upon two sounds. If it cannot be said to be absolutely pleasing, it rouses and prepares and interests the mind, which anticipates in these sounds a something of moment to come. Here, however, the effect of rhythm is palpable.

    “To the Editor; On the philosophy of musical composition, No. 6.” In The Quarterly Musical Magazine and Review 5:18 (1823) : 145-152 (150) : link

  28. and that a something of deception

    It must, however, be admitted, that originality of thought, grandeur of design, and the inculcation of moral feeling, are but seldom discoverable in the productions of modern genius; and that a something of deception resembling the juggler, who while he waves the box in the air, is endeavouring to take advantage of the senses and pockets of his audience, is substituted in their stead.

    ex “Observations on the Modern Drama” in The Literary Magnet of the Belles Lettres, Science, and the Fine Arts vol 1 (London, 1824) : 194-194 : link

    wikipedia on The Literary Magnet : link, and
    on its co-founder (with his son Egerton Anthony Brydges), Egerton Brydges (1762-1837) : link

  29. without a something of a certain kind

    The testimonies of a first cause of all beings, namely God, from the light of nature.
          First, — The existence of all beings in their respective kinds, denote that there must be a being who produced them into existence; for all evidencies [sic] of the most minute sort declare, that nothing must produce nothing; hence, without a something of a certain kind, nothing of that kind can remain: there can be no branch without a stock or stem; no fruit without a tree; no stream without a fountain; no effect without a cause.

    The Theological Reasoner, or The mysteries of Divinity Explained, by a Christian Friend to Truth. (Liverpool, 1824) : 11 : link
    Bodleian copy/scan : permalink

    interesting errata : link
    Page 40, Last word in the second line from the bottom, read in life.
    Page 252, Last word in the second line from the bottom, read contentious.

  30. a something of more tenderness

    “There are cold hearted beings in the world, who, could they see my manner of expressing myself, would think it overwrought: you are not among the number. I do not trouble myself while I write with what others may think, but with what I think myself: it is this which guides my pen. I express my feelings; they may be strong, but I trust I shall never be ashamed of them.”
          Eliza dwelt upon these expressions with much pleasure. The liveliness of Miss Rochford’s feelings could not fail in a heart such as Eliza’s to excite a similarity of sentiment. She was very grateful for this lavish fondness, yet if the truth must be owned, she was somewhat overpowered by its energy. Towards Mrs. De Lisle her feelings assumed a something of more tenderness : it might be the ill health of Mrs. De Lisle that softened her heart, but the language of those few short letters which she received was more in unison with the state of her own mind. Or was it that Mrs. De Lisle was the cousin of Major Douglas, and that her friendship seemed a remnant of the past? However it might be, there was more congeniality between them.

    ex Massenburg. A tale; in Three Volumes (vol 2). [By Mrs. C. M. Cadell.] (London, 1825) : 129 : link (BL copy/scan)
    Bodleian : permalink (and access to pdf)

    Cecilia Caddell (1814-77), Catholic; wrote fiction, also about Lourdes, missions, etc.
    wikipedia : link

    Wild Times (1877) : Bodleian : permalink

    A History of the Missions in Japan and Paraguay (London, 1856) : link

  31. but there is a something of a heat of mind, or an irritation

          I reside in the county of Longford, and in the discharge of my duties, and in the discharge of the duties of the inferior clergy who are under my direction, I consider it right to cooperate with the magistrates of the country in endeavouring to maintain the tranquillity of the country, and to secure obedience to the laws, and I have always been tolerably successful in having it so; I always believed it a matter of the utmost necessity; and whenever I have found in the diocese committed to my care, that there was not that kind of harmony between the magistrates and the Roman Catholic clergy, I think, in the same proportion, in general that neighbourhood was not tranquil. And in the discharge of that portion of my duty, I have always met with the active and zealous co-operation of the magistrates of the country. I have met with it in the county of Fermanagh, where I was first placed, in the county of Leitrim, and in the county of Longford, and no part of the country I was ever placed in, was disturbed. I was fortunate in that respect, for it is scarcely possible to describe the effect it produces on the public mind, when they see men of both religions, in public situations, go hand in hand with each other. And I have no doubt, that the magistracy of the county of Longford attribute the tranquillity of the county, in a very considerable degree, to the cordial co-operation which exists between the Justices of the peace and the Roman Catholic clergy. I do believe it is a general feeling. I think I get more credit myself perhaps than I deserve, but it is a general feeling; much credit is due to Lord Forbes. Generally speaking, there is no open hos- [282] tility between the two sects, in the county of Longford; but there is a something of a heat of mind, or an irritation, but nothing of a violent nature, which I attribute to party feelings of Orangemen and Ribbonmen, and the question of Catholic Emancipation, with the feelings of hope on one side, accompanied with some fear perhaps, and apprehesion on the other side; there are two parties, and they are kept at that kind of distance, arising from a variety of causes, that I am not able to describe.
          Having alluded to Catholic Emancipation, I would also add, that a strong feeling of anxiety upon that subject, exists amongst the bulk of the peasantry. I know if they were asked what emancipation meant, they perhaps would not be able to define it; but they have a feeling that they are belonging to an excluded cast, and that they are not treated like other subjects; that there is something wrong with them, and they are very anxious to be relieved from this kind of slavery, which they are not able to explain; and I think a great deal of the misfortunes of Ireland arise from the disrespect of the lower orders to the laws. They are of opinion, that the laws were not made for their protection; they know no parts of them, except the penal and punishing parts; and I can easily conceive that in their little meetings on winter nights, they have amongst themseves many traditionary stories regarding the sufferings of their ancestors...

    ex A Digest of the Evidence in the Second Report of the Select Committee on the State of Ireland; by George White, Clerk to the Committee (London, 1825) : 282 : link

  32. a certain softness, a something of easy satisfaction

    The ladies there were allowed occasionally to mix more in the world, under the care of their friends, than at Whitelands. This gave the ladies at Alsop House more of that ease which, when wanting, the brightest accomplishments are lost, and never appear to that advantage, as when blended with a certain softness, a something of easy satisfaction, which is so natural to those who possess it.
          Miss Agassiz had been established there under the special patronage of the Duchess of Gordon, and her talents and morals did honour to her patroness. Almost all the ladies there, were of that family, or some relatives or friends of theirs. The number was nine, and therefore, was capable of embracing every advantage with comfort and ease. I had been about three months in this abode, and I felt happy in the society of my friends, when an attachment commenced between myself and some of the eldest and most particular young ladies there, of a durable nature.       During that time, Mr. A—, whom I sometimes met at Mrs. Shafford’s, used to visit us in his elegant curricle. He introduced his sisters shortly after to me, and his calls became frequent, and his attentions too pointed to be mistaken. They were great, also, to Miss Agassiz, and being a man of high character and elegant manners, Miss Agassiz consulted Mr. Monk upon the propriety of allowing his calls. Mr. Monk, however, would not controul me, as I intended to make Mr. A— my banker...

    ex Memoirs of Miss C. E. Cary, (Written by Herself) who was Retained in the Service of the Late Queen Caroline, to fill the situation in Her Majesty’s Household Next to Lady Ann Hamilton; containing interesting anecdotes of some of the first persons in this country, and an Exposition of the Recrimination intended to have been brought forward by the late Queen’s Party, but which was prevented by Miss Cary; with Proofs and Documents in support of the Facts. (London, 1825) : 291 : link
    same (U Michigan copy/scan), 3 vols in 1, via hathitrust : link

    Catherine E. Cary, no information at hand; her book concerns scandals around Queen Caroline — Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (Caroline Amelia Elizabeth; 1768-1821), Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Queen of Hanover from 29 January 1820 until her death in 1821 as the estranged wife of King George IV....
    wikipedia : link

  33. a very dexterous kind of doctrine — a something of a special plea

    Ministers have, in fact, sheltered themselves under a very dexterous kind of doctrine — a something of a special plea, by thus thrusting forward the charter of the Bank; and I do not feel at all surprised that the Bank, however unwilling they may be to carry such a measure into execution, have granted their consent, rather than see, living as they do in the middle of the city, all their own friends and connexions mouldering to pieces around them, for want of that aid which the Government alone should have afforded them...

    Speech by Mr. Tierney, re: the “Paper Currency and Commercial Distress” in Parliamentary History and Review : Containing Reports of the two houses of Parliament during the session of 1826: — 7 Geo. IV. (London, 1826) : 294 : link

    probably George Tierney (1761-1830), “Irish Whig politician”
    wikipedia : link

  34. a something, of the essence of which we know nothing

    This “plan of business,” it should seem, was not found sufficiently determinate and precise to confine the speculations of the members within due bounds. We perceive accordingly, that at a meeting holden in the course of the same year, the “Academy having taken into consideration the inconveniencies resulting from the want of general principles, which might be taken for granted in all physical inquiries, and from the free and unrestrained introduction of metaphysical points, on which the members, either from the strength of speculative or practical habits, or the abstract nature of the subjects themselves, can never come to an agreement, judged it expedient to adopt the following principles, reserving to themselves the power of altering or modifying them as experience shall dictate :
    “1.   Mind exists — a something, of the essence of which we know nothing, but the existence of which we must suppose, on account of the effect which it produces; that is, the modification of which we are conscious.
    “2.   Matter exists — a something, of the essence of which we are entirely ignorant, but the existence of which we necessarily believe, in consequence of the effects which it produces; that is, the sensations and perceptions which we receive by means of the organs of sense...”

    extract from Account of the Life and Writings of Thomas Brown, M.D. late Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. By the Rev. David Welsh... (1825), in
    The Museum of Foreign Literature and Science (January 1826) : 38-42 (39) :
    link

    Thomas Brown (1778-1820), physician, philosopher, poet; “renowned as a physician for his structured thinking, diagnostic skills, and prodigious memory;” Chair of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh University from 1810 to 1820
    wikipedia : link

  35. and that curative agency is resolvable into a something of change

    In instances like this, then, — and something like it is constantly occurring, — we are compelled to give up the doctrine of excitement, or stimulation, and adopt, in a sort of empirical or confused way, the conclusions of those men who talked about the humours of the body, or who conceived that in the blood and fluids was to be found the essence of disease, as well as the principle of life, and that curative agency is resolvable into a something of change brought about in them.
          But that the humoral doctrines of medicine are themselves also fallible, may be proved by a variety of examples. Who shall say what is added to, or abstracted from, any of the body’s fluids, when in a moment mere mental impulse shall so change the whole man, that from a healthy or sane, he plunges at once into a diseased or insane state; his thoughts and his feelings, and his actions and his countenance, being at complete variance with his former self; and withal, having some of the secretions of his body, which before were without any offensive odour, now offensive in the extreme?

    David Uwins, A Treatise on those Diseases which Are Either Directly or Indirectly Connected with Indigestion : Comprising a Commentary on the Principal Ailments of Children (London, 1827) : 36 : link

    David Uwins (c.1780–1837), also authored A Treatise on those Disorders of the Brain and Nervous System which are usually considered and called Mental (1833)
    wikipedia : link

  36. a something of solemnity

    The sight of an execution is not always terrible to other criminals, because to brave death is not rarer than to fear it. But this sight has, for its certain and infallible consequence, either to diminish the hatred of murder, by teaching men to look calmly at violent death, inflicted in cold blood, and taking something from the infamy of the criminal, by inspiring pity for his sufferings. It even gives, to the last moments of the culprit, a something of solemnity, which, while he is exposed, almost changes public feeling, and gives him, like a martyr, a title to admiration.

    conclusion of “Inquiry into the Right or Justice of the Punishment of Death,” The Oriental Herald 16:51 (March 1828) : 421-429 : link

  37. happy production, a something of this truth

    However variously the dominion of gifted minds over the faculty of imagination may be exercised, one grand two-fold division will embrace the operation of the whole. The first and the most important of these departments, comprises that plastic species of intellect, which may be termed the assumptive, or more properly still, the assimilative. Like the dervise in the Persian tale, it can make excursions at will, and almost instinctively animate any assignable modification of humanity, or even of conceivable existence. The second not unfrequently includes an equal portion of mental vigour, but being more deeply tinged with thought, and imbued with the feelings and convictions of the individual, may not inaptly take the name of the self-emanative or reflective. Proceeding a little further in the way of analysis, the former seems to imply a tendency to deal with perceptions chiefly as materiel for conceptions, and the latter, to indicate a proneness to ponder over them, with a view to conclusions, or opinions. A little consideration of these habitudes might lead à priori to a conviction, that the creative or combinative principle, at least as to an able dealing with sensible images and impressions, must be much more active in the one class of mind, than the other, the possessors of which almost involuntarily fall into prevalent trains of idea, so as gradually to become slaves to them. Such indeed is felt to be the fact as regards works of imagination in general, but particularly those of the dramatist and novelist, and public approbation has for a long time past been awarded accordingly.
          The foregoing remarks have been rendered prefatory to a brief notice of another novel by the author of Pelham, partly because as a writer of considerable power, feeling, and literary aptitude, he stands among the foremost of the prose fictionists of the hour, and partly because he forms a conspicuous example of the truth of the specified theory. For instance, while possessed of most of the secondary attributes in an eminent degree, he is anything but spontaneously or felicitously inventive. A choice of subject singularly adapted to the writer’s taste, associations, and experience, might, so far as regards Pelham, have inspired a doubt of this fact; but even in that very happy production, a something of this truth was discernible, and the “Disowned” and “Devereux,” have put the real state of the case beyond question.

    review of Devereux in The Westminster Review, Vol. 11 (October 1829) : 490-494 (490) : link

    The novel was by Edward Bulwer Lytton (1803-1873)
    wikipedia : link
    wikipedia page devoted to the novel : link

  38. wants what is much easier to feel, than describe, a something of order and the result of cultivated perceptions

          Beyond this growing village [Little Falls], you enter the far famed settlement of the German Flats, so noted for their fertility, and their place in the history of the Canadian and Indian wars, and so finely sketched by Mrs. Grant and others. Herkimer is a considerable village in this alluvial tract. But the country, rich and delightful as it is, wants the Connecticut river villages, wants the neatness and taste of Yankee establishments, wants what is much easier to feel, than describe, a something of order and the result of cultivated perceptions, certainly found in higher perfection in New-England, than in any other portion of our country. But the eye traces, in new villages, neat houses, and establishments strongly contrasting with the old outre ‘residenter’ buildings, that New-England is gradually making its way among the Dutch villages in this direction. Canals, like turnpikes, taking directions from convenience and locality, are not often seen passing through the villages, and showing most habitancy and cultivation. This accounts for less show of villages and houses: along the canal, than might otherwise be expected. Thirty years hence, the banks of the canal will be a continued village.

    ex Timothy Flint, “A Tour” in The Western Monthly Review Vol. 2 (October 1828) : 249-263 (252) : link

    Timothy Flint (1780-1840)
    brief sketch at The Dead Poets of Massachusetts : link

  39. extract a something, of

    Pondered the subjects of four tragedies to be written (life and circumstances permitting), to wit [Sardanapalus, Cain, Francesca of Rimini, Tiberius]... I think that I could extract a something, of my tragic, at least, out of the gloomy sequestration and old age of the tyrant — and even out of his sojourn at Caprea — by softening the details, and exhibiting the despair which must have led to those very vicious pleasures. For none but a powerful and gloomy mind overthrown would have had recourse to such solitary horrors, — being also, at the same time, old, and the master of the world.
    Memoranda.
    What is Poetry? — The feeling of a Former world and Future.
    Thought Second.
    Why, at the very height of desire and human pleasure, — wordly, social, amorous, ambitious, or even avaricious, does there mingle a certain sense of doubt and sorrow — a fear of what is to come — a doubt of what is — a retrospect to the past, leading to a prognostication of the future.

    entry for January 28, 1821, in Letters and Journals of Lord Byron : With Notices of His Life, by Thomas Moore. Complete in one volume. (Paris, 1831) : 371 : link

  40. a something of obscurity

    It includes much useful information, and many valuable precepts; but there is a something of obscurity in the arrangement, which, it is likely, will render it in some measure a sealed book to those who have not the advantage of a teacher.

    from a review of Gabriel Surenne, his The Pocket French Grammatical and Critical Dictionary (1830), in The Imperial Magazine; or, Compendium of Religious, Moral & Philosophical Knowledge (December 1830) : 1138-1140 (1139) : link

  41. A something of care, and a something less taxes

    The blind would give something a something to see,
    A deaf man give something to come and hear me;
    The lame would give something to run, but in vain,
    The old would give something to grow young again;
    The lawyer wants something, that something’s a fee,
    And gives something — advice — but advice take from me,
    For the something you give, you a something will get,
    That something will be empty pockets to let.
                      That something we love, &c.
     
    The soldier wants something who gloriously bled,
    But the something he next wants may chance be his head;
    The king wants by something his people to ease,
    The something he wishes is plenty and peace.
    The people want something their trade to renew,
    That something’s a ministry upright and true;
    For something we need when our commerce relaxes,
    A something of care, and a something less taxes.
                      This something we love, &c.
     
    Take nothing from nothing there’s nothing remain,
    Take something from something and something you gain...

    from “Something.” An Original Comic Song, by W. J. Freeman. Tune — Nothing. in The Apollo: A Collection of the Most Popular Songs, Recitations, Duets, Glees, Choruses, &c. &c.; Intermixed with many originals, and some of the most favorite of Dibdin, Hudson, W. H. Freeman, &c. Vol. III. (London, 1830) : 260-263 : link

    all three volumes, U California copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link

  42. a something of self in all their speculations

    “Lovers may, and, indeed, generally are enemies, but they never can be friends; because there must always be a spice of jealousy and a something of self in all their speculations.
          “Indeed, I rather look upon love altogether as a sort of hostile transaction, very necessary to make or to break matches, and keep the world going, but by no means a sinecure to the parties concerned.”

    ex letter dated November 10, 1822, in Letters and Journals of Lord Byron : With Notices of His Life, By Thomas Moore (complete in one volume; Paris, 1831) : 441 : link

  43. a something of which
    a something of which he connects

    Far from adopting this idea, space, like time, to me appears actually to be in itself a something positive, a something created, a something of which the being or the not being makes a prodigious difference, independent of that of the attributes more late and partial again made to appear within it: a something of which, as of time, in a dreamless sleep, we may have no perception, while when awake and receiving sensations, we may of it have a positive consciousness, even though we actually have not yet a consciousness of any thing else more definite and distinct contained in it; since of space as of time we may perceive portions different from and larger or smaller than others, and since whatever may be compared with something else, and have of a peculiar condition a greater or a less quantity, must in so far needs exist and be perceptible.

    Thomas Hope, An Essay on the Origin and Prospects of Man, Vol. 1 (of 3); (London, 1831) : 95 : link
    NYPL copy/scan

    Ye who value words more than things, look not with contempt upon this scene of what may pass in your minds for misapplied heroism! Learn that the very fundamental organisation of the janissaries renders the vessel, in which are cooked their daily rations, the rallying point of each regiment — the token whose loss casts a lasting dishonour upon those to whom it belonged: and that, provided the common soldier has a something of which he connects the defence with his individual fame, it signifies little whether it be a copper vessel, or a piece of painted silk; an eagle or a flesh-pot.
          My division had suffered the least in our defeat.

    Thomas Hope, Anastasius, or Memoirs of a Greek; written at the close of the Eighteenth Century. By Thomas Hope, Esq. Vol. 2 (of 2); (1819; this printing, Paris, 1831) : 68 : link

    Thomas Hope (1769-1831), “Dutch-British interior and Regency designer, traveler, author, philosopher, art collector, and partner in the banking firm Hope & Co.”
    wikipedia : link

  44. tar, a something of light heart

    There is, in a British tar, a something of light heart, which keeps him above water in the storm, and exhilarates his spirits in the calm, more especially when enjoying the comforts of dry land, and indulging in the delights of home and native shore.

    ex “The Foundling of Liverpool,” by the author of the Hermit in London, in The Ladies’ Museum “New and improved series” 1:1 (London; January 1831) : 1 : link

    same story appears (under different title : “The Family Violin”) in Blackwood's Lady’s Magazine and Gazette (“Improved series enlarged”); (London; December 1845) : 241-248 (242) : link

    The author of the The Hermit in London; or, Sketches of English Manners would be Felix M’Donogh (1768?-1836). The book appeared in 1819 (five volumes).
    Bodleian : permalink

  45. and a something of gloom

    And a something of gloom on his spirit weigh’d,
    As he caught the last sounds of his native shade;
    But he knew not, till many a bright spell broke,
    How deep were the oracles nature spoke!

    last quatrain of “Nature’s Farewell,” in Mrs. Hemans, The Poetical Works of vol 1 (Philadelphia, 1832) : 120 : link

    Felicia Hemans (1793-1835), “Regarded as the leading female poet of her day, Hemans was immensely popular during her lifetime in both England and the United States”
    wikipedia : link

  46. with grave politeness, and with a something of displeasure lurking

          The gentlemen themselves arrived at length-they came on horseback, retired immediately into their apartments to dress, and in due time made their appearance in the drawing-room, where Mr. Hamilton, surrounded by his family, waited to receive them. Colonel Vavasour entered first. Compared with the common society at Newtown Hamilton, he might be termed an Apollo of Belvedere for beauty, and his manners were worthy of the court of Louis XIV. but judging by a more ordinary standard, the world at large — he was a plain, unaffected, gentleman-like looking man, somewhat set off by a military dress, and a less artificial cause, a military carriage. He paid his compliments to the whole party with grave politeness, and with a something of displeasure lurking in his countenance; as if the gain of good quarters was a poor compensation for the sacrifice of the ease and independence of the mess or an inn. Not so his companion: Major Stuart was, without the possibility of its being questioned, a handsome man — added to which, his very perfect features were animated by a most intelligent countenance; and his manners were not only good, but of that kind which bear the stamp of the world and of the best society; he could be agreeable as well as polished; and Geraldine also knew that beauty, intelligence, and pleasing manners, were not his only recommendations; and that within his noble exterior, was that which passeth show —a benevolent heart; for in Major Stuart she beheld the benefactor of Malony; one glance showed that their former interview was remembered, and that she needed not the introduction her father made between them.
          Minutes in Ireland to Geraldine’s mind moved like hours, and a Newtown Hamilton evening was an age of ennui and melancholy. What a transformation did one man produce!

    ex Miss Macleod, Geraldine Hamilton; or, Self-guidance. A Tale. Vol. 1 (of two); (London, 1832) : 105 : link (National Library of Scotland copy/scan, via google books)
    Bodleian : permalink

    author listed as E. H. McLeod; — E. H. P. “Late Miss McLeod, author of Tales of Tone, First, Second and Third Series, Principle, &c. &c.” thus ‐

    Geraldine Murray. A Tale of Fashionable Life. (4 vols, London, 1826) : link
    Tales of Ton (4 vols, London, 1821), Bodleian : permalink
    Principle! (4 vols, London, 1824), Bodleian : permalink
    Belmont’s Daughter (4 vols, London, 1830), Bodleian : permalink

  47. there was a troubled pleasure in her air; a something of regret

          — but even while she spurned his prayer,
    There was a troubled pleasure in her air;
    A something of regret, that left him scope
    To cherish secret, though forbidden, hope.

    ex The Rival Sisters; With other poems (London, 1834) : 19 : link
    Bodleian : permalink

    The passage quoted does not appear in other volumes containing a poem of the same title, by Mary Russell Mitford; indeed, the passage appears nowhere else (in a google books search).
    Mary Russell Mitford (1787-1855), essayist, novelist, poet and dramatist
    link
     

  48. and sweet (though with a something of severe)

    ...It is on account of these merits that we have thought it most worthy to be extracted, not as a specimen, — for that would be to raise too sanguine expectations concerning its excellence, — but as the master-piece of the supernatural in the “Pilgrims of the Rhine.”

    ...For the power of that shape could vanquish even them. It was the form of a female, with golden hair, crowned with a chaplet of withered leaves; her bosoms, of an exceeding beauty, lay bare to the wind, and an infant was clasped between them, hushed into a sleep so still, that neither the roar of the thunder, nor the livid lightning flashing from cloud to cloud, could even ruffle, much less arouse, the slumberer. And the face of the female was so unutterably calm and sweet (though with a something of severe); there was no line or wrinkled, in her hueless brow; care never wrote its defacing characters upon that everlasting beauty...

    ex essay-length review of “The Pilgrims of the Rhine — by the Author of Pelham, Eugene, Aram, &c.” [Edward Bulwer Lytton (1803-1873)] in The American Monthly Magazine 3:3 (May 1, 1834) : 145-152 (148) : 148

  49. romance, a something of

    With the single exception of the incomparable Scott, no writer of the present age has occupied the public mind for so long a period, or met so large a measure of applause, as Maria Edgeworth. It is true that, within a few years, two different schools have arisen, both perhaps of a higher order than that, which has received much of its lustre from the subject of the present article; the historical... and the imaginative... Both these schools are of a higher order than that in which Miss Edgeworth has been so admirably happy. There is, indeed, in the historical romance, a something of epic majesty; success in this department must rely, not only on shrewdness, knowledge of human nature, quick tact, and fluent language; but on details of antiquarian lore, on the comprehensive grasp of history, deep research into the chronicles of by-gone ages, and on the rare and glorious power of embodying all these in living characters, and, with a painter’s skill, of depicting events as though they were actually passing before the reader’s eye...
          It is there our opinion that we do Miss Edgeworth no dishonor in assigning to her a station at the very head of that branch of literature which she has undertaken to adorn, even when we place that branch somewhat lower down the stem of the great tree of learning than those of her male competitors.
          Of the familiar novel Miss Edgeworth is indeed the Queen...

    ex a review of Maria Edgeworth, her Helen — A Tale [1834], in The American Monthly Magazine 3:3 (May 1, 1834) : 193-198 : link

  50. There was a something of that restlessness, which looks forward to the endurance even of pain, as to a relief from more intolerable suspense — of that eagerness which would rush at once to the vessel, that is to separate the exiled spirit forever from its native shores, rather than undergo the apprehensions which are undoubtedly, and in every case, far more terrible than the most terrible anxiety. But amongst all this —

    ex “Passages from the Life of Mary Stuart,” The American Monthly Magazine 6:3 (August 1, 1834) : 373-382 : (377)

  51. Not so my thought, when young and bright
          Thy hope was like thy cheek;
    A something of the heaven’s own light,
          Which words could never speak.
    Then did I sink they willing slave,
    My heart, and each affection gave,
          Nor deem’d the service weak —
    Nor had a wish to break the twine,
    That bound they maiden thought to mine.

    ex stanza 2 (of 15) in the poem “The Ruin” by “Linus”
    The American Monthly Magazine 6:3 (August 1, 1834) 383-386 : (
    383)

  52. >a something of more than common interest, of even awful in the very sound of “The West”

                                                    From the Saturday Evening Post.
    Mark Lee’s Narrative.
                                                    “Toward Heaven's descent had sloped
                                                    “His waftening wheel.”
                                                                Milton in Lycidas
          An amiable youth, like thousands of others as young, as amiable, and as poor, was not many months since on the point of setting out for the Hesperia of the United States, or in plain English, “The Western Country.” This young man a few days before his departure, brought his Album to me, requesting the insertion of a piece as a remembrancer to a friend. I put the Album in the drawer of my desk, and in the silence and quiet of the evening, drew it forth and spread it open on my table.
          The circumstances roused all my own recollections. There was a something of more than common interest, of even awful in the very sound of “The West” which signed to my heart in whispers of days, months and years, gone into the past. In the very first settlement of Western Pennsylvania, amongst the emigrants were several families, from the banks of Swatara, in the neighborhood of Hummelstown. Many of these were the intimate and cherished friends of my parents, who naturally sighed after their associates. Then, fifty-two years ago, “The Western” was not what it is now, a smiling and widening garden. Even ideas of distance were then very different from what they are now. It is a fact which may well excite a smile, that in my native neighbourhood, “Illinois” was used as a term to express in the simple minds of a primitive people, the utmost limit, the Neplus Ultra...

    ex Mark Bancroft, “Mark Lee’s Narrative” in Atkinson’s Casket; or Gems of Literature, Wit and Sentiment. 9:7 (Philadelphia; July 1834) : 301-310 (301) : link
    the story first appeared in The Saturday Evening Post (May 24, 1834).

    Mark Bancroft was a pseudonym of William Darby (1775-1854), surveyor, geographer, author of travel guides and gazetteers, lecturer, writer of stories of “The Western Country” as it was in the early years of the nineteenth century (Louisiana, western Pennsylvania, &c.). Several of his stories appeared in the above (1834) volume of Casket.

    I am glad to dug further, in wonder “Mark Lee’s Narrative.” See J. Gerald Kennedy, his The Astonished Traveler : William Darby, Frontier Geographer and Man of Letters (1981)
    borrowable at archive.org : link
    apparently the story draws on its author’s own life, and might be termed autobiographical.

    See also J. Gerald Kennedy his “Glimpses of the ‘Heroic Age’ : Willima Darby’s Letters to Lyman C. Draper,” Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine 63 (January 1980) : link (pdf)

  53. a something of bitterness

    There was also a greater sympathy between them since her misfortunes: a something of bitterness felt and expressed, formed a part of her character now; whereas, when he had first been of her intimacy, prosperity alone for her had gilt the wheels of Time; she was then too far above him; her brightness dazzled, but he dared not assimilate himself to her.

    ex The Devoted, by the authoress of “The Disinherited,” “Flirtation,” &c. vol. 3 of 3 (London, 1836) : 246 : link

    Charlotte Bury (1775-1861), “made various contributions to light literature; some of her novels were very popular, although now almost forgotten”
    wikipedia : link

  54. to conclude a something of six feet

    What, therefore, should hinder me, likewise, while I am reading the works of Lucilius, from inquiring whether it is his genius, or the difficult nature of his subject, that will not suffer his verses to be more finished, and to run more smoothly, than if any one, thinking it sufficient (attending to this only) to conclude a something of six feet, be fond of writing two hundred verses before he eats, and as many after supper!

    ex The works of Horace, translated literally into English prose, for the use of those who are desirous of acquiring or recovering a competent knowledge of the Latin Language. By C. Smart. Vol 2 (of 2); (Philadelphia, 1836) : 101 : link

  55. have always lost a something of their freshness

    Military services in the East rarely obtain that notice to which they are justly entitled. The scene in which they are acted is remote; and the laurels of our brave men from India have always lost a something of their freshness before we gaze on them at home. Moreover, it is an effort of the imagination to realize the aspect of Asiatic warfare, and to many readers such efforts are at once painful and vain.
          They content themselves with considering that the enemies in India are black. They draw some distinction, indeed, between the black of Africa and of Asia; but, so far as bodily power and personal prowess are concerned, it is in favor of the former. The Asiatic is thought an effeminate and silken slave, whose nerves tremble at the report of a cannon, and whose prancing horses are only used for security or flight. This is no fancy picture; Englishmen accounted intelligent thus spoke of India fifty short years ago; and to this hour, except among those interested in Indian affairs by the course of their studies, by connexion with the services or commerce of that country, or by that large and active spirit of inquiry which an attachment to the cause of schools and missions has awakened, a like ignorance obtains, and a like apathy in the concerns of India is always manifest.

    Military Memoirs of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington, by Captain Moyle Sherer. Vol 1 (of 2); (Philadelphia, 1836) : 13 : blank

  56. a something of truth

    In reference to my change of sentiments, I would just, for the satisfaction of some, and perhaps it may be for the improvement of others, give a very concise epitome of the process through which my mind has passed. As far back as I can recollect, since I began to exercise my intellect, and to think for myself, I have been inclined to read the books or become acquainted with the opinions of those who may differ from me; believing that truth is not confined to any sect in particular, and that with every portion of error there is mixed a something of truth. During my collegiate course, therefore, I adopted a system of reading, which embraced the sentiments and opinions of those who might differ from me on many material points; and the first work on the Unitarian side of the question which struck my attention, and gave me a more favourable opinion of that system of faith, [63] was some of the sermons of Dr. Channing; and I must now express myself, as I have done before, deeply obliged for the views of rational and scriptural piety, with those sermons develope...

    “Speech of the Rev. J. Taylor,” in The Bible Christian : “Designed to advocate the sufficiency of Scripture, and the right of private judgment, in matters of faith” 1:1 (Belfast; February 1836) : 61-65 (63) 62 : link

  57. of purpose, but the face wants a something of the intelligence and expansive views

    Thus, nothing can be nobler or more characteristic than the figure of the prophet Jeremiah. It is not abstracted, but symbolical of the history and functions of the individual. The whole figure bends and droops, under a weight of woe, like a large willow tree surcharged with showers. Yet there is no peculiar expression of grief in one part more than another; the head hangs down despondingly indeed, but so do the hands, the clothes, and every other part seems to labor under and be [301] involved in a complication of distress. Again, the prophet Ezra is represented reading, in a striking attitude of attention, and with the book held. close to him as if to lose no part of its contents in empty space: — all this is finely imagined and designed, but then the book reflects back none of its pregnant, hieroglyphic meaning on the face, which, though large and stately, is an ordinary unimpassioned, and even unideal one. Daniel, again, is meant for a face of inward thought and musing, but it might seem as if the compression of the features were produced by external force as much as by involuntary perplexity. I might extend these remarks to this artist’s other works; for instance, to the Moses, of which the form and attitude express the utmost dignity and energy of purpose, but the face wants a something of the intelligence and expansive views of the Hebrew legislator. It is cut from the same block, and by the same bold sweeping hand, as the sandals or the drapery.

    William Hazlitt, “The Vatican,” in Literary Remains of the late William Hazlitt. With a ntoice of his life, by his son. And thoughts on his genius and writings, by E. L. Bulwer and Sergeant Talfourd. (New York, 1836) : 301 : link

    William Hazlitt (1778-1830)
    wikipedia : link
     

  58. and a something of attraction in the prospect of one more bachelor spring at a London hotel

    ...It was not till he was gone, and she could contrive to be, quite alone, that she allowed a free course to her solitary tears, and to her feeling that she was very miserable; not perhaps the less miserable that her hushand seemed to make so light of their separation.
          The truth was, — but a truth of too ungracious a nature to disclose to Marian — that the regret he experienced in parting from his kind-hearted and loving little wife, was almost counterbalanced by his satisfaction at any pretext for prolonging her separation from the Robsey tribe, and the Jackishness of her father’s establishment. He fancied, too, that thus left alone with his family, they would insensibly amalgamate; that Marian would learn to respect his mother and love his sister, as he himself loved and respected them; while Marian’s better qualities could not fail to secure their affections in return. Perhaps, too, the occupation afforded by his new duties and a something of attraction in the prospect of one more bachelor spring at a London hotel tended to facilitate the sacrifice of Marian’s society.
          He did not consider, and even Marian herself was at first scarcely aware, how wearily and slowly pass the days, every hour of which is devoted to an especial and distant object.

    ex Mrs. Armytage; or, Female domination. By the authoress of “Mothers and Daughters” (Brussels, 1836) : 108 : link
    first (London) edition, several copies via hathitrust : link

    a wikipedia page provides a synopsis of this novel : link

    Catherine Grace Frances Gore (1798-1861)
    wikipedia : link

  59. a something of reality to their pretensions

    The third lady present at this secret council was the Princess Waldberg, a beautiful little creature of very illustrious birth, and even royally allied, whose right to take her place among the very first in any circle in Europe could not be questioned, any more than her consciousness of such right. But neither her dignity, nor her value for it, could rob her regular and most delicate features of their feminine softness or their youthful charm; and though her round lip would have been curled in very pretty scorn, had any want of etiquette led her to suspect that her rank was forgotten, the natural sweetness of her nature made her sparkle without dazzling, and would have given to the ermine, had she worn it, all the softened grace of dignity without its stiffness or its weight. That this lady should have been elected of the conclave of “La Crême,” was a proof of very judicious ambition in the electors; and her having (together with one or two others, whose claims to distinction were likewise unquestionable,) consented to enrol herself among them, gave a something of reality to their pretensions, which softened if it could not altogether remove the ridicule attached to the clique.

    Frances Trollope. A romance of Vienna. Vol. 1 (of 3); (London, 1838) : 164 : link

  60. With a something of joy and a something of care

    XXVI.
    Amid the gay revellers, the first of the throng,
    The rovers are mingling in dance and in song,
    As lightsome as fire-flies, when evening awakes
    Their living effulgence on mountains and brakes.
    The brilliant attire, and the sparkling black eyes,
    And the manly cheeks glowing with sun and with skies,
    Leave their image in many a fair maiden's breast,
    When she flies to her couch as a dove to her nest;
    There to fit through her dreams, and revive in her there
    With a something of joy and a something of care
    :
    Of joy, as she thinks of the flattering train, —
    Of care, that she knows they shall meet not again.

    ex “The Rubi, A Tale of the Sea — in Six Cantos — Canto III — The Banquet” in The Dublin University Magazine 11 (May 1838) 564-574 (569) : link
    U California (via hathitrust) : link
    Bodleian : permalink

    Frederick W. Mant (1809-93),
    various writings, including Ballads and Lays Illustrative of Events in the Early English History, by the Rev. F. W. Mant, B. A., Vicar of Stanford and Tottington (London, 1857) : link

  61. a something of a darkish appearance presented itself; a clap of thunder, which soon died away

    Case.
          It is that of an officer of artillery in the British service who, during the peninsular war, was attached to a portion of that corps which was engaged, almost every day in succession, with the enemy, for a considerable period. He was close to the guns during the firing, which generally lasted, with but short intermissions, for the whole day. The noise was extremely shrill and sharp, and of a ringing description, such as is well known to those who have been habituated to the firing of brass guns. The result was, that he became nearly completely deaf on one side, and very dull of hearing on the other. He so remained for a long time, without the cause being discovered, when a sort of itching, at times very disagreeable and almost insufferable, took place. On examining the ear in which this feeling was most troublesome, a something of a darkish appearance presented itself, and, by means of a forceps, was at last drawn out through the external opening. The effect he described as like a clap of thunder, with a loud reverberating noise, which soon died away, when the deafness was found to be no way relieved; for a time no secretion appeared, the deafness still continued; and then he was advised to use a syringe, and have the part frequently syringed with a solution of soap in warm water, and a few drops of a thin emulsion of almond oil, with liquor potassæ, was dropped in. In less than a week the hearing was completely restored, and has remained perfect ever since.
          Now, if we examine this case attentively,

    An Essay on the Causes, Nature, and Treatment of Deafness, and the various diseases of the ear; to which is appendeded a list of cases, which have come under the professional notice of the author, showing the most satisfactory results from the plan of treatment adopted for the cure of this distressing disease. By D(enis). Cronin, Surgeon. (London, 1838) : 37 : link

  62. a something of the undying mind, the kakoetheia scribendi, the non monis moriar

    Publication was fenced around with forms, licences, and delays. The argus eye of censors, who wielded the fatal shears, watched the escape of truth, and checked the least expression of a searching spirit of philosophical inquiry; — hence the tenuity of thought, the molenism of Spanish literature. In this thanklessness, hazard, and difficulty of publication, thought, and the desire of recording thought, of leaving behind a something of the undying mind, the ‘κακοήθεια scribendi,’ the ‘non omnis moriar,’ which flickered in hall and convent, found a vent in the private composition of works which were never destined to see the day. The libraries of Spain teem with these still-born manuscripts, cast by their authors like bread upon the waters.

    ex review essay on History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic of Spain. By William H. Prescott. In The Quarterly Review (London), 64 (June 1839) : 1-58 (3) : link

    cacoethes scribendi, insatiable desire to write, Cacoēthes[1] “bad habit”, or medically, “malignant disease” is a borrowing of Greek kakóēthes.[2]
    κακοήθης scribendi
    The phrase is derived from a line in the Satires of Juvenal: Tenet insanabile multos scribendi cacoethes, or “the incurable desire (or itch) for writing affects many”. See hypergraphia.

    wikipedia : list of Latin phrases : link

  63. a something of personal feeling

    That we must deny ourselves, if we would benefit others.

    It is a most certain truth, that if people wish to save souls, they must endeavour to win hearts. The example of St. Paul in this respect, is very forcible, but it is alas much forgotten! We should learn from him to study to meet the prejudices, and consult the feelings of others, to the utmost extent we can possibly go with a safe conscience towards God. But how commonly do men follow a line of conduct the very opposite to this. The unessential peculiarities of party feeling are too often just the very things most warmly contended for, and matters of the smallest importance are made the grounds of angry contention to the great and evident hindrance of the Gospel. The cause of this must be found in St. Paul’s melancholy declaration, “All seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s.” (Phil. ii. 21.) It is a something of personal feeling, a standing up each for his own honour, which causes party zeal. St. Paul on the contrary consulted, not what was most for his own honour, but what was best for the saving of souls. He was willing even to be thought weak, that he might save the weak. But alas! who will follow him to such lengths? Who can thus hold cheap the opinions of this world?

    her commentary on 1. Corinthians, 9, ver. 19-21, in St. Paul’s first Epistle to the Corinthians explained in simple and familiar language. By G. B. (London, 1839) : 116 : link

    G. B. : Gracilla Boddington (1801-87), author of several religious books, listed at
    Boddington family history : link (accessed 20250118)

  64. Then the lowering fog was together brought,
    And into a something of shape was wrought

    “What ails thee now ?” cried the Baron bold.
    “Mark, Baron, me!” said a voice so cold,
    So cold and calm, that the Baron thought
          ’Twas the Knight of Wildern’s voice he heard.
    Then the lowering fog was together brought,
    And into a something of shape was wrought;
    [112]       Till a high and shadowy form appear’d,
    Till the billows of clouds took a likeness dim —
    But no! it surely could not be HIM ! . . .

    ex “The Quaking Bog; A very awful and antique ballad,” in John Richard Digby Beste, Odious Comparisons, Or, The Cosmopolite in England, Vol. 1 (of 2); (London, 1839) : 111 : link
    same (Bodleian) copy/scan : permalink

    on John Richard Digby Beste (1805-85), see

    Richard Preston, “The travels and tribulations of an English Catholic: John Richard Beste (1805-85) of Botleigh Grange” (evidently December 2015)
    via (search at) Southhampton Local History Centre : link
    pdf : link

    a fascinating (and nicely written) account, which commences wonderfully thus :
    John Richard Beste is a phenomenon of the nineteenth century: cosmopolite, writer, English Catholic, radical politician, political economist and candidate for the representation of Southampton in 1844/7 and 1856. His name evolved over the course of three decades from John Richard Best at baptism to John Richard Beste in the late 1830s and finally to John Richard Digby Beste in the 1860s.

    his publications listed in Frederick Boase, Modern English Biography Vol. 4 (A – C), (Truro, Netherton and WOrth, for the author, 1908) : 387 : link

    Beste, John Richard Digby (son of Henry Digby-Beste of Mavis Enderby, Lincolnshire 1768-1836, originator of modern Tractarian doctrines). b. 26 April 1806; educ. Stonyhurst college; author of Trans-alpine memoirs: or anecdotes and observations, showing the actual state of Italy and the Italians. By an English catholic, 2 vols. 1826; Transrhenane memoirs 1828; Cuma: the warrior bard of Erin and other poems 1829; Satires and The beggar’s coin, a poem, 2 ed. 1831; Rondeaulx: from the French black letter 1838; Odious comparisons: or the cosmopolite in England, 2 vols. 1839; The Pope: a novel. By an old author in a new walk, 3 vols. 1840; Isidora: or the adventures of a Neapolitan. A novel. By the old author in a new walk, 3 vols. 1841; The beggar’s coin: or love in Italy 1845; The Wabash: or adventures of an English gentleman’s family in the interior of America, 2 vols. 1855; Modern society in Rome: a novel, 3 vols. 1856; Alcazar: or the dark ages: a novel, 3 vols. 1857; Nowadays: or courts, courtiers, churchmen, Garibaldians, lawyers and brigands at home and abroad, 2 vols. 1870. d. 1885. Gillow’s English Catholics (1885) 203; Kelly’s Handbook (1882) 230, (1887) 328.

  65. a something of a paralytic attack seemed to remind

    ...Ugly little brute! what was he good for but Homer and corduroys?
          At college, he obtained still further advantages over me. He was beginning, indeed, to have the best of it everywhere. From the date of the abrogation of my curls, I was out of favor, even in the boudoir. Sir Lionel Dashwood had been unable to repress an ejaculation of “little horror!” on seeing me again; and by the time John was entered at college, a something of a paralytic attack seemed to remind my sweet mamma that the Right Honorable Lord Ormington was to survive in her elder son, when her noble spouse took up his rest in the family vault, instead of on the benches of St. Stephen’s.
          Neither he, nor I, nor Dashwood, nor even Dash, were now admitted into the dressing-room. Matters were growing too serious there.

    ex Cecil: Or, The Adventures of a Coxcomb : A Novel; Vol. 1 (of two) (1841) : 12 : link

    Catherine Gore (1798-1861)
    wikipedia : link

    The novel has its own wikipedia page : link

  66. in the expression of the dark blue eyes, a something of care and anxiety never observed before

          Oh, what a face and figure were there exhibited! If Louis had been struck by the improved appearance and beauty of Josephine, what must he have felt while looking on the noble Pauline? Josephine was symmetry; but there was a majesty about the person of the eldest, that seemed to display the fine proportions of the form in a far more imposing manner: and then the face! how could the painter have caught its highly intellectual expression? Her complexion was fine, the mouth and all the features perfect, as in the first blush of womanhood; but there was in the expression of the dark blue eyes, a something of care and anxiety never observed before, an expression of deep and intense feeling, that, although it did not detract from, but rather heightened the beauty of one of the finest faces ever exhibited on canvass, yet at once excited the sympathy of the gazer. Tears, unbidden, ran down the cheeks of Louis and Madam, while gazing on this portrait. The mother and sister had not seen her now for several years.

    The Neutral French; Or, The Exiles of Nova Scotia. By Mrs. Williams. Second Edition, two volumes in one (Providence, 1841) : 73 : link

    Catherine R. Williams (1787-1872), Rhode Island writer, suffragist
    wikipedia : link

  67. there was a something of expression

    Black eyes are not a thousandth part so pretty as blue in a woman (in my mind); but Fanny Wilding’s eyes, for black ones, were not disagreeable; there was a something of expression which she gave to them that added to their lustre, and caught the fancies of those men who no farther than a feature for happiness, and fancy delight to be centred in personal charms.
          She was what the world calls an Animated girl : — she would pun, throw in a jest wherever she could, affect opinions different from all the world, talk upon abstruse subjects, quote Homer to an officer of the Guards, and talk of perpetual motion to an effeminate man of fashion.
          Self-opinionated, with complete self-possession, a sarcastic sneer, and a bewitching smile, a good person, and many accomplishments, this young woman was known as a genius. She was a connoisseur in painting, an amateur in music, a perfect dancer, an exquisite performer on the piano, and a Billington in singing. She wrote tales and poems, published on wove paper and broad margins in Bond Street, made designs for furniture, dressed in the most outré costume to set fashions, and, in short, was a fine, dashing, animated girl — and a more horrible thing is there not upon earth! Modesty and diffidence are the attributes of woman: their silence is eloquence, and their timidity conquest.
          Miss Wilding did not think so...

    ex Theodore Hook, his The Man of Sorrow; A Novel (New edition, vol 1 of 3; London, 1842) : 192 : link

    Theodore Edward Hook (1788-1841), man of letters (novels, memoirs), practical joker, receiver of the first postcard, who “during the scrutiny of the audit board... lived obscurely and maintained himself by writing for magazines and newspapers.”
    wikipedia : link

  68.                                                 still they show
    A something of resemblance as when seen
    For the first moment

          To where the mountains merge into the plain,
          He journeyed on ’mid many a stirring scene,
          Such as one loves to recognize again.
          Though years have perished, and the times between
          The first and second meeting may have been
          Spent in long toil and labour, still they show
          A something of resemblance as when seen
          For the first moment
    , and awake a glow
    Of rapture or regret o’er Time’s relentless flow.

    Canto II, stanza 31, of James Henry Burke, Days in the East. A Poem by James Henry Burke, Esq., of Marble Hill: Lieutenant Bombay Engineers; Member of the Bombay Branch Royal Asiatic Society. (London, 1842) : 54 : link

    A map of the Bombay region faces the title page.

    from the preface —
    In the following Cantos is attempted to be pourtrayed the departure from home, voyage to India, and subsequent career, of an officer in the East India Company's army. As far as India is concerned, the scene is laid in one or two, only, of its Western Provinces. The whole has been thrown into a style much resembling personal narrative, such an arrangement having been found convenient, if not indispensable; and was almost entirely composed upon the homeward voyage of the author from that peninsula. Ill health, contracted when actively employed in the jungles of that country, was the cause of his returning. Should this specimen please, he may perhaps be induced to continue and conclude the subject, in as condensed a manner as possible: should it not, too much has been already written.

    It appears that Burke would return to India; he authored also a pamphlet (of 31 pages) India Salt. Scinde versus Cheshire, Calcutta, and Bombay; with an illustrative map (London, 1847) : link

    an excerpt of Burke’s poetry is included in Máire ní Fhlathúin, ed., The Poetry of British India, 1780–1905. Vol. 2 (2011) : 65-72
    Bodleian permalink

    where this profile is found —
    James Burke was born into an Anglo-Irish family: his father, Colonel Sir John Burke, held an Irish baronetcy, and both his father and later his brother Thomas served as MP for the constituency of Galway. Days in the East was written during an interlude in this career: according to the work’s preface, he became ill while on active service in the Western Provinces of India, and turned to the writing of poetry to while away the homeward voyage, in April 1842. It was not his first attempt at poetry — an earlier work, Addiscombe: A Tale of our Times, had been published under the initials ‘J. H. B.’ — but it was the only one to attract any critical attention. One aspect of Burke’s personal experience, his Irish background, clearly informs his view of India. The opening of Canto II hails the success of the East India Company in ‘warding off interminable woe’ and conflict by forbidding the proselytizing of religious ‘fanatics’.

  69. a something of stiffness and inutility to censure there, and a something of aptness, grace, and convenience to applaud

    In one of his papers on Milton’s prose, he is so carried away by the magic of novelty as to proclaim Milton’s poetry a very inferior species of manufacture. But he is somewhat cooled when he says to Southey a few weeks later :
          “A. Aikin sent me the new edition of Milton’s Prose Works. Instead of meddling with Symmonds's biography, which was almost my whole duty, I have reviewed Milton's pamphlets one by one, as if they were new publications. It is pleasant to get out of the modern shrubberies in perpetual flower, into the stately yew-hedge walks, and vased and statued terraces, and fruitful walls and marble fountains, of the old school of oratory. Such things are not made without a greater expense of study and of brains than modern method requires; and yet there is a something of stiffness and inutility to censure there, and a something of aptness, grace, and convenience to applaud here.”

    ex review of A Memoir of the Life and Writings of the late William Taylor, of Norwich, containing the Correspondence of many years with the late Robert Southey, Esq., &c. By J. W. Robberds... (London, 1843), in The Quarterly Review 73 (December 1843) : 27-68 (42) :link
     

  70. for there was a novelish sound in the first name, a something of Miss Owenson or Mrs. Opie

          So little impression, meanwhile, had the amusements of the evening made upon Basil, that his first impulse, on returning home, was to take from his pocket the unsightly letter of A. 0., in order to ascertain, with greater accuracy, the name of the street to which he was to repair on the morrow. He searched first in one waistcoat-pocket, then in the other, and finally in those of his coat and great-coat, and all with the same infructuous result ! In his impatience, he flung down on the table his handkerchief and gloves, his opera-glass, and a small gold pencil-case he carried in his waistcoat-pocket. But this eagerness did not enable him to recover the lost treasure. Not a vestige of his letter !
          Though certain of having received it in the hall, and thrust it into his pocket preparatory to leaving the house, he now in the perplexity of vexation, began to open his desk and dressing-box, in the hope of finding it there; though aware that he had not returned into his sitting-room after the arrival of the post. Still, the result was the same; and he was forced to end with the conclusion which had first presented itself, that his pocket had been picked in coming out of the theatre, and this document, valueless to any but himself, mistaken for higher game.
          How irritating ! — This trivial occurrence might be the means of deferring the promised interview for four-and-twenty-hours ! Nay, A. 0. might, perhaps, fancy himself hoaxed by a second application ; or, at all events, resent having his time thrown away by waiting at home for one who had no scruple in disappointing him, and refuse a second rendezvous ! — He had been told, only too often, that A. 0. was not a person to be trifled with ! —
          He began, accordingly, to ransack his brain for reminiscences of the address contained in the letter. St. Agnes le Clare, Old Street Road, he perfectly remembered; for there was a novelish sound in the first name, a something of Miss Owenson or Mrs. Opie, — singularly discordant with the second: — and, by a memoria-technical process, the impression remained with him. But what was the name of the street? It was that of some noble family. It was not Howard, or Percy, or Paget. It was something connected with Wiltshire — he remembered it had brought Wiltshire into his mind. He would examine the Court Guide, and see whether any streets in the neighbourhood of Old Street Road, appeared to bear reference to Wiltshire.
          But alas! the Court Guide disdained all mention of St. Agnes le Clare! — The Court Guide rejected A. 0. and all his parish; and poor Basil was launched once more upon his sea of troubles.
          Of one thing he was certain. The interview was appointed at noon the following day; and the latest effort of his determination before he committed his head to a restless pillow, was to repair to Old Street Road, at an early hour next morning, and try whether, by exploring the neighbourhood, he might not accidentally touch the silent chord of memory.
          It is not, however, a pleasant thing for a denizen of the West End, to arise from a warm bed at nine o’clock on a misty November morning, and after seeing the opposite shops opened by yawning shopboys, or damsels in curl-papers, and swallowing a hasty comfortless breakfast, for which the baker had not brought the rolls, or the newspaper boy the Morning Post, jumble off in a hackney coach towards the far East to be deposited, in a degree of bewilderment worthy of Robinson Crusoe, upon the Pavement of Finsbury.
          It was the first time Basil Annesley had visited that terra incognita.

    ex The Money-Lender By Mrs. Gore, authoress of “Mothers and Daughters,” “The Man of Fortune,” etc. Vol. 1 (of three); (London, 1843) : 37 : link
    U Illinois at Urbana-Champaign copy/scan (via hathitrust)

    The street name, btw, was “Paulet Street.”

  71. bearing in his hand a something of very mysterious ugliness of form

          “Confound the fellow!” exclaimed Richard, having once again gone through the part, and the very next day being that fixed for the [422] dressed rehearsal. “He swore by all the gods that a carpenter could invoke that his confounded skip-jack should be here this morning.” These words were scarcely uttered when the only servant permitted to approach the theatrical premises, knocked at the door, and announced the arrival of the anxiously expected mechanist. He was ordered to appear, and did so instantly, bearing in his hand a something of very mysterious ugliness of form, which by the judicious use of a little cobler’s wax could be made to spring to a very considerable height. The first performance of the little monster was hailed with a perfect shriek of admiration and delight; and then the guilty Richard laid himself once more upon his restless couch, and bade the tormentor do his worst. Again the cobler’s wax was judiciously applied, and again the hideous little figure sprang into the air; but instead of perching on the breast of the conscience-stricken Richard, it bounded pretty nearly in the opposite direction.
          “That won’t do, my good fellow!” cried the sleeper, starting up, “you could not have set it in the right direction.”

    “The Butt” (conclusion), by Mrs. Trollope, in The New Monthly Magazine [and Humorist] 70 (1844) : 415-430 (422) : link

    collected in Mrs. Trollope, her Travels and Travellers. A Series of Sketches. Vol. 2 (of two); (1846) : 211-311 (283) : link

    aside
    that 1844 volume of The New Monthly Magazine comes with a beautifully composed index : 613-616 : link

    The New Monthly Magazine
    thorough “about” at wikipedia : link

  72. I calculate there’s a something of a string-halt in the bargain... I need hardly say

          It is a most animated, and to a stranger, most amusing sight; but with all this bustling and noise, there is no confusion, and I saw no disorderly persons about. Who are those gaily-dressed men sitting astride upon cottonbales, and looking so composed, while discussing some serious question with each other? You can judge nothing from their countenances; they are so well schooled and tutored, that no one would imagine an important mercantile negotiation was in progress. That gentleman mounted on a molasses-cask, whistling, cutting up a stick, as if for the bare life, but in reality to prevent his countenance from betraying his feelings, is doing business with the man who is balancing himself on an empty barrel near him. The latter, with the eternal quid in the corner of his mouth, is clearly looking out “for the giraffe,”* and, after a while, he rises with great sang froid, with “Well, Sir, I calculate there’s a something of a string-halt in the bargain; it’s a horrid sight of money, Sir, you’re asking, and as I’m in a tarnation hurry to liquor, I’ll just put it off till next fall.” I need hardly say that this shrewd gentleman was recalled, and a bargain concluded. The process of liquoring is gone through several times before a bargain is struck.
          This, the first specimen I saw of Americans, in their own country, struck me forcibly. It shewed me that those who, in dress, appearance, &c., are decidedly the gentlemen of the land, are so devoted to money making, as evidently to have neither time, nor many ideas to waste on other subjects. It convinced me, that though the contemplation of America as a nation, and at a distance, may, and indeed must be interesting, yet the investigation and survey of the people who compose that nation, must soon become wearying and monotonous. One may be amused for a time at the shrewdness with which they make their bargains, at the acuteness of their remarks, and the originality of their expressions; but once convinced, as I speedily became, that their every action proceeds from a love of amassing wealth, and you cease to become interested in individuals, whose conduct and whose pleasures are swayed by such an ignoble cause.
          The Americans are accounted, and I believe justly so, a moral people, but even this merit is, I think, not so great a one in their case, as it is among other nations. Their love of wealth being all-powerful, and being to be gratified only by the strictest attention to business, it follows, necessarily, that the habits of their lives generally become quiet and restrained.

    *Anglicè, taking care he is not taken in.

    ex Mrs. Houstoun, Texas and the Gulf of Mexico; or, Yachting in the New World (Philadelphia, 1845) : 76 : link

    am put in mind of Herman Melville, The Confidence Man : His Masquerade (1857)

    Matilda Charlotte Houstoun (1811-92)
    wikipedia : link

  73. There stood the mansion, with its extent of deepest groves, possessing a something of almost ostentatious grandeur.

          And then the view!
          What a lordly expanse ! — like a picture of Claude’s, like a description of Milton’s —

          “Russet lawns and fallows gray,
          Where the nibbing flocks do stray;
          Mountains on whose barren breast
          The hovering clouds do often rest;
          Meadows trim with daisies pied,
          Shallow brooks and rivers wide,
          Towers and battlements it sees
          Bosom’d high in tufted trees.”

          Milton, one should have thought, must have almost painted from the scene before us; to add to the beauty of which as if to leave nothing incomplete — massive woods were seen sweeping down from the nearer hills, reflected by a very large mere, or small lake, which lay sleeping in this day’s clear sunshine, at the foot of the ascent. There stood the mansion, with its extent of deepest groves, possessing a something of almost ostentatious grandeur.
          It was very large, that house, built in a sort of corrupt half-eastern, half-mediaeval style of architecture — where forms were strangely jumbled together, and great offenses no doubt committed against correct taste; but it looked so rich — such a confusion and profusion of ornament was lavished upon it — there was so great an extent, such an endless succession of roofs and towers, and pinnacles, and oriel windows, and lancet windows — such a grand porch leading into such a noble hall, that the effect altogether was magnificent.
          Then the stables, and the gardens, and the farm buildings, and all and every thing were upon such a scale!
          An almost royal scale! And every thing kept with a precision and neatness which showed that this was no display of unreal wealththat this mighty flow of expense was maintained by a spring of proportional force.
          But, to return to the shrubbery walks, the flowers, the birds, the lovely views, the birds singing as if in rivalry of each other, the cuckoo shouting, the sun shining, and the world of flowers of every hue around us.
          Is this garden of Eden desolate, that no one appears to enjoy it?
          Are its inhabitants all gone away to London at this loveliest season of the year, the two first weeks in May — and have they left this scene of beauty to be enjoyed by half a score of gardeners, and half a dozen household servants? — as is one part of the inexplicable arrangements of people belonging to the great world.
          No, one should imagine not, for here come two figures along the walk that, as a kind of terrace, crowns the brow of the hill, winding amid the purple and crimson rhododendron, the waxen almias, the yellow and white azalias, the purple clusters of the lilacs and the streaming gold of the laburnums.

    Aubrey. By the author of “Castle Avon,” “Ravenscliffe,” “Time the Avenger,” “The Wilmingtons,” “Mordaunt Hall,” “Emilia Wyndham,” &c., &c., &c. (1845; New York, 1854) : 5 : link

    Anne Marsh-Caldwell (1791-1844)
    wikipedia : link links to a good source of information on Anne Marsh-Caldwell at :
    Historical biographies : Ancestors, Relatives & People of Interest to J.J. Heath-Caldwell : link

  74. I traced, or fancied I could trace in its tiny features some vestige of the Brookes countenance — a something of Harriet

          The kiss which, in my turn, I bestowed upon the babe, was inspired, however, by feelings, in which Mrs. Stanley had little share. I traced, or fancied I could trace in its tiny features some vestige of the Brookes countenance — a something of Harriet, which searched into the very depths of my heart.
          “I feel so ashamed now,” faltered the happy mother, fancying she could perceive by this tender embrace of her child that my friendship towards her was unchanged, “I feel so ashamed now of all I said to you a few weeks ago of my disgust and weariness of life. I had not then heard the cry of this little creature! — I did not then know what it was to have something belonging to one, something of one’s own, that one can clasp to one’s heart, without fear of coldness, or mockery, or ingratitude! — Oh, I know better now, than to say I am sick of life!”

    ex Men of Capital. By Mrs. Gore, authoress of “The Banker’s Wife,” “Peers and Parvenus,” etc. Vol. 1 (of three); (London, 1846) : 243 : link

    a remarkable preface on the primogeniture rights to property, the moral costs of the —
    “idolatry of Mammon pursued with least regard to self-respect or the rights of their fellow-creatures...” (vii)
    “...the passions advantageous to a nation, may be injurious to an individual. Ambition and Money-love, if they tend to ennoble a country, reduce to insignificance the human particles of which the nation is composed...” (iv)

    Catherine Gore (1798-1861)
    wikipedia : link

  75. a something of religion born with them

    Prevented from coming to the true God by the slowness of their spiritual apprehension, men cannot fail to wander in vanities of their own; and it is the knowledge of the true God which dispels these, as the sun disperses the darkness. All have naturally a something of religion born with them,ⁱ but owing to the blindness and stupidity, as well as the weakness of our minds, the apprehension which we conceive of God is immediately depraved. Religion is thus the beginning of all superstitions, not in its own nature, but through the darkness which has settled down upon the minds of men, and which prevents them from distinguishing between idols and the true God.

    ⁱ “Les hommes ont naturellement quelque religion,” &c. — Fr.

    ex commentary on the passage Confounded be all those who serve graven images, Psalm 97, in Commentary on The Book of Psalms by John Calvin, translated from the original Latin, and collated with the author’s French version, by the Rev. James Anderson. Vol. 4 (Edibburgh, 1847) : : 63 : link

  76. There was a something, of solemnity and holiness

    And then came the great and important change in her own opinions, or, to speak more correctly, in her own feelings. There was a something, of solemnity and holiness, connected with the religion of her father, which mixed with all her earliest recollections concerning him; and the total absence of all such feelings on the part of her mother, and the almost ostentatious display of this, far from weakening the reverential feelings of her daughter, had very decidedly tended to increase them.

    Father Eustace : A Tale of the Jesuits, by Mrs. Trollope. vol 3 (of 3); (London, 1847) : 103 : link

    Frances Milton (Mrs.) Trollope (1779-1863)
    wikipedia : link

  77. a something of poetry in it when looked at geologically; a vastness of antiquity

          At the annual meeting of the Manchester Geological Society, the following beautiful address was delivered by the Rev. Robert Vaughan, LL. D., Principal of the Lancashire Independent College, on his health being given by the Chairman, James Heywood, Esq., F. R. S. We are indebted for this excellent report to the Manchester Guardian.

          “It is no more than we are accustomed to expect from science, that it should have disposed men to cultivate what are termed the courtesies of life; for science ought to give refinement, and to awaken in man a new feeling in the intelligent intercourse he may hold with his fellow-men. I feel that I owe my place with you to-day to the feeling which science has generated. It has brought me into the midst of a company of gentlemen to whom I am unknown; but I am here purely upon the assumption that the subjects which are interesting to your party are not uninteresting to me; and that though hitherto unknown to each other, here we may meet and recognize a tie of brotherhood. (Applause.) With respect to the science of geology, in common perhaps with some others, in particular connection with whom I stand, there have been seasons in my history when I was disposed to look upon it with considerable misgivings. I am free, however, to confess, and indeed very happy to confess, that the longer I live, the more I feel interested in it, because of what it is, and because of what it tends to. Even in the little smattering of knowledge I possess in respect to it, I must confess that I have found new sources of interest opened to me, in the contemplation of nature, of which I was before unconscious, and that even the very stone that I see a man breaking on the road, to give a pass to cartwheels, has a something of poetry in it when looked at geologically — (hear), — a look of vast antiquity, that element of the sublime inseparable from the thought of long duration; for it is older than the present generation; older than the present race, or probably than all the past races on our globe. (Hear.) There is a vastness of antiquity in that very pebble, that gives to it an interest which otherwise it could not possess...”

    “Dr. Vaughan on Geology and the Bible,” in The Christian Reformer; or, Unitarian Magazine and Review 3:25 (London; January 1847) : 59-61 (59) : link

    Robert Vaughan (1795-1868)
    wikipedia : link

  78. a something of pain, a thick and swelling sigh, fraught

    Already was the poor girl happy. She was young, and youth wants little else to conjure happiness towards it. Nothing but sin can banish happiness, and she had made expiation. She was happy again; no thought of woe to come, of future pain, of death, — even the death of the dying man on whose breast her head rested, disturbed her bosom now. At this moment there was a sharp glitter above her head, and her husband strove, as she thought, to disengage himself from her. Ere she could look up, — a something of pain, a thick and swelling sigh, fraught with a soul, — and she lay dead in her husband's arms.
          The cry was his; but who had heard it ? None. He was not himself conscious of it. Hush! -nought but the blackbird still singing in the hawthorn.

    ex Charles Whitehead, Smiles and Tears; or, the Romance of Life Vol. 3 (of three); (London, 1847) : 50 : link

    Charles Whitehead (1804-62)
    wikipedia : link

  79. catching from its look a something of religion, and sometimes, not

    MARHAM.
          No doubt, men’s lives do live on in their descendants.
    AUBIN.
          In their flesh and blood, their beating hearts and pliant limbs; but so they do in other ways, and in other men. For every good deed of ours, the world will be the better always. And perhaps no day does a man walk down a street cheerfully, and like a child of God, without some passenger’s being brightened by his face, and, unknowingly to himself, catching from its look a something of religion, and sometimes, not impossibly, what just saves him from some wrong action.
    MARHAM.
          The stream of society is such, that often a pebble falling into it has altered its course. Many times, words lightly spoken have been carried against thrones, and been their upsetting. And many a little event has had in it what in its unfolding filled towns and countries, and men’s minds and ages. I say, that, under Providence, it has done this.
    AUBIN.
          An ark of bulrushes fetched from among the flags of the Nile was the saving of Moses, and the deliverance of the Israelites, and an event through which the Saviour of the world was born where he was.

    ex William Mountford, Euthanasy : Or, Happy Talk Towards the End of Life (1849) : 168 : link

    for something on Mountford, see entry for his Thorpe : A Quiet English Town, and Human Life Therein (1852) : link

  80. a something of incongruity

    “This is my little daughter, Ethel, Mr. Oglevie. You did not know I had a daughter, did you?”
          “No indeed. I never before had the pleasure of seeing the young lady, or of hearing of her. I should think she must be very tall for her age.”
          This was a very clumsy, and particularly mal-à-propos remark, and the only excuse for the speaker was, that there was a something of incongruity between the dress and appearance of Ethel Codrington which completely puzzled him, and threw him, as it were, off the balance by means of which he in general contrived to retain a tolerably graceful position in conversation, even if he did not completely comprehend it.
          But the unluckiness of this remark was two-fold; for in the first place Ethel Codrington was rather short for her age, though wonderfully grown within the last six months; and in the next, anything, and everything, that referred in any way to the age of Ethel, was extremely disagreeable to her mamma.
          She was in fact, as the reader, if blessed with a retentive memory, must be aware, considerably more at this time than sixteen years old; and though slightly made, and certainly shorter than most girls of her age, she was by no means of a stature to wear with propriety the trousers and short frock assigned to her; and, moreover, there was unluckily an expression of so much intellect, and of awakened intellect too, in her countenance, that the childish dress, and the childish epithets, bestowed upon her, were worse than ridiculous.
          Her face was one which even the unphilosophical eye of Augustus Oglevie must have looked at with interest at least, if not with admiration, had he felt himself at liberty to examine it — but he did not; and the only impression that her form and features left upon him was, that she had something strange and unaccountable in her look; and if obliged to give a more definite judgment, he would have been quite as likely to declare that he thought her ugly as handsome.
          And yet her face was one that no artist could look at once, without feeling almost passionately desirous of looking at it again.

    Mrs. Trollope, The Lottery of Marriage : A Novel. Vol. 1 (of 3); (London, 1849) : 110 : link

  81. a something of every known science... an orrery, an electrifying machine, a turning lathe, a theater (in the wash-house), a chemical apparatus, and, what he called a select library

          With respect to learning, “the Curriculum,” as Mr. Veal loved to call it, was of prodigious extent and the young gentlemen in Hart-street might learn a something of every known science. The Rev. Mr. Veal had an orrery, an electrifying machine, a turning lathe, a theater (in the wash-house), a chemical apparatus, and, what he called a select library of all the works of the best authors of ancient and modern times and languages. He took the boys to the British Museum, and descanted upon the antiquities and the specimens of natural history there, so that audiences would gather round him as he spoke, and all Bloomsbury highly admired him as a prodigiously well informed man. And whenever he spoke (which he did almost always), he took care to produce the very finest and longest words of which the vocabulary gave him the use; rightly judging, that it was as cheap to employ a handsome, large, and sonorous epithet, as to use a little stingy one.
          Thus he would say to George in school, “I observed, on my return home from taking the indulgence of an evening’s scientific conversation with my excellent friend Doctor Bulders a true archaeologian, gentlemen, a true archaeologian — that the windows of your venerated grandfather’s almost princely mansion in Russell-square were illuminated as if for the purposes of festivity. Am I right in my conjecture, that Mr. Osborne entertained a society of chosen spirits round his sumptuous board last night?”
          Little Georgy, who had considerable humor, and used to mimic Mr. Veal to his face with great spirit and dexterity, would reply, that Mr. V. was quite correct in his surmise.
          “Then those friends who had the honor of partaking of Mr. Osborne’s hospitality, gentlemen, had no reason, I will lay any wager, to complain of their repast. I myself have been more than once so favored. (By the way, Master Osborne, you came a little late this morning, and have been a defaulter in this respect more than once.) I myself, I say, gentlemen, humble as I am, humble as I am, have not been found unworthy to share Mr. Osborn'e elegant hospitality. And though I hae feasted with the great and noble of the world — for I presume that I may call my excellent friend and patron, the Right Honorable George Earl of Bareacres, as one of the number — yet I assure you that the board of the British merchant was to the full as richly served, and his reception as gratifying and noble. ‘Mr. Bluck, sir, we will resume, if you please, the passage of Eutropius, which was interrupted by the late arrival of Master Osborne.’”
          To this great man George’s education was for some time intrusted. Amelia was bewildered by his phrases, but thought him a prodigy of learning. That poor widow made friends with Mrs. Veal, for reasons of her own. She liked to be in the house, and see Georgy coming to school there. She liked to be asked to Mrs. Veal’s conversazioni, which took place once a month (as you were informed on pink cards, with ΑΘΗNH engraved on them), and where the professor welcomed his pupils and their friends to weak tea and scientific conversation...

    ex William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair. A Novel without a Hero. with illustrations by the author (New York, 1849) : 272 : link
    originally published in serial form, 1847-1848; wikipedia : link

    William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-63)
    wikipedia : link

  82. It seemed to unfold to me a something of the purpose and aim of life, of which I had been till then ignorant.

          Brown had not left Lady Malfort when I returned to her room, so I had time to ponder on what I had heard. It seemed to unfold to me a something of the purpose and aim of life, of which I had been till then ignorant. Miss Malfort was going to be forced by her mother into the world, to be a great lady — I had a mother, who should also think of my interests. She did not think of them — should I, therefore, stupidly remain indifferent to them myself? I was tormenting myself with this question, when Brown came back from her lady.
          I immediately told her the piece of news communicated by Miss Malfort. She replied quietly that Lady Malfort had informed her of the marriage a week ago.

    ex The Fortunes of Woman : Memoirs, Edited by Miss Lamont. Vol. 1 (of three); (London, 1849) : 23 : link
    Bodleian : permalink

    Martha Macdonald Lamont (1803-78)
    wikisource : link

    also a brief entry at At the Circulating Library : A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837—1901 : link

  83. a something of reverence

          When Lucia, timidly, and yet with inconceivable tenderness, took the master’s hand, she was startled by the earnestness of his look. It spoke a sudden awakening to the power of her beauty, a something of reverence for the woman, mingled with affection towards the child.

    Petticoat Government : A Novel, By Mrs. Trollope. (Paris, 1850) : 233 : link

    petticoat government —
    wikipedia : link

  84. as a something of very secondary moment; and grievous it is, at all times, to see

    ...He loved, says his biographer, the Episcopal form of government, but did not regard it as indispensable to the existence of a Church.
          But the apostles, one and all, did certainly so regard it and who is Mr. Dykes that his regards should be cared for, when the apostles themselves, eighteen hundred years since, decided the question, and left, they must have thought, no room for cavil — no cause for doubt — no ground for controversy? They considered Episcopacy to be so essential to the existence of a Church that they left no Church that they had founded exempt from the superintendence and controul of a bishop. But it has been ever the custom of those of the clergy who associate much with Dissenters to speak doubtfully or slightingly of Episcopacy as a something of very secondary moment; and grievous it is, at all times, to see especially ordained clergymen throwing aside their peculiar marks and privileges, and ranging themselves on platforms on a seeming equality, in all spiritual functions and gifts, with those whose self-styled ordination is by hands that never had other than man’s authority to ordain at all.

    from “Moderate Calvinism,” a review of the Rev. John King, Memoir of the Rev. Thomas Dykes, L. L. B., in The Church of England Quarterly Review 28 (London, 1850) : 170-189 (179) : link

    something on Dykes at DnB : link

    his book :
    Memoir of the Rev. Thomas Dykes, LL.B. / Incumbent of St. John’s Church, Hull; with copious extracts from his correspondence, by the Rev. John King, M. A., incumbent of Christ’s Church, Hull. Also Sermons by the Rev. Thomas Dkykes, LL.B. edited by the Rev. William Knight, M.A., incumbent of St. James’s Church, Hull. (London, 1849)
    BL copy/scan (via google books) : link

  85. a something of love

          Of such elements a something approaching to hatred is sometimes, alas! engendered. Despair of exciting the sentiments they so wish to inspire drives some men to a kind of frenzied attempt to excite emotion, be it of any sort; and, powerless to bestow happiness, they take refuge in the infliction of pain.
          The anger Mr. Langford at this moment felt against his son was in proportion to the secret extravagance of his affection, and his desire for revenge to the anguish he felt. There must be a something of love mingling with both, to produce either of these feelings in their present intense degree.

    Ravenscliffe. By the author of “Emilia Wyndham,” “The Wilmingtons,” etc. (Paris, 1851) : 144 : link

    Anne Marsh-Caldwell (née Caldwell; 1791-1874), “recognised as didactic in character, her books were published anonymously and mainly describe life in the upper middle class and the lower ranks of the aristocracy”
    wikipedia : link

  86. as though a something of the past seemed fully to engage your mind

          “Why, dearest — don’t be angry with me,” returned Mrs. Maybrow, “but sometimes you have seemed to me as though there was a weight upon your mind; — you do not know it, I am sure, but often, when I’ve spoken to you, you have not seemed to hear your own wife’s voice; and sometimes, when our little ones have nestled to your side, you have not noticed them, so deeply were you otherwise engaged in thought; so a dark veil appeared to rise between yourself and us, as though a something of the past seemed fully to engage your mind, and thus to make us think that we were shut out from your memory for the time. If this be true, my husband, can I not help you? whatever it may be, certain I am that it would be less burdensome if you would let me share the weight — so, do not be angry with me, dearest, think that it is your wife that speaks, and love for you dictates the words.” And Mrs. Maybrow threw herself upon her husband’s neck, trembling at what might be the consequence, yet strengthened by her conscious sense of right.

    ex J. St. Clement [Eliza Cook?], “My Walk to ‘The Office’” (No. vi. and last), in Eliza Cook’s Journal No. 100 (Saturday, March 29, 1851) : 345-350 (349) : link

    commences with abstract, thus &dmdash;
    A mind at peace. — Wrongs concealed and wrongs repaired. — A wet morning; weeping railings and lugubrious knockers. — My dark-browed friend. The transformation. The snow-clad church-yard. — Eleanor, Fanny, and Mr. Maybrow. — The communication. — Fanny’s love and Eleanor’s resolve. — The husband at sea. The wife, and the storm at night. — The wreck. — The return. The misery of a wrong concealed. — The comforter. Reparation made; and a parting word with my “reading friend.”
          It is a singular if not extraordinary characteristic of our nature, habit of thought, and action, that while on all hands, and to the fullest extent, the ineffable pleasure and happiness enjoyed by a mind at peace within itself is allowed, so few, if any, can be found who truly and really possess it.
          If this be considered a broad and vague assertion with out truth for a foundation, I would appeal to every honest mind, and ask, whether lurking in the corners of the storehouse of the past’s remembrances, some little act, the memory of which they would wish to brush away, and cannot, does not lie ensconced; and which, could they pass their time again, they would most carefully avoid the committal of?..

    Eliza Cook (1818-89), poet, editor, publisher...
    wikipedia : link

  87. with a something of tender retrospection in his tone

    “This is the lady’s flower-garden,” said he, to change the subject. “I hope, next spring often to see you busy here.”
          “Good Heavens ! Cecil, don’t you keep a gardener ?” exclaimed she, with an accent something between terror and surprise.
          “Of course, my love, about a dozen,” replied he, smiling.
          “Then why, in the name of all that is wonderful, am I to soil my fingers by digging?” inquired she.
          “Not digging, dear, but superintending, and pruning, and all the light work suited to a lady. The terrace-garden has always been under the charge of the lady of the mansion,” said he, with a something of tender retrospection in his tone.
          “Very suitable, no doubt, for your countrybred women, who are accustomed to such occupations,” said she, scornfully; “but I received a London education, and learnt different lessons.”
          “There is nothing unlady-like in gardening, dear Laura. Women of the highest rank and most refined education take pleasure in it.”

    ex Mrs. Hubback, “Niece of Miss Austen,” The wife’s sister ; or, The Forbidden Marriage vol. 2 (of three); (1851) : 205 : link

    Harvard copy/scan (New York, two-column edition, 1851) : 85 : link
    Bodleian : permalink (access to online; London edition)

    Preface
    The events which my tale records cannot again occur. No individuals can now be placed in similar situations. It is a tale of days that are past. It was written previously to the great agitation on the question of the Law of Marriage; and is now laid before the public, neither at the solicitations of admiring friends, nor with the ambitious intention of settling a much debated point; but purely from private and personal considerations, the nature of which my readers are at liberty to guess for themselves.
    Lockerley, Hants, January, 1851.

    The novel takes as its predicate the “wife’s sister” problem, as it presented itself ca 1831, whereby the sister of a deceased wife might marry the widower (her brother in law), although the marriage might be annuled. The garden passage quoted above, is a conversation between Cecil Mansfield and his new wife Laura, who had displaced Fanny (the sister of the earlier wife, and for a time Cecil’s replacement wife, so to speak, who is discarded). Laura is unprincipled, like Cecil; both come to a bad end. The story focuses more on Fanny, as it elaborates its themes of woman’s duties, rationality, self-government, and men’s duties too.

    The “deceased wife’s sister” would not finally be resolved until 1907; this is not the place for a discussion of it. A thorough discussion of the novel, and of Hubback’s life and work (including her relationship to the Austen family, and later years in California) is treated in :

    Courtney Davids, From Chawton to Oakland : Configuring the nineteenth-century domestic in Catherine Hubback’s writing, Dissertation, University of Stellenbosch (2014) : link
    (chapter 3 : Reason, Morality and Virtue in The wife’s sister ; or, The Forbidden Marriage)

    Wikipedia has an entry on the deceased wife’s sister question, although it does not address the annulment problem upon which Hubback’s novel is hinged : link
    the notes in the wikipedia entry include reference to :

    Diane M. Chambers, “Triangular Desire and the Sororal Bond: The ‘Deceased Wife’s Sister Bill.’” Mosaic 29:1 (1996) : 19–36 : link (jstor)

    Catherine Anne Hubback (1818-77)
    wikipedia : link

  88. a something of solemnity from the long, long past

    Martin May sat in the minister’s pew, with Mrs. Lingard. And when he left the chapel, he carried away the conclusion of the sermon, not in his memory only, but also in some hasty notes which he took.
          “We walk by the help of the same law of gravitation which the moon moves by. And when it is night, we see our way by the light of other worlds, the hosts of heaven. And our spiritual life is just as wonderful. We are living by mysterious ways, which we hardly think of; and we are aided by remoter helps than we always know. We are devout with the devoutness of ancient Psalms, — with the remorse, the repentance, the prayers, the trust, the hope, — with the heart of an old Hebrew king. And we are believers in the Father through words of eighteen hundred years ago. There is on us an impulse from what Moses was in Egypt, and Leonidas at Thermopyle. There is with us as our delight a poet whose person has been Stratford dust these two hundred years and more. And every day paradise is sung of, within our hearing, by the sweet voice of one who has himself vanished from sight long ago. There is on our souls, too, a something of beauty that is from ancient Greece, and a something of solemnity from the long, long past. When we speak, the words of our mouth are what they are from what the old Germans were in their forests, and from the manner in which the ancient Romans talked. And our own lives, from day to day, are the wiser and the calmer for the instruction which has come to us from hearts that are now beneath the turf.
          “We are strangely related. Our souls are mysteriously connected. We are akin to the past, the ages of the past; and so we may well believe ourselves heirs of the future, — as indeed we are, — heirs to futurity and other worlds.”

    William Mountford. Thorpe : A Quiet English Town, and Human Life Therein (Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1852) : 386 : link

    William Mountford (1816-85) : Unitarian preacher and writer; English, who would later remove to Boston area; seems to have gotten into “spiritualism” later in his career (suggested by the passage above).
    wikipedia : link, which is derived largely from
    Russel L. Carpenter, his quite interesting memorial “William Mountford,” in The Unitarian Review 28:6 (December 1887) : 592-599 : link
    NYPL copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link

  89. even when seemingly most arid, a something of refreshing moisture

    ...The Cricket is the thirstiest of all thirsty creatures. He is not therefore
                            “the blither for the drouth,”
    for where no ampler supply of liquid is at hand, he is said (heed it, ye careful house-wives!) to gnaw holes in wet woollen stockings or flannel, hung by the fire to dry. Therein, also, (though in more harmless fashion), we would make him our representative, as, thirsting after knowledge of our subject, we strive to extract from it, even when seemingly most arid, a something of refreshing moisture.
          Lastly, in all his doings, our Cricket is, confessedly, a pilferer...

    ex Episodes of Insect Life by Acheta Domestica, M. E. S. (New-York, 1852) : 10 : link evidently first of three volumes, first published in London; Bodleian : permalink

    “Acheta Domestica” is the Latin name for the house cricket. Pseudonym of L. M. Budgen, who also authored Live coals; or, Faces from the fire (London, 1867) : link
    Bodleian : permalink

  90. a something of the feeling which leads

    No-unscathed by time, unchanged by circumstance, the devotion of her heart rested his felicity as the anchor of her hopes. She gloried secretly in his success-in privacy poured forth her sorrows when it was checked or darkened by the inevitable troubles of life, and felt that Ogilvie would ever be to her the all-in-all of earth-her fondest dream, the hope of meeting him in Heaven! The moral power of a love like this was so exalted-it led to such an unbending and heroic forgetfulness of self-that Edith O’Moore, so far from feeling jealous of the sister of her heart, was animated by a pure spirit of affection, which enabled her to rise above all the baser propensities of our nature. In creating for herself the blissful hope of happiness for Eva and Ogilvie in their future union, she was almost indemnified for the ruin of her own human visions, the memories of which she hived within her soul uncommunicated to the world's cold ear, and treasured with a something of the feeling which leads us to hang garlands on the tomb. Her resolutions were in accordance with the loftiness of her character. She continued, therefore, to forth the devotion of her feelings upon poor Eva, while sharing all her youthful hopes and fears. In exercising the treasures of her own exalted mind by turning that of her innocent rival to the cultivation of those tastes and pursuits which her unerring judg ment indicated as most likely to contribute to the respective happiness of Eva and Lord Ogilvie, Edith O’Moore also found supremest consolation.
          Thus the two superior beings who, unconsciously, had doomed her to drain the cup of unrequited love even to its bitterest dregs, became the objects of her tenderest solicitude, most constant care, and deepest comfort.

    ex The Death-flag. By Miss Crumpe... Vol. 2 (of three); (London, 1852) : 299 : link
    Bodleian : permalink
    and same (via hathitrust) : link

    The book is mentioned (in reviews, in wikipedia, &c.) as having a subtitle : Death-Flag: or, The Irish Buccaneers, and yet that subtitle appears no on the title pages of the copies/scans listed above. Here is one such review, from among “Literary Novelties” in Bentley’s Miscellany 31 (1852) : 102 : link

          If we have read some historical romances which have pleased us more than Miss Crumpe’s “Death Flag; or, The Irish Buccaneers,” we have met with many much worse which have attained popularity. This is a story in which the Irish adherents of Charles Edward Stuart, after the battle of Culloden, prominently figure. With the issue of that combat, so disastrous to his hopes, anything like a general knowledge of the history of the young Pretender ceases; and our authoress has wisely taken advantage of that circumstance to interweave into her story many interesting particulars concerning the unfortunate prince, and to lay before us pictures of the social state of Ireland in 1748, which are exceedingly curious, and give a novelty of effect to her pages. There are some striking scenes in this romance, boldly conceived, although, in one or two instances, “writ large.” We cannot recognise much good taste in thrusting into prominence such an infamous miscreant as Sullivan. His abduction of Miss O’Moore, with its horrible consequence, excites neither terror nor pity, but sheer, unmitigated pain. But for the unhappy devotion of space to this vulgar villain, we should have pronounced “The Death Flag” an excellent romance.

    see also the entry (for two of Crumpe’s books) in Stephen J. Brown, Ireland in Fiction: A Guide to Irish Novels, Tales, Romances, and Folk-lore (New Edition; 1919) : 79 : link

    [CRUMPE, Miss]. Daughter of Dr. Crumpe (1766-1796), a famous physician in Limerick. According to the Madden MSS.. she wrote several other novels.

    447 — — GERALDINE OF DESMOND; or, Ireland in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. Three Vols. (LONDON: Colburn). [1829]. 2 Vols., 1841, “by E.C.A.”
    Dedicated to Thomas Moore. A story of the Desmond Rebellion, 1580-2, (battle of Monaster-ni-via, the massacre of Smerwick, &c.) with, as personages in the story, the chief historical figures of the time: — the Desmonds and Ormonds, Fr. Allen, S.J., Sanders, Sir Henry Sidney, Sir William Drury, Dr. Dee, the Astrologer, Queen Elizabeth herself. The Author has worked into the slight framework of her story an elaborate and careful picture of the times, the fruit, she tells us, of years of study and research. As a result the romance is overlaid and well-nigh smothered with erudition, apart even from the learned notes appended to each volume. The Author is obviously inspired by a great love and enthusiasm for Ireland, and takes the national side thoroughly. The book is ably written, but resembles rather a treatise than novel.

    448 — — THE DEATH FLAG; or, The Irish Buccaneers. 3 vols. (LOND.: William Shoberl). 1852.
    Period: 1748-88, ending with the funeral of the young Pretender. The scene varies between Ireland, France, England and Italy. The story deals with the adventures and intrigues of the O’Sullivans of Berehaven, the Irish Buccaneers, and their ship, the Death Flag. But the hero is Lord Ogilvy, a devoted Jacobite, whose love for Eva O’Sullivan forms one of the threads of the narrative. Jacobite intrigues form one of the main sources of interest. The object, says the Preface, is “to point a moral and adorn a tale” by showing the retribution that follows upon crime. This is not made unduly prominent. Standpoint: Irish and nationalist.

    Mary Crumpe; Mary Grace Susanna Crumpe, Comtesse de Milon de Villiers (1790s-1861), Irish novelist.
    wikipedia : link

  91. winning us by their smiles from giving permanent and soul-engrossing attention to the commonalities, although necessities, of commercial speculation, to feel a something of their influence

          Religion and Poetry, in harmonious communion, travel together. They cannot be separated ; — useless, futile, vain, would be all the attempts to destroy them — for, to destroy them, all that is beautiful, which excites admiration — all that is sublime, which gives birth to awe — all that is wonderful, which bespeaks incomprehensible causation, must be destroyed — for Religion and Poetry exist in all these, like angel seraphs winning us by their smiles from giving permanent and soul-engrossing attention to the commonalities, although necessities, of commercial speculation, to feel a something of their influence, which will tend to make us transcendantly more happy than all our competitive scrambles can ever make us, and to create within us a counteracting influence of a softening and humanising tendency, to so act upon our feelings as to prevent our sinking into mere machines of flesh and blood, only to be worked in the production of gold, the attainment of which, by unlimited competition without the influence of moral restraint, would set mankind in a chaos of confusion.
          Having glanced somewhat briefly at a few of the innumerable instancse that produce what I have described as the Poetry of Feeling, I shall now endeavour to illustrate what I mean by the Poetry of Diction...

    ex The Poetry of Feeling and the Poetry of Diction, A Lecture, by James Powell, author of the “Poet’s Voice,” &c., Delivered at the Wolverton Mechanics’ Institution, June 3rd, 1853. (Aylesbury, 1853) : 17 : link

    The same lecture is included in The Village Bridal and Other Poems; With a fragment of Autobiography. Also, two lectures on “The Poetry of Feeling and the Poetry of Diction,” and “The Best Means of Elevating the Working Classes.” By James Henry Powell. (London, 1854) : link

    The essay is mentioned at the beginning of
    “‘Utterly vain is, alas! This attempt at the Absolute, — wholly!’ — Poetry’s Changing Relation to Timeless Truths,” Chapter 1 in
    Irmtraud Huber, Time and Timelessness in Victorian Poetry> (2023: 25-69 : link
    that chapter is concerned with the “struggles to define and redefine [poetry’s] meaning in the face of the challenge to poetry from science on the one hand, and from the novel on the other.”

  92. a something of regret in her voice, as if another thought was in her mind

          “I think it must be a fortunate thing for Mr. Leigh that he has a friend like you,” Clare said, with perfect simplicity, and with a something of regret in her voice, as if another thought was in her mind.
          “I think it is,” Ralph as simply replied; “I have none of Edward’s brains, but I have a cool head, and that is always at his service. I sometimes wish that I was wiser, that I might advise him better — and more stubborn, that I might hold my opinions, when they are good ones, more stoutly against his — but what can’t be done must be let alone, and what I can do I do.”
          Clare liked this devotion to his friend : that she did might be read on her countenance. Ralph saw it, and answered it.

    Edward Willoughby : A Tale, by the author of “The Discipline of Life,” “Clare Abbey,” &c, &c. Vol. 1 (of 2); (London, 1854) : 118 : link

    Lady Emily Charlotte Mary Ponsonby (1817-1877), “wrote a number of novels telling tales set in the upper classes. These romances were published anonymously.”
    wikipedia : link

    It took me some searching to find who the author was, during which search I encountered her aunt, Lady Caroline Lamb (née Ponsonby; 1785-1828), perhaps best known for her affair with Byron, but certainly interesting beyond that. I wonder if that pedigree might have steeled Emily Ponsonby to write as she saw fit; the prose quoted above is of an intelligent order, I think; and I will dig further.
    wikipedia on Lady Caroline Lamb : link

    Emily Ponsonby is not the interesting painter bearing the same name : link

  93. his thoughts, however, were far, far away...
    there were moments of late, when a something of doubt would arise

          “I wonder,” began the poor invalid, after a very long silence on the part of the Father, who had been engaged very busily in writing, “that we have not heard from Woodfield — it is so unlike Lucy, leaving me so long without a line.”
          “I did not wish,” returned the Priest, “to agitate you, my dear son; you must forgive my little concealment; I had, a few days since, a letter for you, enclosed in one to me, from your respected mother; you have been too suffering for me to give it to you; but as you appear so anxious for news, I will not keep it any longer from you; — here it is,” and Father Giacomo handed him a letter, which Cecil eagerly seized.
          “You will observe,” continued the Priest, "that your mother has been ill," whilst he watched the anxious countenance of his pupil during the perusal of the letter; “Miss Craven is from home.”
          For some moments Cecil was silent; but he handed the letter back, and, taking up a book, appeared to read; his thoughts, however, were far, far away; they were at home with his mother and Lucy — the gentle companion of his youth — the one of all others that held the most prominent place in his heart. Poor young man! the near prospect of death which would force itself upon him, in spite of all Father Giacomo’s assurances, that, as summer drew on, he would be better, a feeling of inward disquiet, which he could not distinctly analyse, now took possession of his mind. What if, really, his days were passing away? if he should shortly die? on what were his hopes for eternity founded? He had, until his arrival in Rome, constantly attended Mass, and lived a strict Roman Catholic. He was truly attached to his tutor — the wily Priest; yet there were moments of late, when a something of doubt would arise, as to the power and sufficiency of the religion he professed to save his soul. And these thoughts would press very seriously upon his lonely hours. At first he repressed, as blasphemous, this temptation-which he considered it to be-but latterly, the conversation he had had, on leaving Woodfield, with his sister, as well as the recollection of many previous ones, dwelt vividly upon his mind; her earnest request, too, that he would “Search the Scriptures” for the truth, all forcibly presented itself, and Cecil, on the day we are here speaking of, took from its hiding-place (for he had never allowed Father Giacomo to know of his sister’s gift) his little Bible. And now, whenever an opportunity occurred, and that he was alone, the Sacred Volume became his companion.

    Clouds and Sunshine; or, Truth and Error. By Mary Alicia Taylor. Edited by the Rev. F. S. Moysey, Coombe Rectory, Somerset. (London, 1854): 227 : link

    reviews —

    this, from “Memoranda about our Lady Novelists,” in The Gentleman's Magazine (November 1854) : 442-444 : link

          “We are sorry that we can say little in praise of Clouds and Sunshine, by Mary Alicia Taylor. It is an unfair attempt to get rid of High Church views by representing them in the most exaggerated and odious light. Neither is it well written.”

    and this longer notice, from Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine (September 1854) : 572-573 : link

          The author of this book, whom we presume to be a very young lady, deprecates criticism, and asks for a lenient judgment from those who may favour her with a perusal. With the sincerest inclination to be indulgent to young writers, we cannot conscientiously withhold all censure from a production so feeble, frivolous, and blundering, and, withal, notwithstanding the modest assumption of the preface, so pretentious as this. A volume that carries the words "Truth and Error" upon its title-page, professes at least to be written by one to whom we may reasonably look for some degree of enlightenment — and seeing, further, that is edited by a clergyman of the Church of England, we might be justified in expecting to find it a specimen of tolerably good English. Expectations of this kind, however, are very speedily dissipated upon perusal. The following sample of the lady's style is culled from the very first page: —
          Morning and evening Lady Grey punctually visited the nursery; and to her Edith first lisped her infant prayer her constant companion, and a remarkably intelligent little being, at five years of age she knew as much as many do at seven. To her, the greatest delight were the mornings spent in her mother’s boudoir, where, after a long and happy ramble with her nurse, in the park and woods of her father’s noble domain (Gainsborough Castle), seated in a little chair which Lady Grey had herself embroidered, she was accustomed to begin her infant studies; “line upon line,” that sweet and favourite illustration of Scripture for children, forming the principal part, assisted by the magnificent large Bible, with its beautiful pictures and still more enchanting binding, to her childish eyes, which lay usually upon a small table beside Lady Grey’s sofa, &c., &c.
          The eyes of the child, be it observed, lay usually a small table! This is the sort of stuff, both as to matter and style, of which the volume is made up — the united efforts of Miss Taylor and the Rev. F. S. Moysey, Rector of Coombe, Somerset, have not availed to produce anything better — and therefore our readers may probably think us borne out in questioning whether the cause of “Truth” versus “Error,” will be greatly benefited by their advocacy. “Clouds and Sunshine” is a narrative, — we would call it a tale or a romance but that it has no plot — written with the view of exposing the errors of Puseyism and of illustrating the spirit and influence of evangelical religion. Unfortunately for the success of her object the fair authoress is as grossly ignorant of the real effects of vital godliness upon the mind and heart on the one hand, as she is of the constituents of Puseyism on the other. Her theology is the thinnest, baldest, scantiest, feeblest dribble that ever pretended to exist — and it matters not a straw into the balances of what sect or denomination her weight may be thrown. Her characters move mostly in the upper walks of life, but they speak abominable English, and one and all of them require to be sent back to school to repair their syntax. The authoress herself is in the same predicament, and should article herself to Lindley Murray forthwith. We counsel her, if she should ever write again, which we do not, however, recommend, to discard the villanous habit of mixing mangled and barbarized French with bad English — not to let any one promise “to dédommager us” — not to allow a boy to learn his lessons, or anything else, with a jeu d’esprit natural to him — nor his mamma to be eblouéd with his genius — nor to send her heroine to the ball in a Tarlatane à double jupe arranged in bandeaux, even though she be not converted. These, and such like flights of fancy, will not make a literary reputation — and we are afraid they will not do very much towards Miss Taylor’s avowed object, the recommendation of the simple gospel of Christ.

    another review, by Geraldine Jewsbury, is mentioned in Marie Riley, her Girls of the Period : Women Critics and Constructions of the Feminine in the Mid-Victorian Novel, dissertation, University of Central Lancashire (May 2002) : 159 : link (pdf; scroll or search down)

    that review —

          We may characterize ‘Clouds and Sunshine’ as the manufacture from that eminent and well-known firm Stuff & Nonsense. The Preface tells us that “the authoress feels herself in need of the greatest indulgence,” and also that she “has endeavoured, from serious conviction, to expose the dangerous fascinations of the prevailing error of the day, — in other words, Puseyism.” To this end she has represented all the characters, or rather names, in her book (for of characters there is not one) who hold High Church opinions or Roman Catholic doctrines, as dying in dreadful remorse and misery, — whilst those who are Evangelical marry happily. She seems to imagine that truth and error can be cut out into shape with a pair of scissors, and that she holds the shears of Destiny. If “Jove sits aloft, of the skies Lord Mayor,” in her own esteem she is at least the Lady Mayoress, — and gives her “nod” with as much decision as if she had lived up there all her life, and had taken in a bird’s-eye view of all creation. As a mere story, it is extremely bald and trivial; the style is flat and weak. As to the merit of the argument, we can pronounce no opinion. The Athenæum is profoundly impartial in the silence it maintains upon the relative merits of the charming young curates who “intone the service,” or the paternal old rectors who drone it.
    The Athenaeum (September 2, 1854) : 1065 : link

    Geraldine Jewsbury (1812-80), novelist, book reviewer
    wikipedia : link

  94. the vessel, a something of one mast.
    my something of a sick body.

    Syntax of Articles.
    Rule 4. Position and Agreement.
          The Articles may stand immediately before, and agree with the nouns to which they belong; as,

    Eia ke kumu mua, here is the first reason.
    He keiki kana, he had a child.
    Ka hoomaau, the persecution.
    Kekahi moku haole, a certain foreign ship.
    Ka moku, he wahi kiakahi, the vessel, a something of one mast.
    Kuu wahi kino mai, my something of a sick body.
    Loaa ia’u kahi pauku wahie, I found a stick of firewood.
    I hookahi malama, $5. (dala.)
    For one month $5, i.e. $5 per month.

    ex L(orrin). Andrews, comp., Grammar of the Hawaiian Language (Honolulu: Mission Press, 1854) : 132 : link

    Lorrin Andrews (1795-1868), “early American missionary to Hawaii and judge”
    wikipedia : link

  95. of a rough manufacture; a something of blue

          He was an intelligent-looking man, of about fifty-five; but with a dark and sunburnt complexion. The expression of his eyes bespoke a kindliness of heart; his manner gave him a certain patriarchal air, dignified, yet simple. He wore a vestment, which was neither a coat nor a jacket; kneebreeches; shoes and stockings of a rough manufacture; a something of blue which girded his waist, and might have been a twisted apron; and finally, a long-pointed red cap, the extremity of which hung downwards to his shoulders. His dress differed little from that of the peasantry around him, which is not very dissimilar to the dress of the inhabitants of High Catalonia.
          This was the Syndie, whose knowledge of sheep was much more profound than his skill in legislation, and whose acquaintance with European politics was just so much as that he knew there was a war between Russia and France, but was ignorant that England was engaged in it. It may be readily conjectured that this simple shepherd-king had not much taste for political disquisitions.

    The Dublin University Magazine vol. 48, no. 287 (November 1856) : 616-524 (622) : link

    the above an extract from Border Lands of Spain and France. With an account of a visit to the Republic of Andorre (London, 1856) : link

  96. a something of light growing darker peculiar

          ... As we write, it is exactly at the quiet “thought-hour,” at that Abenddaemmerung of the Germans, which “twilight” is far from translating — since the idea is that of “evening-dimmer-ing” — a something of light growing darker peculiar in its force. However, the time reminds us of some verses by a lady contributor to Graham, which will come in appropriately enough to our feelings, at least.

    from section “Editor’s Easy Talk,” followed by verse (“The Twilight Hour.” By Sans Souci) in Graham’s American Monthly Magazine 50:6 (Philadelphia, June 1857) : 558 : link

  97. But my mother looked sad and weary... There was a something of distance in the air of abstraction which pervaded her.

          But the half-weaver and half-shoemaker indicated no sorrow of heart. His hand was quick to get the bedstead corded up, the straw ticking on, the washtub (with a few tea things and crockery wares in it) pushed into the old cupboard which was already occupied by such natives as rats, mice, and spiders. The children were not less industrious. They helped to unload the wagon, and prepare the reception room for the best arrangement of our limited stock. But my mother looked sad and weary. Her eye was filled with an expression of insight. There was a something of distance in the air of abstraction which pervaded her. I record this fact, because, although she may have appeared thus interior a thousand times before, this is the first time when my attention became arrested and fixed by it. Her mind seemed far from the immediate scene.
          Nothing of importance transpired worth recording for several weeks.

    ex The Magic Staff : An Autobiography of Andrew Jackson Davis (New York, 1857) : 52 : link

    Andrew Jackson Davis (1826-1910), son of a shoemaker, spiritualist, “magnetic healing,” &c.
    wikipedia : link

  98. There was always a something of mystery about
    I shall certainly fall to picking something to pieces, or cutting up something which I ought not.

    “But it is your own history which you are to tell; surely you can remember that,” urged he, with smiling pertinacity.
          “Well, let me see; my mother is a widow, I don't remember my father, he was a clergyman ; we live in my uncle's house, who is very fond of my mother, and who is a very good man; but owing, I always heard, to some unfortunate circumstances of which I know nothing, he is very grave and silent; and as children, we stood in great awe of him. There was always a something of mystery about Uncle Morgan which made us afraid to talk, or laugh, or play, in his presence.”
          “Then your uncle is a Mr. Morgan ?” observed the unknown, looking attentively under his eyebrows at Sidney, with that peculiar expression which sent a chill through her.
    45 :
    link

    It was impossible, however, in such circumstances to enjoy variety either of place or company. She must return to the same room, and she must join the same circle. Fortunately for her happiness, she was not without employment; she had materials for needle-work amongst her luggage, and she soon became an object of envy to her companions in having something to do.
          Mr. Methuen implored her to have compassion on him, and invent some occupation for his idle fingers; the only chance he assured her of keeping him out of mischief.
          “If you do not charitably employ me, I shall certainly fall to picking something to pieces, or cutting up something which I ought not.”
          “What can I do for you?” asked she, pausing to consider.
          “Please, my lady, I have been out of employ this long time,” said he, assuming the whine or an established mendicant, “and if your ladyship will give me a trifle of work, I shall be much obliged.”
          “If we had only a book, we could read!” exclaimed Sidney.
    101 : link

    The Stage and the Company : A Novel. By Mrs. Hubback. Vol. 1 (of three); (London, 1858)

  99. a something of that resolution and firmness

    ...And though the expression of his large mouth was vulpine, yet with the ferocity was a something of that resolution and firmness which are such great elements of courage.
          The waistcoat to which he owed his nickname of Stunning Steenie, and which had served him so well in so many capacities (until he was fitted out at Her Majesty’s expense in good sailor toggery), had found its way, after many vicissitudes, to Rag Fair, where, though in the sere and yellow leaf, it was admired of all beholders, and was ultimately purchased as a wedding waistcoat by old Blarney, the dog-stealer, when at seventy he took to himself a third wife of twenty (lucky for her), blind, and not quite right in the head.

    ex Hope Evermore; or, Something to Do, by the author of “Left to Themselves,” A Tale of Arab Life in London. Vol. 2 (of 2); (London, 1860) : 323 : link

    Mrs. Smythies (Harriet Smythies); (1813-83)
    wikipedia : link

    Montague Summers, “Mrs. Gordon Smythies,” in Modern Language Notes 60:6 (June 1945) : 359-364
    jstor : permalink
    from which —
    Sebastapol, A Poem, Routledge, 1854, is not only tepid, but is sadly overballasted by more than fifty pages of annotation.” (p362)

  100. there was something in the expression, a something of; and so depraved !

          By the time the latter entered the apartment adjoining the garden, Lawrence had so placed himself that, unperceived by her, he could scrutinize her features closely. Her face was very pale, and she seemed laboring under considerable excitement, though she made an effort to appear very gay and unconcerned. She was tall, had a good figure, and by many was considered handsome — more especially as she was supposed to be an heiress to great wealth, and always dressed elegantly, a la mode Her features were regular; but there was something in the expression of her small, light blue eyes, and about her mouth — a something of fickleness, duplicity, and voluptuousness — that would not please a physiognomist...
          “At eighteen, and so depraved !” said Lawrence, mentally, as he stood regarding Anna. “So young ! so beautiful ! and so lost in vice !...”

    ex Emerson Bennett, The Traitor; or, The Fate of Ambition (Cincinnati, 1860) : 131 : link
    same (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign copy/scan, via hathitrust) : link

    evidently historical fiction, concerning Aaron Burr (1756-1836)

    Emerson Bennett (1822-1905)
    wikipedia : link

  101. Then he sought in the ear, and found a (something) of water, and threw it, and it became a loch of fresh water

    There is another version at Inverary, repeated to me by a stable boy who was then employed at the ferry of St. Katharines, and who repeated it in Gaelic while rowing the boat to Inverary...
    ... So he looked, and found a bit of stone, threw it, and it became a mountain. The giant came, looked for his big hammer and his little hammer, and smashed his way through the hill, and she felt his breath again. Then he sought in the ear, and found a (something) of water, and threw it, and it became a loch of fresh water...
    ... The stable boy said that he had learned this from a very old man, now living near Lochgilphead, who could tell it much better than he could...

    from and re: “The Battle of the Birds,” in Popular Tales of the West Highlands, Orally Collected, With a Translation by J. F. Campbell; Vol. 1 (of 4); (Edinburgh, 1860) : : 50 : link

    John Francis Campbell (1821-85), scholar of Celtic culture; sunshine recorder wikipedia
    wikipedia : link

  102. a something of life and spirit. I cannot follow you here.

    ...You further say you would “appeal to the Volunteers with good-will and confidence as men who had shown a something of life and spirit.” I cannot follow you here. No one, probably, has a much higher respect than I have for a man arming himself when his country is wrongfully assailed, and all her ordinary means of defense are insufficient, but my own experience in this matter leads me to conclusions very different from yours...

    ex “Volunteers against Patriotism,” in The Free Press ("Journal of the Foreign Affairs Committees") 10:8 (London; August 6, 1862) : 84 : link

  103. a something of less perfection might have increased

          Few gentlemen, be it understood, for with the ladies it was, of course, different, — at least, with the ladies of Ormiston: they had views concerning the unmarried Mr. Bradel, which the ruder sex could not share, and naturally considered him accordingly. In their eyes, not only his appearance, but the endowments of his mind, the qualities of his disposition, deserved fullest commendation; — not only was he handsome, but far better than handsome. The virtues usually possessed by pretenders to ample estates were decreed to him largely. Indeed, a something of less perfection might have increased his popularity with them; for as he actually stood, without a drawback to his list of advantages, he seemed rather placed too high for the most aspiring to attain. It seemed almost unwarrantable presumption in any girl seriously to hope for such a prize. He was to be dreamt of, not hoped for, and many a foolish dream had been about him: because of such dreams many an eligible offer had been declined, — an offer which perhaps offered no more, and was secretly wept over at the bitter waking.

    Philip Cresswell, A Loss Gained. (London, 1862) : 6
    Bodleian copy/scan (via google books) :
    link
    U California copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link

    thus treated, in The Westminster Review (October 1, 1862) : 581 —

          When young authors do not strive to be funny, they endeavour to write finely. We cannot wonder that in either case they should fail to compose what will please and endure “A Loss Gained” is so full of word-painting as to be almost unreadable Doubtless, some will like it because of its faults. The heroine is an attractive young girl; she is fresh from a boarding-school, but it is difficult to believe that even a boarding-school miss could talk by the page in such a strain as this: — “Yes, already the last fan-like shafts of colour glint up into the sky, and the world is many tones more gray; at once the fallows begin to seethe, and the denser air feels frosty, for winter is but a short way off, and little would tempt him back again.” (p. 71.)
    link

  104. something of a gnome

    The next — our home they fill full —
          Like the most pert of boys,
    Is still an urchin wilful,
          And fills our days with noise;
    Yet, darling of his mother,
          He loves so well to kiss,
    We’d have him just no other
          Than all to us he is;
    Though plain this one we see is
          A something of a gnome,
    Dear as the others he is,
          This fairy of our home.
    Another, somewhat bigger,
          Has bent to mortal rule,
    Can read, and seems to figure,
          A boy, ’mongst boys at school;
    He, mortal sports unheeding,
          Will pore, of thought bereft
     
    For all things else, still reading
          Of Elf-land he has left.

    ex “Our Fairies,” in William Cox Bennett, Poems (1862) : 41 : link

    There are 533 pages of poetry in this volume.

    William Cox Bennett (1820-1895)
    wikipedia : link

  105. a something of distance and division between them that she could by no means pass, what remained but to sit down quietly with this tangled skein of her own spinning

          “You are too severe, Miss Gilchrist. How can you say such shocking things?”
          “Shocking! it is quite natural. He prefers a small field to none, and exercises such capabilities as have been given him on things weak enough to own such influences.”
          Not even rude jesting this, but sharp earnestspoken with eye and cheek aflame and bitter tone! Miss Creighton shrank and exclaimed weakly, and all Gérard's face lightened with some emotion that was gone on the instant; while Meave sat in that strange hush that comes at such times, her own words ringing mercilessly in her ears. At last way of escape came. Gérard found even that for her, and she stole away as miserable a thing as ever went down a garden-path. She was ashamed to look at Vivia, she had so very much the feeling of having stabbed that good little thing, who quite adored her brother: and to think that since she must insult him, of all malicious, vapid gossips she could choose no other witness than Miss Creighton! He must hate her, and despise her, too, and that thought was intolerable, because she deserved it. She would at least have tried to raise herself above his contempt by making such reparation as was possible; but if he chose that she should feel a something of distance and division between them that she could by no means pass, what remained but to sit down quietly with this tangled skein of her own spinning? Nothing, for a weaker will and courage; but she, chancing to find him one day on the beach, put tremors and heart-beating on one side, and coming up to him said, resolutely,
          “Mr. Baracole, I have something to say to you.”
          He looked down at her curiously. There was such an odd mixture of shamefacedness and daring about her.
          “I am sorry that I spoke to you a I did before Miss Creighton,” went on Meave, hurriedly, for she felt her courage going.
          “And I, that you should have troubled yourself with an apology. It needed none.”
          Meave put that aside with a peremptory weave of the hand.
          “That is conventional. Please don’t. I am going to be sincere.”

    ex “Meave, Schoolmistress,” in Harper’s Weekly - Volume 7, Issues 340-365 (November 28, 1863) : 758-759 : link
    Purdue copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link

    John A. Murray believes the story to be authored by Charles Read, on his having browsed through a facsimile edition of the magazine. See his “Autumn of Falling Leaves,” in John A. Murray, ed., American Nature Writing, 1999 (1999) : 197-220 (216) borrowable at archive.org : link

    I am not confident about that attribution.

  106. a something of the subject gleamed across me, and a study of the situation

    ...The first song, I felt assured, would either mar or make the position I was placed in; it was that wild and almost unearthly drinking song, ‘Life is darkened o’er with woe.’ I had been given to understand that in Germany it was customary for Caspar to make a few uncouth steps, a sort of dancing, to the symphonies of the song, but this was so imperfectly conveyed to me, that I scarcely understood it; a something of the subject gleamed across me, and a study of the situation caused me to imagine that a man placed as I was, inducing a fellow-huntsman to use the magic bullet to save, if not myself, most certainly my head partner from perdition, would naturally have recourse to the most desperate means to accomplish his purpose on the instant; then there flashed across me a memory of some American Indians I had seen the season before exhibited at the Lyceum, in a melodrama written for them, in which they went through their war dance in the most excited and determined manner imaginable. I resolved to carry out the idea in the action of my song, but disguised my intention till the first evening of the performance, fearful lest the manager might object, if he observed it at rehearsal.
          The house on that eventful night was thronged with Germans; the overture encored, the curtain rose, and all proceeded quietly and well, till it came to my drinking song.

    ex Musical and Personal Recollections During Half a Century. By Henry Phillips. Vol. 1 (of two); (London, 1864) : 84 : link

    Henry Phillips (1801-76), singer (opera, etc.)
    wikipedia : link

  107. a something of rapture in that earlier dream
    a something that had betrayed a tremor in her thoughts
    a something of romance during those days

    But she had once loved her cousin. Yes, truly it was so. In her thoughts she did not now deny it. She had loved him, and was tormented by a feeling that she had had a more full delight in that love than in this other that had sprung up subsequently. She had told herself that this had come of her youth; that love at twenty was sweeter than it could be afterwards. There had been a something of rapture in that earlier dream which could never be repeated, — which could never live, indeed, except in a dream. Now, now that she was older and perhaps wiser, love meant a partnership, in which each partner would be honest to the other, in which each would wish and strive for the other’s welfare, so that thus their joint welfare might be insured. Then, in those early girlish days, it had meant a total abnegation of self. The one was of earth, and therefore possible. The other had been a ray from heaven, — and impossible, except in a dream.
    30 :
    link

    And at last she recurred to that matter as to which she had been so anxious when she first opened her lover’s letter. It will be remembered how assured she had expressed herself that Mr. Grey would not condescend to object to her travelling with her cousin. He had not so condescended. He had written on the matter with a pleasant joke, like a gentleman as he was, disdaining to allude to the past passages in the life of her whom he loved, abstaining even from expressing anything that might be taken as a permission on his part. There had been in Alice’s words, as she told him of their proposed plan, a something that had betrayed a tremor in her thoughts. She had studiously striven so to frame her phrases that her tale might be told as any other simple statement, as though there had been no trembling in her mind as she wrote. But she had failed, and she knew that she had failed. She had failed; and he had read all her effort and all her failure.
    32 : link

    That, as regarded her and George Vavasor, was over. But, nevertheless, there had been a something of romance during those days in Switzerland which she feared she would regret when she found herself settled at Nethercoats. She envied Kate. Kate could, as his sister, attach herself on to George’s political career, and obtain from it all that excitement of life which Alice desired for herself.
    143 : link

    all three passages from Anthony Trollope. Can You Forgive Her? Vol. 1 (of 3); (Leipzig: Tauchnitz, 1865)

  108. as a something of the past, and as quite behind

    We have no wish to be hyper-critical, and we have therefore little to say respecting the performers. We missed in Signor Mattei’s pianoforte playing refinement as well as feeling; while in Mr. Wells’s flute-playing mildness of style perhaps preponderated over execution. Now we do not expect at a conversazione of a young society to find M. Hallé, Mr. Pratten, or the pick of the opera singers; but we do expect, when we receive a card of invitation from a society of young gentlemen who, in the intensity of their art aspirations, have separated themselves from the recognised and chartered architectural body as a something of the past, and as quite behind the advancing art talent and art feeling of the present day — when we are perpetually reminded by these young gentlemen of the necessity of cultivating art in its every phase, and of educating and refining the imaginative powers; when we are lectured and abused for our love of looking-glasses and French polish, and told that we must be muscular men, and approach the study of art with manly earnestness, and not with the nimini-pimini sentimentality of bread and butter misses — when all this is done and said, we surely have a right to expect something a little more exhilarating than “The Last Rose of Summer” and “Jenny Jones.”

    a review of the program of music, under the longer piece “All Agog” by G. G., being an account of a recent meeting of the Architectural Association, in The Building News and Engineering Journal Vol. 12 (London; November 3, 1865) : 768 : link

  109. midway on clumsy pillars, assumes a something of lightness and spring, very refreshing

          What however gives to the houses of Hasa their most decided superiority over those of Central Arabia, is the employment of the arch, without which indeed there may be building, but hardly construction. The Ḥaşa arch, whether large or small, contracted to a window or spanning the entire abode, is, I believe, never the segment of one circle, but of two; it is half-way between the form peculiar to Tudor Gothic, and the “lancet” of the Plantagenets. Neither did I witness here the horseshoe curve characteristic of what is called Moresco architecture; it is a simple, broad, but pointed arch, within which an equilateral, sometimes an obtuse, but never an acute triangle, could be inscribed. The arch brings other improvements with it; the entire house becomes here much more regular, its apartments wider, its arrangement more symmetrical, light and air circulate with greater abundance and facility; while the roof, instead of remaining a mere mass of heavy woodwork, supported midway on clumsy pillars, assumes a something of lightness and spring, very refreshing to the eye of a traveller just arrived from Riad.
          Under these roofs, by these firesides, while coffee went round, and poetical recitations or tales of the land, interspersed with many a good joke and hearty laugh, hurried on the too-rapid hours of night, we had ample occasion to see what is sometimes called “the reverse of the medal,” and what I might perhaps, in common with the Arabs, entitle even more expressively “the underside of the carpet.” For every Nejdean blessing on Feysul, here were ten curses; for every good wish there bestowed on the “Muslims,” here were bitter imprecations.

    ex Narrative of a Year’s Journey Through Central and Eastern Arabia (1862-63) by William Gifford Palgrave; Vol. 2 (of two); (London, 1865) : 167 : link

  110. there was not only a cordial frankness about it, but a something of sympathy, conveyed with marvellous tact

    But the great trainer estimated all these condescensions at their true value. He never concealed from himself the motives that caused these people to be so civil to him; and perhaps he had seen too much of the turfite aristocracy to be flattered by their attentions, even had they been disinterested. But Walter Lisgard’s greeting was different from those which he was wont to receive from his great patrons; there was not only a cordial frankness about it, but a something of sympathy, conveyed with marvellous tact, in his air and manner; which seemed to say: “I unfeignedly regret that anything like friendship should be impossible between us, for I am your social superior; and yet, how ridiculous a thing it is that this should be so. I, but the younger brother of a man himself of no great position, and you, at the head of that profession in which the noblest in the land take so great and personal an interest.” If Mr. Chifney did not read all this, it is certain that so acute an observer could not fail to read some of it. He was as far from being moved by any considerations not strictly practical as any man connected with horseflesh; his calling, too, rendered him as suspicious of his fellow-creatures as a police detective; but Master Walter’s sort of flattery was too subtle for him.

    ex Mirk Abbey. By the Author of “Married Beneath Him,” “The Clyffards of Clyff,” etc. etc. (1866, New Edition 1882) : 44 : link (BL copy/scan, via google books)
    author identified at Bodleian : permalink
    leads to hathitrust scan of above

    James Payn (1830-98), novelist, editor
    wikipedia : link

  111. a something of doubtful futurity

          “Anton Trendellsohn — a Jew,” she said, at last.
          “Yes, aunt; Anton Trendellsohn, the Jew. I am engaged to him as his wife.”
          There was a something of doubtful futurity in the word engaged, which gave a slight feeling of relief to Madame Zamenoy, and taught her to entertain a hope that there might be yet room for escape. “Marry a Jew, Nina,” she said; “it cannot be possible!”

    [Anthony Trollope], Nina Balatka : The Story of a Maiden of Prague [by A. Trollope]. Vol. 1 (of 2); (London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1867) : 51 : link

  112. a something of unexpressed and inexpressible relief

    It was indeed a relief. Her brother-in-law dead, and he also who had so lately been her suitor! These two men whom she had so lately seen in lusty health, — proud with all the pride of outward life, — had both, by a stroke of the winds, been turned into nothing. A terrible retribution had fallen upon her enemy, — for as her enemy she had ever regarded Hugh Clavering since her husband’s death. She took no joy in this retribution. There was no feeling of triumph at her heart in that he had perished. She did not tell herself that she was glad, — either for her own sake or for her sister’s. But mingled with the awe she felt there was a something of unexpressed and inexpressible relief. Her present life was very grievous to her, and now had occurred that which would open to her new hopes and a new mode of living.

    Chapter 21, “Is She Mad?” in Anthony Trollope, The Claverings, with sixteen illustrations by M. Ellen Edwards; Vol. 2 (of 2); (London, 1867) : 260 : link Mary Ellen Edwards (1838-1934)
    wikipedia : link

  113. a something of Alice Craven in every feature; a something of the Moggie left in her still; a something of the same

    There was a something of Alice Craven in every feature (The Heiress of Haughton : 106)
    a something of obstinancy and versatility mingled in his character, that rendered it one of the most difficult of all to be beneficially guided... Thus time slipped away. (The Heiress of Haughton : 107)
    but I never heard sweet Moggie speak — for there was a something of the Moggie left in her still — and chattering away... (The Heiress of Haughton : 116)
    might be met by a something of a similar nature as regarded Miss Vernor (Ravenscliffe : 46)
    that gave a something of the same sad and solemn tranquility to the feelings of Eleanor (Ravenscliffe : 64)

    A conundrum here, a problematic volume that contains four novels, the first being Mrs. Eiloart, her The Curate’s Discipline (New York, 1867). And yet “a something of” appears not in that book, but in two of the three others — all by Anne Marsh-Caldwell — bound with it :
    The Heiress of Haughton, or, The Mother’s Secret (1855)
    Mordaunt Hall, or, A September Night (1849)
    Ravenscliffe (1851)
    (years are for first publication).

    google books : link
    Harvard : permalink

    I leave the instance listed under Mrs. Eiloart, where I found it, in part to keep her in view —
    Elizabeth Eiloart (1827-98), “wrote mostly children's fiction under the name Mrs. C. J. Eiloart... In 1858, she persuaded Marylebone Swimming Baths to be open for ladies each Wednesday.”
    wikipedia : link

  114. an antecedent something, and a something of some special nature, to be

    ...To trace the evolution of the powers of the mind in response to matter, is easy. Such a hypothesis may be as true as it is specious. It is quite consistent with a reasonable idealism, if the impressions conveyed by matter be treated as occasions rather than causes. But if traced backwards, there is a point at which the action of matter is no longer conceivable. Positivism may say that at this point our experience comes to an end, and what is beyond experience is an empty space, which can be bridged only by the unsubstantial creations of the imagination. Experience goes no further than the first material impression. But reason, instructed [9] by experience, makes known to us that there can be no impression without something impressed; and, further, that the response to a given impression differs according to the thing upon which the impression is made. Thus, experience implies an antecedent something, and a something of some special nature, to be, not only the point from which it has its beginning, but also to contribute to its results. There is, then, a primitive element of mind, as well as a primitive element of matter. Again, the mutual action of these elements must commence with one or the other of them.

    ex Inaugural Essay on Instinct, by the Rev. F. Nowill-Webster, for the attainment of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Arts at Göttingen (London, 1868) : 9 : link
    same (via hathitrust) : link

  115. a something of distance in the relations; that the silence, the fits of absence, and the almost brusqueries

    ...And then he was himself so utterly unassuming, so entirely unaware that he in his own person owned, or was likely ever to own, gifts that the rich heiress of Gillingham could covet, that, as I said before, he was at the beginning almost more puzzled than gratified by her notice.
          That this state of things should have occasioned at first a something of distance in the relations between the cousins is not surprising, nor need it afford subject for wonder that that very distance lent a piquancy to their intercourse which was not, to the petted heiress at least, without its charm. Lady Millicent had been so beset by flatterers, and so cloyed by adulation, that the silence, the fits of absence, and the almost brusqueries of her cousin Cecil were greeted by her as a very agreeable variety. She was sick to death of oversweet confections, of butter and honey she had been positively surfeited, so that the honest brown-bread diet, dry and husky though it was, which was all that she appeared likely to obtain from Cecil Vavasour, tasted fresh and wholesome to her fevered palate.
          But there was, as I before said, another cause — the cause, in fact — for Lady Millicent’s obvious appreciation of her cousin, and that motive power was her cousin’s future rank; for Mr. Vavasour, simple as he stood before her, quiet, unpretending, noticeable for his carelessness of outward advantages, his simple manners, and his unfashionable dress, could nevertheless, failing some very abnormal event, be the means of obtaining for her in a mitigated degree the fulfilment of her long-cherished desirethe hope of her heart, the insatiable craving, known only to herself, to wear, while retaining the noble name of Vavasour, the coronet of a British peeress on her brow.

    ex Sink Or Swim? : A Novel by the author of “Recommended to Mercy,” etc. Vol. 1 (of three) (London, 1868) : 23 : link
    several copies/scans via hathitrust : link

    Matilda Charlotte Houstoun (1811-92), prolific. “British travel writer, novelist, biographer, and women’s right activist. She is best known for her series of travel writings, particularly Texas and the Gulf of Mexico (1844) and Hesperos : or Travels in the West (1850), and their observations about African-American life during the times of the Confederate Deep South”
    wikipedia : link

  116. the shadow of a something of which the reality was never to live, never to be known to them.

    “Yes. I will tell her.”
          The silence between them, which these surface-words did not seem to break for some strange reason, seemed full of meaning to Miss Dundas — her color, her ordinary strength and vigor left her: it was as though she saw a warning presence which held them apart; the ghost, the shadow of a something of which the reality was never to live, never to be known to them. She tried to thrust it aside with any sound of words, without caring for their meaning:
          “I will never see her again. I never have been outside of these hills. Friends who go away are lost to me for ever. But you will see her? She is going back to Manasquan, and you have lived there. You can go back again to see the mists come up over the marshes, and the sea break on the beach: Lizzy has told me of it. It is good to be a man, to come and go where you will. There is nothing to keep a man from his friend unless death part them.”
          “No, I can never go back to Manasquan.”

    Rebecca Harding Davis, Dallas Galbraith (1868) : 197 : link

    Rebecca Harding Davis (1831-1910)
    wikipedia : link

    Henry James reviewed the novel in The Nation (October 22, 1868) : 330-331 : link
    That review includes a summary, but is also an occasion for James to elaborate on the role of the critic, who is “simply a reader like all the others — a reader who prints his impressions.”

    His summary of Dallas Galbraith

          Dallas Galbraith is the son of a reckless and dissipated father who has quarrelled with his family and turned his back on a rich inheritance. He dies early and leaves his wife and child penniless. The former marries again in such a way as to make it advisable for her boy to go out into the world. In the course of his youthful adventures Dallas encounters a certain George Laddoun, a plausible villain, who makes use of him in the committal of a forgery, and then subsequently establishes himself as a country physician in a fishing village on the New Jersey coast, with the boy as his assistant. Here finally the two are discovered by the searching eye of the law. Laddoun, however, has arranged matters in such a way as that Dallas shall incur the whole of the guilt (whereas, in fact, he is completely innocent), and, being on the eve of marriage with a young girl of whom Dallas himself is very fond, he persuades him for her sake not to betray him and blast his character. Dallas then, at the age of sixteen, consents out of pure generosity to suffer for the crime of another. He is sent for five years to the Albany Penitentiary, and we are meanwhile introduced to his father’s family. The Galbraiths are great people in Western Ohio, and consist of Madam Galbraith, the head of the house (the hero’s grandmother), her husband and her niece, Honora Dundas, who, in the absence of the rightful heir, is presumptive mistress of the property. The young woman to whom Laddoun was engaged, suspecting his guilt and cruelty, has dismissed him, and occupies a situation as housekeeper in the Galbraith establishment. When the young man’s term is out, he reappears in the world and makes his way to his father’s home. Here, without naming himself, but as a plain working mineralogist, he falls in love with Miss Dundas. Here, too, he meets his mother, who, a second time a widow, has returned to live with her mother-in-law. But in spite of these strong inducements he maintains his incognito and accepts an appointment on a geological survey of New Mexico. His motives for this line of action are his shame, his ignorance, his coarseness, the great gulf that separates him from his elegant and prosperous relatives. And yet they are not so elegant either; for this same Madam Galbraith aforesaid is, without offence to the author, simply a monster. Dallas remains a year in New Mexico and comes home just in time to witness a prodigious reversal of fortune in the family, caused by the combustion of a village built by Madam Galbraith for the purpose of working certain oil-wells. He is of great service in mitigating this catastrophe, and finally makes up his mind to reveal himself. He marries Honora. But on his wedding-night his evil destiny reappears in the person of Laddoun, who denounces him to the assembled family as an ex-convict. Laddoun dies of his bad habits, and Dallas establishes his innocence .
          Such is a rapid outline of a story which is told with a good deal of amplitude of detail and considerable energy of invention. But whatever interest attaches to it as the recital of certain events, we feel bound to say that this interest is wholly independent of the characters. These characters seem to us, one and all, essentially false. The hero himself is a perfectly illogical conception...
    from U Michigan copy (via hathitrust) : link

  117. has still a something of earth, a something of selfishness, adhering to it, from which we need a constant effort, an unceasing watchfulness, to free ourselves

          The dearest, the holiest affection we know on earth has still a something of earth, a something of selfishness, adhering to it, from which we need a constant effort, an unceasing watchfulness, to free ourselves. ‘Ceux que j’aime le plus, j’ ai si mal aimé,’ is Mme. Gasparin’s complaint; but in Heaven we shall be ‘as the angels,’ and if while on earth we have striven to
                            ‘Hallow Love, as knowing surely
                            It returneth whence it came,’
    hereafter that love will
                            ‘Find its own immortal level
                            In the Charity of Christ.’
          ‘There is a River the streams whereof shall make glad the City of God.’ Again, as with everything else that is good, this thought brings us back to the roots of our ‘yggdrasil,’ the tree of life which grows on either side of the River.

    ex Correspondence from “R. L. C.”, “Many Mansions” in The Monthly Packet of Evening Readings for Members of the English Church (London; May 1869) : 514-518 (517) : link

    was edited by Charlotte Mary Yonge from 1851 until 1893; see page devoted to the publication at the Charlotte Mary Yonge Fellowship : link

    Charlotte Mary Yonge (1823-1901), “novelist, who wrote in the service of the church. Her abundant books helped to spread the influence of the Oxford Movement and showed her keen interest in matters of public health and sanitation.”
    wikipedia : link

  118. There was, she thought, a something of hauteur; yet it might be no more than what is honoured as “true dignity of mind.”

          “Which is Colonel Falconbridge?” was the first inquiry of her reviving faculties.
          In a group of gentlemen near she soon distinguished, she felt persuaded, the object of her search. That one must be military: the air, the whole bearing, was that of habitual command. A lofty stature, fine cast of features; a man, in short, who, judged according to Flaxman’s theory that the noblest souls are lodged in the noblest frames, might rank among the master-spirits of the age. The expression of countenance was less prepossessing. There was, she thought, a something of hauteur; yet it might be no more than what is honoured as “true dignity of mind.” From these observations she was diverted very agreeably by being joined by Mrs. Falconbridge. There was no mistaking at any time the language of that face, and it was now that of lively joy. In answer to Catherine’s praise of her singing, she said, most unaffectedly, “Oh, that was nothing! You should have come sooner: we had a solo from the young lady now at the piano that was really exquisite. She is also, as you may perceive, uncommonly pretty. Her name, I understand, is Lisle.”
          Catherine commanded her countenance perfectly well as she received this information, with the addition, “She is here under charge of an aunt, and appears to be an especial favourite with the Duchess.”
          Another brilliant display of Sophia’s musical powers interrupted the discourse; but it was hardly ended when Mrs. Falconbridge exclaimed, “You have not yet seen my husband, Catherine.”

    ex Miss Langley’s Will : A Tale Vol. 1 (of two); (London, 1869) : 101 : link
    Bodleian : permalink

    author unknown; book reviewed in The Contemporary Review 12 (1869) : 306 : link

    Miss Langley’s Will: a Tale. Two vols. London: Rivingtons.
          It will be observed that this work is entitled, not “a novel,” but “a tale.” It is altogether an antediluvian affair, and completely puzzles us. A very serious person, nearly destitute of humour, with a slightly uninstructed belief in the upper classes, and living in the time of Hannah More, might perhaps have written it. “This Tbrief parley entirely withdrew Lady Emma’s attention from Mr. Middleton’s conversation:” “The answer from Lord Donnington was unsatisfactory:” “The Duchess at length thought it necessary to administer a gentle rebuke:” “Lord Henry, when alone, folded his arms on his breast, surveying the apartment in its length, breadth, and height; yet he was not engaged in measuring its dimensions — far different contemplations occupied his mind:” “We met last night at the Scudamores. .... He did not dance often, only twice, I think, with Lady Blanche Bellasis.” This is the kind of thing which catches the eye as you first turn the pages, the general effect being one of almost inconceivable dulness. Yet it would be unjust to condemn the book for its peculiar, old-fashioned manner; and the author — a lady, of course, and one, we presume, of mature years — has really some qualifications for writing “a tale.” The story of the will of a foolish old woman, who afterwards revokes it for a stupid reason, might be made the motif of an exciting narrative; but probably the author of this work would condemn all “excitement,” and certainly she has avoided stimulating her readers too much.
          The last chapter commences with the words: “The high in station are necessarily exposed to having everything which befalls them seen, heard, told, and yet too often wrongly told.” We assure the author, upon the strength of much observation of life, that the low in station are actually exposed to similar inconveniences!
    B. W.

  119. but which attract by a something enigmatical, a something of a disagreement, or of a double character in the expression

          It was because she had expected something entirely different that Madame de Beaupré was disappointed in Raymond’s appearance. If not critically handsome, he had one of those faces which are a letter of recommendation. Impossible to imagine that envy, malice, or uncharitableness could lurk behind those frank, open eyes! Ah! Madame de Beaupré, wait till you have seen the sous-lieutenant smile, and till you have heard him laugh. Only a man with a good honest genial nature could have such a pleasant cheery laugh.
          The impression Madame de Beaupré made on Raymond was quite other from that he had produced on her. He had expected to find a pretty woman, such as one meets every day; coquettish, well-dressed, with the undefinable grace which belongs to Frenchwomen as a rule. Instead of this, he found himself examining a face, with pretty features certainly, but which attract by a something enigmatical, a something of a disagreement, or of a double character in the expression.
          Most people saw nothing more in Madame de Beaupré than a pretty capricious woman, just as there are people who can hear nothing but confusion in a symphony of Beethoven.
          Raymond Savoisy, born with a richness of imagination which might have made him distinguished in the career of art, at once perceived the contradiction, the character of duality in the face of his hostess...

    Madame de Beaupré, by Mrs. C. Jenkin (New York, 1869) : 81 : link
    same (New York) edition, NYPL copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link

    Henrietta Camilla Jenkin (1808-85), born in Jamaica; whose books include the anti-slavery novel Cousin Stella; or, Conflict (1859)
    wikipedia : link
    more about her life (and circles) can be gleaned from the wikipedia page for her son
    Fleeming Jenkin (1833-85), polymath, engineer, friend of William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), subject of a memoir by Robert Louis Stevenson, &c., &c.
    wikipedia : link

  120. a something of life. a speck only; this something about

    and that the cause of their formation must be a something // of life. A speck only 1/32 of an inch in diameter has, at ten // which is kept away by gauze. But the cause will not keep // inches from the eye, the same apparent size as an object // away aeriform bodies or fluids. // This something must

    a ( fortuitous ? ) OCR misread across columns two and three (near top) of page,
    at “Inaugural Address of the President, Thomas R. Huxley, LL.D., F.R.S., etc., before the British Association for the Advancement of Science,”
    in Scientific American 23:15 (October 8, 1870) : 224
    google books (snippet only) :
    link
    Ohio State U copy/scan (one of several, via hathitrust) : link

  121. with one little touch say a something of

          Mr. Merton, after reflection, decided on writing a letter of sympathy to Miss Gray’s niece. Doctor Jennings had attended his mother in her last hours spent on earth, and in gratitude to that memory it was his duty to write to his widow, and in order to recall her to earlier days, to a long-ceased connexion with himself he would with one little touch say a something of “dear Miss Gray, of happy days spent in Broughton Place, Flat No. 3, which he could never forget, notwithstanding the after cloud which obscured their brightness.”
          Such a letter as is sketched above Mr. Merton wrote, and Annie now read, and read with the feelings he desired. The well remembered precise [76] characters she gazed at, and letting the letter lie before her, she sank into a reverie over past days induced by its contents. How dear Aunt Jane used to treasure every scrap of that formal hand, and place them in the secret recesses of her Davenport.

    ex Leslie Gore, Annie Jennings : A Novel. Vol. 3 (of three); (1870) : 75 : link
    same (U Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) copy/scan, via hathitrust : link

    probably pseudonymous; notices here and there, for Hugh : A Romance by Leslie Gore, Author of “Annie Jennings.” A copy is at the Bodleian : permalink

    Annie Jennings earned the following notice (and lengthy extracts) in “Novels of the Week,” The Athenaeum No.2224 (June 11, 1870) : 769-770 : link

    We offer to the author of ‘Annie Jennings’ our hearty thanks for having, certainly very unintentionally, afforded us a great amount of amusement. The would-be serious portions of this book are extremely funny. We wish we could say the same for the other portions of the work, which are obviously intended by the writer to be facetious; but we cannot do better than justify our remarks by a few extracts. Here is a serious description of the clever and handsome husband of the lovely heroine : — “Broad shoulders, a stature of five feet three, and legs like an otter.” This otter-legged gentleman speaks of his future in the following grandiloquent strain: “But hear of me you shall — hear of me as courted by the young and lovely — hear of my doors being besieged by the noblest and proudest in the land — all waiting on the leisure of this absurd Andrew Jennings, and to whom, for the sake of five minutes in his company, gold shall flow in like rushing rivers.” The same interesting individual also modestly exclaims, “Because I was courted — aye, and, I believe, loved — by many fair and noble women, I never questioned my getting power over her.” The author seems to have rather a partiality for legs, at any rate, for descriptions of them; for we find the following account of a fine pair — “And although his legs were not symmetrical, they were long and dressed up well, and, with the eye of a practised knitter, she unconsciously told off the number of stitches requisite to make him a pair of stockings, and how many rows would be required for their length.” Again, harping upon his favourite subject, the author, in the following account of the amusing accident there described, drags in the favoured limb. The scene is at a ball, and there, “scarcely waiting for her consent, he whirled her down the room at full speed; and, as he did so, slipt, from no apparent cause (invisible Fate standing by), and broke the small bone of his leg just above the ankle; he had presence of mind to disengage his partner, who spun on alone for a few seconds, then she turned to assist poor Elliott, who lay groaning.” The words italicized by us give a most humorous turn to the scene; but were, of course, never intended by the author to do so. It seems, however, that dancing is not a favourite amusement with the writer; for he makes one old lady, who indulges in a Highland fling whilst her niece is playing, leap too high, and dash her head against the chandelier. Although it is the head that is knocked, yet the author cunningly gets back to the favourite leg: — “Lean on me, dearest aunt, and stretch out that leg.” Perhaps, however, on the whole, the most laughable portion of the work is at the end, when the author himself is most serious, and the subject one that, if treated by any one else, could not possibly have been made ludicrous...

  122. a something of wrong

          “Are you suffering much pain, darling?” said her mother, leaning over her.
          “Oh, yes, mamma; pain of mind as well as body.”
          Mrs. Norton asked no further questions; but she felt sure that a something of wrong was implied in this remark. She turned to Edith, and placing her arm round her, she said, “God will bless you, my dear girl, for your loving care of my Eleanor.”
          “It was He who gave me presence of mind and sent me to the room in time to save her,” said Edith, softly.

    Mrs. Henry B. Paull, “The Fate of Beethoven’s Sonata,” in The Greatest is Charity : A Series of Eight Stories on the Attributes of Charity, described in the 4th, 5th, and 7th verses of the Thirteenth Chapter of St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians. (London, 1872) : 139-151 (151) : link

    Susanna Mary Paull (1812–1888), “author and translator who published under the name Mrs. H. B. Paull”
    wikipedia : link

  123. a something of sense analogous to the difficulty we find in realizing in winter that it will ever be warm again

    The first reflection that I will base on the facts on which we have dwelt is, that if we allow our minds a sufficient verge, and survey the exiles of the Popes in their entirety, it will follow that we shall in no wise allow our affliction at the present state of Rome to take the form of surprise and consternation. Bismarck and his German Empire, Napoleon III. and his “accomplished facts,” Cavour and his sturdy king, dispossessed kings, eternal republics, one and indivisible, empires and kingdoms a little but not much more eternal, constitutions written and sworn to and forgotten before the ink is dry, unalterable laws which no one will obey, small tyrants at Bâle and Geneva, or greater ones at Berlin; plebiscites, petroleum, modus vivendi, and the star of the Napoleonic dynasty — all these things will have their little day and do their little worst, and go their way to join the long phantasmagoria of human things, washing about with the rest at the foot of the rock of Peter in ceaseless flux till time shall end. He has lived through far louder storms, and looked forth upon many a darker horizon than those of to-day. It is only the necessary egotism of our brief personal span of time which makes us ever think otherwise — a something of sense analogous to the difficulty we find in realizing in winter that it will ever be warm again, and vice versâ. The main second cause of all the exiles of the Popes has always been the greed of power and of conquest, and the rogues of this hour are mere pettifogging thieves compared with many of their predecessors, from Alaric and Genseric down to Napoleon I.
          Next, I would say, and as a consequence of what I have just read, let us not dream of any compromise.

    ex (Monsignor) James Laird Patterson, “Exiled Popes,” in The Contemporary Review vol. 24 (August 1874) : 480-493 (488) : link
    U California copy/scan (one of several) via hathitrust : link

    “This essay was lately read before the Academia of the Catholic Religion.”

    James Laird Patterson (1822-1902)
    wikipedia : link

    The Contemporary Review : wikipedia : link

  124. and turned with a something of shame from the costly range

          And so this Compton, their immediate successor, must endure a life-long torture; for he was a man as little like to attain to the stoicism of a philosopher as to the sublime indifference of a Christian.
          Though never an expression of feeling escaped, we believe, through twenty years, our poor Squire viewed the kennel with disgust, and turned with a something of shame from the costly range of stabling, because, forsooth, the kennel lacked the priceless pack of yore; the stables, though they had their tenants, had not such as once had graced them. Where were the rivals of the four faultless animals which had borne his mother along the road so nobly? No relic of such state was left, save her huge yellow coach, which, locked into its carriage-house, had mouldered to decay, as she herself in the side aisle of St. Catherine.

    ex Emma C. C. Steinman, The Old House at Alding. A Novel. Vol. 1 (of three); (London, 1875) : 11 : link

    Emma C. C. Steinman (1816-99), two novels
    entry At the Circulating Library: A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837—1901 : link

    her Our Little Gypsy. A Novel (1881) is at hathitrust : link

    aside
    beautifully written opening lines, of this novel.

  125. a something of indescribable horror all its own. I have stood and gazed

    Many hours had not elapsed when Dr. Graham, guided by the wheeling in the air of some ravens, whose rising upwards and sinking downwards suddenly into a field had attracted him, stood side by side with his dead friend.
          I have stood face to face with death — I have witnessed death’s carnival during the Franco-Prussian war — have seen thousands gasping for breath, with blood-stained uniforms, ghastly wounds, shattered limbs, and moaning voice of agony; but I think that the aspect of a murdered form has a something of indescribable horror all its own. I have stood and gazed upon a murdered one found by the constabulary, lying, a dread spectacle, by the road-side; and I can well understand Dr. Graham’s horror as he bent over his old friend and marked the shocking wounds which had terminated his earthly existence. He had evidently struggled hard, and was now lying under a blooming golden furze hedge, the body half-immersed in the stagnant water, and his hands grasping still the grass in their deathgrip of agony.
          “He died hard, your honour,” said a hoarse, harsh voice close by the rector, who involuntarily started.

    John Duncan Craig, Real Pictures of Clerical Life in Ireland (1875) : 204 : link

    John Duncan Craig (1830-1909), “Irish poet, writer and Church of Ireland clergyman who was also an authority on the language and literature of Provence”
    wikipedia : link

  126. a something of hardness

    ...Even the tact which each possessed in an exquisite degree was not the same in each; in one it was the self-graduating power of a clever machine, — in the other, the delicateness of the sensitive-plant. Mrs. Carleton herself was not without some sense of this distinction; she confessed, secretly, that there was something in Fleda out of the reach of her discernment, and consequently beyond the walk of her skill; and felt, rather uneasily, that more delicate hands were needed to guide so delicate a nature. Mrs. Evelyn came nearer the point. She was very pleasant, and she knew how to do things in a charming way; and there were times, frequently, when Fleda thought she was everything lovely. But yet, now and then a mere word, or look, would contradict this fair promise, a something of hardness which Fleda could not reconcile with the soft gentleness of other times; and on the whole Mrs. Evelyn was unsure ground to her; she could not adventure her confidence there.
          With Mr. Carleton alone Fleda felt at home. He only, she knew, completely understood and appreciated her. Yet she saw also that with others he was not the same as with her. Whether grave or gay there was about him an air of cool indifference, very often reserved and not seldom haughty ; and the eye which could melt and glow when turned upon her, was sometimes as bright and cold as a winter sky. Fleda felt sure, however, that she might trust him entirely so far as she herself was concerned; of the rest she stood in doubt. She was quite right in both cases. Whatever else there might be in that blue eye, there was truth in it when it met hers; she gave that truth her full confidence and was willing to honour every draught made upon her charity for the other parts of his character.

    ex Queechy, by Elizabeth Wetherell. (London, 1876) : 89 : link

    Susan Bogert Warner (1819-85)
    wikipedia : link

  127. Or was it not rather that a something of which they were both conscious, and that had lain concealed
    as an apparently dead dry stick in Eastern lands

    Lord Rewe drew his breath hard and stood still a moment. What was this that had suddenly come between him and his wife? Or was it not rather that a something of which they were both conscious, and that had lain concealed, suddenly reared itself up and appeared before them? — as an apparently dead dry stick in Eastern lands before the astonished eyes of a traveller suddenly writhes, turns a bright quick eye, protrudes a forked and rapid tongue, and exhibits to him the unexpected deadly horror, and his danger. Many circumstances rose before Lord Rewe’s memory that he had remarked at the time they occurred, and had either forgotten or explained away afterwards. Had he been in fault? What had he done or neglected? The generous mind always seeks in itself first the cause of evil. In intention he knew he was not to blame, what had he ever done but love her? he might have been careless and neglectful —

    ex A Chequered Life by Mrs. Day, author of “From Birth to Bridal,” “Rough Hewn,” “Up to the Mark,” &c., &c. Vol. 2 (of three); (London, 1878) : 69 : link

    epigram : “What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue.” / Edmund Burke.

    reviews

    a smart, detailed and positive reception of the novel is found in The Spectator (October 19, 1878) : 1311-1312 : link
          The wife would have gone direct to the husband, and asked him what was the meaning of his mother's hints, or if she had not good-sense and frankness to take this course, the husband would have insisted on an explanation of the change in her demeanour towards himself, especially if the two had previously been such firm friends, as well as true lovers. But this is not, perhaps, a serious objection; if it were, what could the novelists do? They must have leave to be a little improbable, or what would become of three-volume fiction?

    another, rather less positive but not less smart, in The Athenaeum No. 2659 (October 12, 1878) : 464 : link
          But it must not be supposed that ‘A Chequered Life’ is wholly unamusing. the first place the bad French, which Mrs. Day, like her heroine, seems to use “when hurried,” the bad spelling, and the bad grammar, are all bad enough to avoid being merely dull. The “word-painting” in which author and characters revel is also exceptionally absurd. But the similes are the best...

    and this, from a survey of “Novels of the Quarter” in The British Quarterly Review (January 1, 1879) : 248 : link

    A Chequered Life. By Mrs. Day. Three Vols. (Hurst and Blackett.)
    Mrs. Day possesses considerable powers both of psychological analysis and literary execution. Her work is thoughtful and careful, and her moralizings are often just and penetrating. ‘A Chequered Life’ is a novel of society, and is intended to exhibit higher social life in its manifold aspects of fashion, occupation, morals, and passion — chiefly the two last. Her characters are married at the outset, and the story is entirely free from ordinary love-making. The passion that it exhibits is the morbid and lawless passion of indolent and unreal life, chiefly in flirtations which are perilous, and only just stop short of crime. The chief female characters are two daughters of the Earl of Kelso, and their cousin, Valentina Dudley. The three girls are well contrasted in character. Lady Ann marries, but it is not a marriage of affection, and she is a violent flirt. Valentina marries, and the love, which was somewhat defective, becomes stronger; only coldness, resulting from mutual reticence, springs up between her and her husband, who is a fine character, and the chief interest of the story lies in the details of their misunderstanding. Valentina suspects her husband of an affection for a Mrs. Disbrowe, and feels herself an aggrieved wife. She permits the undue attentions of her husband's most intimate friend, but without evil intention. The psychology, we think, is false; first in the possibility of so prolonged and great estrangement between husband and wife, they being what they are; and next in the development of the character of Florance Butler, who betrays his friend, and seeks to persuade Valentina to elope with him. Such a development is possible, but the elements of nobleness attributed to him make it unlikely. Several of the minor characters are well conceived and sketched. The purpose of the tale seems to be a warning to both men and women of the higher classes concerning the many quicksands of the glittering sea upon which they float. It is clever and wholesome, but it is better to be ignorant of much that it describes.

    The Pall Mall Budget (October 25, 1878) : 23 : link “A Chequered Life.” By Mrs. Day. Three vols. (Hurst and Blackett.)
    A detailed account of the frivolities and flirtations of titled personages always commands a certain amount of appreciation; indeed, so fascinating is this sort of material considered, that it is thought that any story, be it never so commonplace and badly written, must become popular if it only deals at sufficient length with the intrigues of fashionable people. The plot of "A Chequered Life" is so shallow and unpleasant that we must confess not to have followed it with any very great amount of attention. Given two or three married couples and a handsome and unscrupulous captain, any reader with the least experience in this kind of fiction will be able to construct the story for himself. It could not be expected that Mrs. Day should have been able to deal with so well-worn a subject with much originality, but her story is peculiarly remarkable for dulness and conventionality. In reading “A Chequered Life” one is more often inclined to yawn over its stupidity even than to resent its improprieties. Of all the flirtations which make up the story, that between Lady Anne Powys and Captain Florance Butler — the idol at whose shrine most of the women in the book sacrifice themselves — offends most strongly against good taste. The lady, after a useless life of pleasure, during which she has devoted herself to her male friends and neglected her husband, carries her flirtations even to her death-bed; where, after a long confession of her follies, she sends for her lover, congratulating herself at the same time on her desire to “die game.” One of her last acts is to place a diamond ring on her favourite's finger. “Don't refuse it,” she says; “it is my own.. Arthur,” that is her husband, did not give it me; I bought it myself. . . . . Kiss me once before you go..... The bond between me and everything is broken now,” she whispered as she loosed her hold; “good-bye, good-bye.” This is, perhaps, more foolish than indecorous; but the sympathy which Mrs. Day seems to have with the sinner is extremely distasteful. The subject of the story and the manner in which it is treated will, however, secure for the book a certain number of readers, profitless as its perusal must be, to say the least.

    Mrs. Day, four novels listed —
    At the Circulating Library: A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837—1901 : link

  128. a something of red-tapeism; but all is plain sailing, compared

          I must not trouble the reader with the tedious tale of the pains and the labour which accompany the accouchement of such an Expedition. All practicals know that to organize a movement of sixty men is not less troublesome — indeed, rather more so — than if it numbered six hundred or six thousand. The Viceroy had wisely determined that we should not only carry out the work of discovery by tracing the precious metals to their source; but, also, that we should bring back specimens weighing tons enough for assay and analysis, quantitive and qualitive, in London and Paris. Consequently, miners and mining apparatus were wanted, with all the materials for quarrying and blasting: my spirit sighed for dynamite, but experiments at Trieste had shown it to be too dangerous. The party was to consist of an escort numbering twenty-five Súdán soldiers of the Line, negroes liberated some two years ago; a few Ma’danjiyyah (“mine-men”), and thirty Haggárah (“stone-men” or quarrymen).
          The Government magazines of Cairo contain everything, but the difficulty is to find where the dispersed articles are stored: there is a something of red-tapeism; but all is plain sailing, compared with what it would be in Europe. The express orders of his Highness Husayn Kamil Pasha, Minister of Finance and Acting Minister of War, at once threw open every door. Had this young prince not taken in the affair a personal interest of the liveliest and most intelligent nature, we might have spent the winter at Cairo. And here I cannot refrain from mentioning, amongst other names, that of Mr. Alfred E. Garwood, C. E., locomotive superintendent; who, in the short space of four months, has introduced order and efficiency into the chaos known as the Bulák magazines. With his friendly cooperation, and under his vigorous arm, difficulties melted away like hail in a tropical sun. General Stone (Pasha), the Chief of Staff, also rendered me some assistance, by lending the instruments which stood in his own cabinet de travail.
          Poor Cairo had spent a seedy autumn...

    ex Richard F(rancis). Burton, The Land of Midian (revisited); Vol. 1 (of 2); (London, 1879) : 10 : link

    Richard Francis Burton (1821-90), Imperial “explorer”
    wikipedia : link

  129. she had thrown over her head a something of dark lace, the edges whereof fell to her waist — the merest pretence

    ... and Maud and Frank were left to their own devices.
          ‘Would you’ —— Frank began, and stopped there.
          ‘Would I’ —— said Maud, hinting a continuation.
          ‘I wanted to suggest a stroll in the gardens. It’s dreadfully hot here.’
          ‘Shall I rouse Mr Hartley?’ Maud asked.
          ‘Nonsense, Maud! Do you care to walk? looks so peaceful and calm outside that it seems almost a sin to stay indoors.’
          ‘It does indeed,’ Maud answered, and for a moment disappeared. When she returned, she had thrown over her head a something of dark lace, the edges whereof fell to her waist — the merest pretence of preparation for out-of-doors. She and Frank were on very close and confidential terms of friendship, and were perhaps nervously inclined to parade this to themselves, because they both knew very well that there was something more than friendship behind its pleasant mask. They chose a shady walk which led through well-laid gardens to the Park. At the Park gate they stopped. The silence had grown a little embarrassing, for neither had spoken since they had left the house.
          Frank broke the bonds of quiet with an effort : ‘I go back to town in a day or two.’
          ‘Indeed!’ Maud said. ‘So soon?’

    “A Life’s Atonement,” Chapter III. — “History,” in Chambers’s Journal of Popular Literature, Science and Art (January 18, 1880) : 38 : link

    same passage, in D. Christie Murray, A Life’s Atonement (Asher’s Collection of English Authors, British and American, vol. 167; Hamburg, 1881) : 42 : link

    David Christie Murray (1847-1907), journalist, fiction writer
    wikipedia : link

  130. or a something of Nothing, as far in a direct line from us here as we can

          Applying this to “Space,” we can have no Conception whatever without we imagine something “Material.” Some portion of what we call “Matter” — or some quality of it. This imagination may have two forms.
          1st. We may conceive, say, such an extension of a gaseous fluid of a sky blue colour, or, as the utmost abstraction I can myself make, a surface of white light, and endeavour to abstract our mind from any circumference, and from all other matter.
          2nd. We may conceive two portions of “Matter,” each as far as we can, the one on our left, and the other on our right, and as far distant from us as we can, and endeavour to abstract from our mind the conception of intervening matter gaseous or otherwise, or any intervening quality of matter. Similarly, we may start with ourself here, and abstracting from our mind all other matter, and its qualities endeavour to find a point of Matter, or a something of Nothing, as far in a direct line from us here as we can.

    ex Some elementary remarks regarding sensation and perception, and A Physical Hypothesis following thereon, and some remarks on space. (Edinburgh, 1880) : 14 : link

  131. with a something of sense in my head, and a pound or two laid by

    “I wonder what there’s about me,” considered Mr. McCullagh modestly, the while he wended his way homeward, “that makes everybody so fain for my company? Beside a man like Pousnett, now, I’m not so much to look at, and I’ve never laid myself out to have high ways or grand talk, or tried to be seductive in my manners. I am, as I’ve always said I was, just plain auld Rab, with a something of sense in my head, and a pound or two laid by, and no flattering on my tongue or falsehood in my heart; and yet only to consider how I am run after! To make no mention of old friends, who are aye wanting to know when I’ll [163] come round and take a bite of dinner and have a glass of toddy — familiars as I ca’ them — strangers, as one may say, seem greedy for my society. There’s Mr. Pousnett, he could do no more for his brother than go about with him, travelling backwards and forwards. And then there’s Janey — a weary Janey she is, too — can’t content herself without me, though she has all the pomps and vanities of this world about her. Look, too, at Kenneth’s wife, a daft sort o’ body no doubt; but still she makes more of her father-in-law than of her own father. There’s Snow, also, always dropping in and out, and ‘What’s your opinion, Mr. McCullagh? I was passing, and couldn’t resist coming in to have a word with you;’ and his friend Alty is keener still for knowing me. And Janet would have liked well if I’d made her Mistress McCullagh No. 2; and it seems to me if I’d time I might go on with the list till to-morrow,” finished Mr. McCullagh, prudently ending his self-gratulations, when he found the tale of those who delighted in his conversation drawing to a conclusion.

    Mrs. J. H. Riddell, The Senior Partner : A Novel, Ascher’s Collection, vo. 190, Vol. 3 (of 3 (1882) : 162 : link

    Charlotte Riddell (1832-1906), author of 56 books, novels and short stories; part-owner and editor of St. James’s Magazine
    wikipedia : link

  132. and while superstitions are fast becoming a something of the past...
    But enough of these absurdities;
    How we raised the wind

    There is no period in woman’s life that so completely changes her whole existence as marriage, and for that very reason she is apt to be more superstitious and fanciful at that time than at any other, and while superstitions are fast becoming a something of the past...
          But enough of these absurdities.
    How we raised the wind

    ex “Matrimonial Superstitions” (and title of following piece), in Tit-bits from All the Most Interesting Books, Periodicals and Newspapers in the World, Conducted by Geo. Newnes. 4:79 (April 21, 1883) : 12 : link

  133. not ] a something of shame, while we behold / mere play upon the surface of things

    the finding of this significance is not ] a something of shame, while we behold / mere play upon the surface of things; the great spiritual realities which under- / it everywhere recognizes the inner band, lie our common speech, the marvelous / which ought to connect, and in a world ...

    OCR cross-column misconstrual, at an intereresting location within “On the Study of Words,” by Richard Chenevix French D.D., Archbishop of Dublin, Part 1 of two, in The World’s Cyclopedia of Science Vol. (New York: John B. Alden, 1883) : 1-62 (15) : link FOUND INSIDE – PAGE 15

    first landing snippet —

    — from search for “a something of shame” (pre 1950) : link

    Richard Chenevix French (1807-86) : cleric; poet; author of Synonymes of the New Testament : being the Substance of a Course of Lectures addressed to the Theological Students, King’s College, London (1854?); Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount, drawn from the writings of Augustine, with observations... (1844), &c., &c.

  134. a something of more moment than any- traiture of

    With patience being the works of a remarkable says a thing of beauty is a joy for- and perseverance she may accomplish genius, but also for their faithful porever’. Now it is obvious that art is a something of more moment than any- traiture of French society, in all its thing of beauty, being so it must ac- thing in this book. One of the most strata, as it existed in the lifetime of cording to Keats be a joy forever; pleasing characteristics of her work is the writer. His facility in composition hence art is a joy fo

    another (fortuitous?) OCR misread (cross-column, here), at a review of A Joy Forever, Munera Pulveris, Two Paths, unto this Last and Storm Cloud of the Nineteenth Century. By John Ruskin. and (next column) A Quaker Love Story and Other Poems. By Maria W. Jones. Chicago, Published by the author. in
    The University No. 225 (Chicago; 16 January 1886) : 33 :
    link

  135. a something of contempt and blame. Was it but

    She read the sonnet with a pain
    Which, banished, would be felt again;
    And though her answer had been traced
    With shades of sadness all erased,
    She rose her slow walk to renew
    In thoughtful mood which ever grew
    More and more troubled, and a doubt
    She could not understand nor name
    Sternly within her soul flashed out,
    A something of contempt and blame.
    Was it but selfishness controlled
    The motives held as purest gold?
    Had she dared mar the life of one
    To her as to the heavens the sun
    By the poor vanity forever
    At height to seal the truth of love and lover?
    Or, now did madness seize her thought,
    Some folly steal the mind which ought
    One fixed calm purpose to pursue
    Life’s given work to firmly do?

    ex Mrs. Mary Hulett Young, Forest Leaves and Three; Or, Genevra’s Tower (Cambridge, Mass., 1887) : 66 : link (Harvard copy/scan)
    LoC copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link

  136. a something of a change

    We visited the summits of the Dame, Echo, Bannock and Joseph peaks, Quadrant Mountain. Antler Peak and many lesser points. As a rule the weather was fine and the air quite clear. On August 2, while on top of one of the mountains we were favored with a hail storm and a snow storm which lasted about an hour, leaving the tops of the peaks white with snow a little over half an inch deep. It was a something of a change to come from the heated valleys in the morning to be in a snow storm at four o’clock and walking through new snow and over fields of old snow twenty feet deep, to camp where ice made that night a quarter of an inch thick in our kettles, and to see in the morning daffodils and hundreds of other spring flowers. We could but think of the people suffering with heat in the cities while we required two pair of blankets over us to keep us comfortable.
          The scenery from some of the rocks was too grand for description — mountain ranges and peaks in all directions, deep cañon and valley, the whole National Park at our feet, the Yellowstone Lake under us like a blue valley, Mt. Washburn so much below us that it looked like a foothill, hundreds of little lakes, dark green and blue, all kinds of beautiful mountain flowers in great abundance, immense snow drifts with ice-cold streams running from them, cool rivers and freedom from insects.

    “Notes from the Park” (by “H” at Yellowstone National Park, August 27), in Forest and Stream (“A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun”) 29:7 (September 8, 1887) : 126 : link

  137. a something of renewed brightness

    He had, ever since the conversation between Miss Vidal and the Major which he had happened to overhear, been determined to obtain, if possible, for Lady Gregorie, the restitution of her letters on the day following the famous dinner-party he had called at Royalty Square, and had seen, or at least imagined that he had done so, a something of renewed brightness in the expression of his hostess’s face, which led him to believe that the cause of her uneasiness was removed.

    Philip Gaskell, A Lion Among the Ladies vol. 2 (of 3); (London, 1888) : 155 : link

  138. and read the deflection a of the galvanometer... a deflection a, something between

    and read the deflection a of the galvanometer... a deflection a, something between 20º and 50º

    ex H. N. Chute, Elementary Practical Physics : A Guide for the Physical Laboratory (1889) : 216 : link

    Horatio Nelson Chute (1847-1928)

  139. on literature or something of that kind

          “Well, there was, anyhow,” said Miss Phyllis. “And I and two other girls went to a course of lectures at the Town Hall on literature or something of that kind. We used to have shilling given us for our tickets.”

    Anthony Hope, The Dolly Dialogues (Chicago; ca 1894?) : (1890) : 146 : link

    Anthony Hope (1863-1933),
    wikipedia : link

  140. Yet there was sadness, too, a something of shame and of pride

    ...Here are the photographs five, not for nought had they borne
    Many a summer’s heat, now faded and shrivelled and torn.
    This was his own, said the trooper; the inspector takes up a card,
    Another of his, but altered; between them his life had been hard.
     
    First was a man of the English type, stalwart and fair and young,
    Telling in all its lines of one from ancestry sprung,
    Pleasant in mouth and eye, graceful in contour and line,
    Steady of gaze, but frank — an athlete, strong and yet fine.
     
    Years older the other seemed, with a countenance bearded and spare ;
    Under a broad-leafed hat the eyes had a moody stare.
    Yet there was sadness, too, a something of shame and of pride,
    Ashamed to confess what the handsome face might not hide.
     
    Who does not know it? Who has not seen it? — the change
    That takes a man, and produces what subtly and ever estrange;
    The new chum breaking apart from his English tradition, his caste,
    And mad with the new wild life, makes progress, too fast to last...

    ex Thomas Heney, “Found Dead,” in his In Middle Harbour and Other Verse, Chiefly Australian (London, 1890) : 23-26 (24) : link
    U California and Harvard copy/scans (via hathitrust) : link

    Thomas William Heney (1862-1928), Australian journalist, newspaper editor; two novels, two volumes of poetry
    wikipedia : link

    from the preface —
          It may also be necessary to state that all the names of “runs” or stations employed here are chosen for metrical reasons alone. This explanation is made to prevent a possible, if improbable, annoyance.

  141. a something of immutable reserve; a curious diction of the atmosphere

    Happy are they who have no history! Then, floating leisurely beneath a summer sky does not conduce to the making of history. Incident, quotha? The tiniest ripple in the water is an incident to the bargee. One day our Bargee taught us to tell ‘what’s o’clock’ by the sun. But I do not think our telling was quite so correct as his. One day the Cadet rode Dob, and Dob kicked up his heels, objecting to being ridden, for he waxed fat and ate beans in the new order of things. Already we began to contemplate a time when he would sit in the shade and leave us to trail the barge. One day he stood still on the bank, and the Bargee, indicating all the meadows in a large-minded way, observed, ‘This be Rugby, sir.’ We looked for Rugby, and presently, beyond a tangled vista of green lanes, perceived it on a hill, bestuck with all its spires a wholesome, workaday spot, that turns towards the future rather than back to the past.
          A town that drives by in its broughams and paces stately on its sidewalks, and is careful for many to-morrows. Rugby is full of good sense and inestimable morals and solid level worth, with a great deal of human charity — once it is indubitably certain that the blind tinker in the road is by no possibility a fraudulent mendicant. Except that I cannot imagine a fraudulent beggar in Rugby! They’d have him in an almshouse before he had been there a day. The almshouses creep up to the lych gate, and the sun lingers on the windows, in the shadow of the church, and town-hall and markets and spires crowd jostling about them in an orderly, tidied confusion. But, in spite of the long wide streets and the sonsy air of the place, a something of immutable reserve pervades these modern white walls, a curious diction of the atmosphere that is only given out of the great persistency of an academic centre or a cathedral town.

    V. Cecil Cotes, Two Girls on a Barge (with 44 illustrations by F. H. Townsend); (New York, 1891) : 140 : link

    Karyn Huenemann, “The Authorship of Two Girls on a Barge (1891), Reassessed,” in Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada 58 (2020-01) : 145-153 : link (accessed 20250307)

    abstract :
    Until recently, the novel Two Girls on a Barge (1891) has been attributed to Canadian author and journalist Sara Jeannette Duncan (1861–1922), writing under the pseudonym “V. Cecil Cotes.” This article provides evidence that, while Duncan did appear to have influenced the style and structure of the novel, the author was Violet Cecil Cotes (1868–1915), Duncan’s sister-in-law.

    from wikipedia, on Canals of the United Kingdom / Growth of Leisure Use —
    Early use of the canals for leisure travel was fairly limited. One of the earliest records of pleasure cruising was published in 1891. Two Girls on a Barge by Miss V. Cecil Cotes describes an unconventional adventure by two young ladies who took a barge from Paddington to Coventry. With the introduction of motor boats, George Westall authored a book in 1908, Inland Cruising on the Rivers and Canals of England and Wales which was published by Lander, Westall and Co. In 1916, P. Bonthron published My Holidays on Inland Waterways which described his adventures covering 2,000 miles of inland waterways in his motor boat.
    wikipedia : link

  142. a something of race, character, training and influences answered to.

    A secret breathes from this man when he faces you in the pulpit. It is a something of race, character, training and influences answered to. It is at once piquant and strong, kindly and acute, a blend of faculties that are often quite apart. To begin with, you know him as a close reasoner, a professor of apologetics who justifies his office by the force and information of his attack upon modern atheism, his knowledge of modern questions. A well-equipped logician and careful student; that is how you know him. Yet it is by no means the first of the impressions made by the preacher. It will come out after a while...
    ... As a preacher he engages himself less in delving underneath things than in clearing away rubbish : that work being ours as much as his...

    from miniature number 10, Professor Iverach, in Scottish Ministerial Miniatures by Deas Cromarty [Elizabeth Sophia Fletcher] (London, 1892) : 46 : link
    same (U Michigan copy/scan) via hathitrust : link

  143. in quo etiam erat aliquis quaestus; in which lay a something of gain

    Cic. Verr. ii.: iii. 84. 195 quum tibi senatus ex aerario pecuniam prompsisset et singulos tibi denarios adnumerasset, quos tu pro singulis modiis aratoribus solveres, quid facere debuisti? si quod L. Piso ille Frugi, qui legem de pecuniis repetundis primus tulit, quum emisses, quanti esset, quod superaret pecuniae, rettulisses: si, ut ambitiosi homines aut benigni, quum pluris senatus aestumasset, quain quanti esset annona, ex senatus aestumatione, non ex annonae ratione solvisses: sin, ut plerique faciunt, in quo etiam erat aliquis quaestus, sed is honestus et concessus, frumentum, quoniam vilius erat ne emisses: sumpsisses id nummorum, quod tibi senatus, cellae nomine, concesserat = “seeing that the senate had taken money for you out of the Treasury and counted out to you so many coins for you to pay to the farmers in return for so many bushels of corn, what was it your duty to do? Well; if what L. Piso Frugi, of good renown, did, he who was the first to carry the law for the repayment of moneys, after having bought, for whatsoever price it was, you would | have paid back to the Treasury the surplus money: if, as men currying favour or really kindhearted do, seeing that the senate had estimated the price of the corn as higher than it really was, you would | have paid for it at the senate’s estimate rather than at the quotation for it in the market: but if, as most people do — a course of proceeding too in which lay a something of gain, but at the same time a gain honorable and permitted — even granting that you had not bought the corn, it being somewhat poor stuff, you would have kept for yourself that sum of money, which the senate had given to you, as for the stocking of your own granary.”

    Richard Horton Smith, Conditional Sentences in Greek and Latin, for the use of students (London, 1894) : 575 : link

  144. a something of moment distressing

    There is a something of moment distressing our shirt manufacturers. It is not what the results of 1895 may be, nor yet the volume of business in sight for 1896. They are both favorable foregone conclusions. The element of hazard does not lie in either scale, except in so far as the matter of profit may be affected when new business calculations come forward next spring. The sharp advance in the prices of lining and body muslins and cambrics, and all plain and printed cotton fabrics used in the shirt-making industry, is a cause of concern to all who are not covered by longrunning contracts. And every manufacturer so covered knows that he will have to pay 20 per cent. advance when his present arrangements run out, — 20 per cent. at least, with the chances in favor of a higher rate.
          This matter of advance is inevitable. All the cotton looms are employed until next March, and when new engagements are sought for it is quite likely that the mills will have everything in their favor. The hardship now falls upon small manufacturers and those who neglected the warnings that filled the air months ago. When it is taken into consideration that the plane of values of two years ago is not met by the advanced prices now demanded between 15 and 20 per cent. — it will readily be seen that the latter figure will not meet what is coming.
          What will our shirtmakers do when the time comes to add to their own costs?

    ex “Shirt Notes,” The Clothier and Furnisher 25:3 (October 1895) : 87 : link

  145. a something of the engraved look; a Something of which one rarely tired

    Mrs. Stephen Winborne could see, in the red dusk, that Rhoda’s profile wore its usual calm steadiness, a something of the engraved look, which Amelia and Stephen knew as her “peculiarity;” they did not mean physical peculiarity, for she had a stately appearance and Well, you will see directly that her sister-in-law gave her every credit for good looks. The oddity was not there.
          “After all, you have your own life to live, you know,” said Mrs. Stephen, with quiet conviction. If Rhoda would only see it!
          “I am living my own life; the very one I want to live,” said a voice full in tone and capable of varied expressiveness, though just now it gave the light note of a string lying gently upon a violin.
    54

    Nature keeps this Quaker charm of the early months to herself; she cannot bestow it upon our cities; there the February afternoon is “muggy” with a decided tendency to fog.
          It was so that day. The web which the toiling Titan never ceases to spin wrapt its head and trunk in stifling folds, dimmed its eyes so that the flaring gas-lights seemed no more than pin-points, dulled its ears to all but its own confused roar, and pressing into its throat made it wheeze and pant for breath. Spreading itself between sea and marsh, from Kentish to northern slope, the huge, manylimbed monster, world-begotten, world-enriched, world-heavy, lay swathed in rank cloud of its own breathing, deafened with its own hoarse protest and tumultuous moan.
          A long track ran out from the centre into a north-eastern region where masses of people of various nationalities existed in a manner entirely mysterious to the mere casual observer and pretty much of a miracle to themselves, if they ever thought about it. The miracle of them and their effort was not charming; the long road had no loveliness that one should desire it. Stupid three-story houses, in which women tramped up and down all day; shop-fronts big and little, in which middle-men did their battle with each other, poor Dane-gelt of these latter days; fore-courts that used to be gardens and have broken now into queer growths of bedsteads, carpets, hardware goods, even mortuary stones and slabs; gas-lamps burning with a coarse dullness; everlasting wheels, everlasting feet going through the gloom, and street cries, street “music” mingling with all; the Wagner of life played his overture through the February day, and who knew what he meant?
          The girl in the doctor’s house stood at her window waiting, and for her the overture, at this hour, was full of weird fascination. It presented the whole play — a great, dim, jostling drama, with the strangest turmoil, in which the personal lost itself and became an Impersonal, a Something which laboured and hoped, had pains and joys, laughed and cried and talked, and in all made itself interesting — a Something of which one rarely tired.
          The overture played itself, the multitude of performers filled and refilled the stage; the doctor’s daughter had her private box for an hour and her evening dream as the play went by. No one to conduct, no one over the whole to prompt or rebuke, to arrange the multitude and set the scenes — yet all went on and on; once a week they rested, then they began again; the wheels, the feet, the anxious flitting faces, the jangling sounds, kept a rude, strong time which they seemed to know of; the Something never came to an end.

    Under God’s Sky : The Story of a Cleft in Marland, by Deas Cromarty (London, 1895) : 54 and 67 : link
    same (Penn State U) copy/scan, via hathitrust : link

    reviews

    The Saturday Review of Literature 80 (6 July 1895) : 20 : link
    U Illinois at Urbana-Champaign copy/scan (via archive.org) : link

    “Under God’s Sky.” By Deas Cromarty. London : Innes & Co. 1895.
          This book has narrowly escaped being a very good one indeed . There is freshness in the style. There is beauty in almost every page. Some of the characters are drawn with a vivid touch. “Venice," the strange, petulant girl of the moors, is a fascinating creature, and Rhoda, the earnest girl heroine, a lovable one, where she does not remind us too insistently of George Eliot’s good and queenly young persons. The great fault of the book is its affected straining after obscurity. The story is told in half-hints. The motives of all the characters are so puzzling that one longs for a preface like the heading of an Elizabethan play — “Amanda, a light woman, in love with Sir Ruffle Rackety,” or the like. However, they disentangle themselves successfully at the end and marry the last people one would suspect them of wanting to marry. We should like to read some more of “Deas Cromarty,” written down to our own ideas of lucidity and up to the level of the writer’s undoubted power and talent.

    evidently by H. G. Wells) : Gordon N. Ray, “H.G. Wells’s Contributions to the Saturday Review,” The Library, 5th Series, 16 (1961) : 29-36, referred to in Robert M. Philmus, “H.G. Wells as Literary Critic for the Saturday Review” in Science Fiction Studies 4:2 (July 1977) : link

    The Academy No. 1208 (June 29, 1895) : 543 : link

          No one who had read A High Little World would doubt that there would be good stuff in Deas Cromarty’s next book, and good stuff there certainly is in Under God’s Sky. The scenery of dale and fell is once more treated with complete mastery; and not a few of the characters, especially Schofield, or Ashworth, and Phenice Heywood, are drawn with great cleverness. We wish, however, that Deas Cromarty would lower her pitch a little. At present she is screwed up too tight and too high in more places than one. The opening scene between Ashworth and Sarah is of an intensity almost inconceivable and quite unintelligible in the circumstances: passion of that sort between characters of that sort hardly passes off without murder in real life. The atheistic but divine goodness of Dr. Winburne is in the same way altogether overstrained, and Deas Cromarty’s satire on his correct son and daughter-in-law is not only overdone but an anachronism. We make these remarks in preference to more complimentary ones, because this author is too good to be spoilt, and this particular form of spoiling goes far and fast unless it is checked.

    The Athenaeum No. 3528 (June 15, 1895) : 768 : link

    Under God’s Sky. By Deas Cromarty. (Innes & Co.)
    Novels by the author of ‘A High Little World’ grow wilder and more confusing. ‘Under God’s Sky’ has force and character, but these qualities are marred by obscurities of arrangement and diction, and an air of needless mystery. Why the chapters should be elaborately separated into nine different parts we do not know, unless it be to give a “serious” appearance to the whole. There is a good deal of dramatic feeling about the situations and the way in which the people are introduced; but the want of unity in the conception and treatment is only too apparent. The story is not fused. There is no real connecting link between town and country; they remain as apart as they are in reality. In London or in the provinces the good doctor’s Rhoda is inexpressive in spite of the importance given to her and the care lavished on her. “Deas Cromarty,” the name by which the author chooses to be known, has at times an effective way of describing the wild north country of England and its people. Natural aspects of sky and moor are not wanting, and they are associated with fitting characters. There are, too, vivid and impressive glimpses of London. The main interest is the countrywoman who at length fulfils her life’s purpose. She and her husband are both grim figures, instinct with wild passions and rugged determination akin to the soil from which both have sprung. The main characteristics of ‘Under God’s Sky’ are violent effects combined with a certain mistiness and confusion. A good deal of the natural force and purpose is lost in this cloudiness.

    The Publisher’s Circular No. 1506 (May 11, 1895) : 526 : link

    From Messrs. A. D. Innes & Co. — ‘Under God’s Sky: the Story of a Cleft in Marland,’ by Deas Cromarty.
    The author of ‘A High Little World’ gives us in her new volume an amazingly clever piece of work. George Eliot and Thomas Hardy are both brought to mind as we read of these Marland folk, and yet Deas Cromarty is in no sense an imitator of either of those masters of fiction. It is simply that she gives us a vivid and intensely powerful example of ‘locality’ fiction of the best order. Marland is situated amid the hills and dales of north-western England, and the country is described with a vigour and freshness that are as remarkable as they are welcome, while many of the folk of Marland and the surrounding district are presented with extraordinary vitality. The principal character in the story (there are many thoroughly well-defined) is a certain Rhoda Winborne, the only daughter of a London doctor (who hails originally from Marland). Dr. Winborne is looked upon as a harmless eccentric, who, though an atheist, acts in a way more Christian than the Christians; he has brought Rhoda up to look upon life with his views, and on his death she finds herself in an awkward position, plagued by her relatives to become, like themselves, worldly, and feeling within herself a strong desire to be true to the memory of her father. Her own desire, of course, conquers, and she goes, as her father had hoped to do, back to the homely folk of Marland, and there she meets her unexpected ‘fate.’ The story is one that must be read. It is so far, easily, one of the first three or four ‘novels of the year,’ and makes us regret that we have not before read any of Deas Cromarty’s books.

    The Bookseller (June 8, 1895) : 508-509 : link

    Under God’s Sky. By “Deas Cromarty.” —
    The writer, who uses the nom de plume of “Deas Cromarty,” has already shown herself a capable delineator of character, and it is as a series of character-studies that her latest book chiefly deserves attention, and the female characters are, perhaps, most worth notice. Sarah, the determined moorland girl, who has been deceived in her husband, and refuses to live with him; Rhoda Winborne, the daughter of the atheistical, unconventional, capable old doctor, whose one idea is to follow in his footsteps, and Phenice Heywood, who keeps house for the hard, unbending old manufacturer, Schofield, are all studies of a high order. The male actors in the drama are not so interesting; but Schofield and his crippled son, Owen, the old lawyer, Mr. Carling, and the glimpse or two we have of Sam Walmsley, are sketched with such power that one thinks less of the plot of the tale, ingenious and almost exciting as it is, than of the lights and shades of character here offered for our investigation. There are points here and there which call for criticism, but, on the whole, the book could hardly be improved.

    “Recent Fiction,” in The Week (November 22, 1895) : 1243 : link

    “Under God’s Sky” we confess to having found a difficult book to get through. The scene is laid in Marland, a factory district near Manchester, with Rhoda Winbournea — daughter of a kind but agnostic London doctor whose views she has inherited — for central figure. We are inclined to consider Phenice Heywood, a native of Marland, as the best drawn character in the book. The plot, a slight one, is confused and not very interesting. The story has a prologue, which appeared to have nothing to do with the story till the very end, and the head and tail might be chopped off with no great disadvantage. The relationships of some of the characters are still not very clear to us, though it is on these that the plot is supposed to turn, and we have no inclination to look them up for scrutiny. In short, though some of the scenes are dramatic, and the dialogue in parts natural and easy, the book as a whole is too heavy and too long.

    Deas Cromarty, pen name of Elizabeth Sophia Fletcher, also known as Mrs. Robert A. Watson (1850-1918)
    Dundee (Scotland) Women’s Trail : link

    ten items at Bodleian, search “Deas Cromarty” at SOLO catalogue : link

  146. I had perhaps a something of celestial inspiration

    Didier (not hearing him).
          A woman is a faithless, flighty creature! as stormy, as inconstant and as fathomless as ocean. Alas! I spread my sails upon that In all my heaven I had but the one star. I made the venture, and was wrecked, and now the grave is opening before me. Yet I was born for better things; my visions of the future were rose-colored, I had perhaps a something of celestial inspiration in my heart! O wretched woman! didst thou not shudder when thou didst forswear thyself to me, to me who left my very soul at thy discretion?
    Saverny.
          ’T is Marion again! Your mind seems fixed upon her.

    ex Victor Hugo, Marion de Lorme (1829; first staged in 1831), in Hernani, Esmeralda, Marion de Lorme, Translated by I. G. Burnham (Philadelphia, 1895) : 211 : link

    (an odd) summary of the play by Victor Hugo at
    wikipedia : link

    Marion Delorme (1613-1650), French courtesan known for her relationships with the important men of her time.
    wikipedia : link

  147. a something of character; ‘nullius jurare in verba magistri’

          In answer to my letter asking his consent Mr. Montagu replied as follows:
                            “Kettlestone, Fakenham,
                                        “November 22, 1895.
          “Dear Sir, — I have a great many small things to attend to, soon get tired, & as in a kind of sleep forget, & so I have not thanked you for your very kind letter. My humility is quite scared by your proposition to send my little facts to your Butlerian deposit in the British Museum. Well, I do think some of those memories should not die ‘quia vate sacro, &c.’   ₁
          “As one gets older one seems to come again into actual sight & hearing of the early past...
          “I think that there was in the school, and has a good deal remained with us, a something of character that belonged to the school — a great independency of thought — ‘nullius jurare in verba magistri’ ₂ — freedom from party, and while self-reliant not self opinionative, but allowing all others to think differently and liking their independence. I may not describe it well, but I have always asserted it...”

    — quoted correspondence from Edgar Montagu, in “Shrewsbury School in the ’Thirties; A Retrospect by an Old Salopian,” (continued from January 15, 1897), Shropshire Notes and Queries (January 22, 1897) : 9-10 : link
    the same (Michigan State U) copy/scan, via hathitrust : link

    This is one (the last) of a series of such letters, beginning with a contribution in the number of January 1, 1897 (same volume, scroll up). The entirety is quite beautiful, in its “late style” (pace Edward Said) way, slipping in remembered bits of Horace here, and there.

    The Latin —
    1
    quia vate sacro, &c. —
    from the Odes of Horace 4.9, the conclusion of lines 25-28, “Many are the great men who lived before Agamemnon, but all lie unwept and unknown, overwhelmed by perpetual night, since they lack a sacred bard” (Niall Ruud, Loeb, 2004); and
    2
    nullius jurare in verba magistri —
    from the Epistles of Horace 1.1 (to Maecenas) —
    “I am not bound over to swear as any master dictates” (H. Rushton Fairclough, Loeb); “To swear by the words of no master” (Francis Andrew March, Thesaurus Dictionary (1902) : link); or “I’m bound by oath to no one but myself” (David Ferris, 2001)

  148. In all cases the colour of the walls; and still with a something of mellowness. There is a combination of

    If the room be spacious enough you may even harbour an ear-chair for comfort, an [?] ou will; but this, although permissible, is not to be greatly desired, unless the bowed claw-and-ball legs, or their severer substitutes, are of the first elegance. In all cases the colour of the walls is to be delicate and yet not sickly, pale, and still with a something of mellowness. There is a combination of soft salmon pink, “picked out,” to use the common phrase, with dim willow-green, that is very comely and reviving; while certain tones of amber and of apricot are not without their charm.
          As for tapestry, most romantic of all hangings, the poetry, as it were, or mural decoration, at its best you could hardly over praise it...

    caption : An eared armchair, by Hopplewhite

    ex Rosamund Marriott Watson, The Art of the House (London, 1897) : 16 : link (Library of Catalonia copy/scan, via google books) five copies/scans via hathitrust : link

    Rosamund Marriott Watson (1860-1911), early wrote under pseudonyms Graham R. Thomson and R. Armytage; poet, writer, critic;
    wikipedia : link

    see, among other sources referenced at the wikipedia page,
    Linda K. Hughes, her Graham R. : Rosamund Marriott Watson, woman of letters (2005)
    borrowable at archive.org : link

    and Linda K. Hughes, “A Fin-de-Siècle Beauty and the Beast: Configuring the Body in Works by ‘Graham R. Tomson’ (Rosamund Marriott Watson),” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 14:1 (Spring 1995) : 95-121 : link (jstor)

  149. Next you’ll be making it out as we’re nought but a something of nothing.

    “An’ old wives have more wisdom nor young ones; and worlds more wisdom nor twenty generations of pit lads, if they were all packed into one to make up the outside show of a man.”
          “It belongs to far-back times does that granny gabble about witching and goblining. I’ve read it so.”
          “And the far backer it is, lad, the more likesome to be true — the nearer Creation, you ninny! Couldn’t your papers and books print that into you?" Refixing some black-cock plumes in an old jug, she said, "I’m surprised at you, Ark. Young as you are, I thought you had more wit-what-and-why into every-day things. You’d deny yesterday’s shadows next. Aye. Then you’ll come to denying this day’s sunshine. And then the very sun. And then the solid earth itsen! And what next? What next, I wonder!” she repeated, dusting a big brownbacked Bible, which was only read on Good-Fridays. “Next you’ll be making it out as we’re nought but a something of nothing. Next you’ll be making God’s somewhere out of the devil’s nowhere. Lift your head up, and look through those father’s eyes o’ thine; yes, and with all his senses, and with your own eyes and senses as well, and see if yon is a twinkling beam of the sun or not; see if it’s slipping slant out of nowhere — as ye’d think — straight into the cradle, and showing up my poor criss-cross, pitchity-patchity little quilt of years ago. Is it a sunbeam, now? Maybe it’s a solid white rolling-pin to you? Now is it? Say!”

    W. Edwards Tirebuck, Meg of the Scarlet Foot : A Novel (New York, 1898) : 34 : link
    (same) NYPL copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link

    William Edwards Tirebuck (1854–1900), working class and socialist fiction
    his online books page : link

  150. as fluidity resides in water; a something of nothing

    Vasishtha Continued...

    6.       The vacuous Intellect dwelling in the vacuity of the intellect, as fluidity resides in water; shows itself in the form of the world, as the fluid water displays itself in the form of waves upon its surface. So the world is the self-same Brahma, as the wave is the very water. (But the world is intellectual display and not material in the wave)...
     
    7.       The mirror of the intellect perceives the pageant of the world, in the same manner, as the mind sees the sights of things in dream. Hence what is termed the world, is but void and vacuity. (A something of nothing).

    from Chapter 55 “The Spiritual Sense of the World;” Argument : — The ignorant of self shows the world, but the knowledge of self disperses it to nothing..., in The Yoga-vásishtha-mahárámáyana of Válmiki, translated from the original Sanskrit by Vihári-lála Mitra; Containing The Nirvána-Prakarana, Uttarádha. v.4:1 (Calcutta, 1899) : 273
    U California copy/scan (via hathitrust) :
    link

  151. But there was a something of more solid worth attached to them

    ...So, when the collapse came, they had something to offer their American cousins — viz., a short-legged, thick, easy-feeding sort, lacking in style and also in that attractive thoroughbred appearance so catching to the eye, so fetching, but which is of such little value to the feeder or butcher. But there was a something of more solid worth attached to them which gradually pushed them to the front. Their often vulgar ends might not find favour with the old-time connoisseur, but the butchers and feeders wanted them, hence their well earned popularity.

    ex R. Gibson (Delaware), “The Cattle Industry of Canada; How it has expanded,” in The Stockbreeder’s Magazine (1899) : 784-790 (788) : link

  152. a something of wrong

    Passing over the suggestion in reply that it is equally inequitable as to both the above classes that a certain other creditor gets the 100 per cent he has innocently collected during the same period, the real answer is found in the suggestions that, historically considered, fraud has always had a something of wrong in it, even the conventional fraud which men have called a preference, and that, while, as Judge McKenna observes, “the true object of a bankruptcy act, so far as creditors are concerned, is to secure equality of distribution,” [misplaced quotation mark corrected] he omitted to add that this distribution must be made as of a certain day and only of property vested either in law or in equity in the bankrupt on that day. Apply this principle to the arguments of the preferentialists and the fallacy of their position will appear. However, more of this later.

    ex William H. Hotchkiss, “Bankruptcy and Preferences a la Mode,” in The Rand McNally Bankers’ Monthly 22:4 (Chicago, October 1901) : 349-353 (351) : link

  153. something (often, alas! no more than a something!) of music

    ...We teach languages, dead as well as live, not by mere constructions, but by showing how the Greek, Roman, or German used his own terms and sounds to convey just such human ideas as we exchange every day how Cicero, for instance, could and did say: “What’s the news?” in just as easy and offhand a fashion as we can. What I would have is in itself easy, natural, and plain and need not cost much, which is always a consideration. Money and trouble are expended liberally to teach something (often, alas! no more than a something!) of music, freehand drawing, hygiene, and physiology. Is it not worth while to take pains and pay something toward laying the lasting foundations for the good voices and the good use of them, by which chiefly are right knowledge and right thought to be communicated and inculcated?

    Jenne M(orrow). Long, “Common Sense in Oral Expression,” in The Western Journal of Education 7:4 (San Francisco; April 1902) : 288-289 : link

    an advertisement for the Jenne M. Long College of Voice and [Dramatic] Action appears in the San Francisco Call (Monday, May 4, 1903) : 10 : link (LoC, Chronicling America)

    “Tell The True Thing In The True Way” — catch-phrase atop a notice for Miss Jenne M. Long, Teacher of the Arts of Correct and Expressive Delivery, in Hale’s Magazine 6:12 (December 1899)
    UC Berkeley, Digital Collections (Bancroft Library) : link

  154. there must be and is a something of distance; here a bookish individual is regarded as a harmless nonentity

    A correspondent writes: “For some weeks past the present writer has been making his abode in a Lincolnshire farmhouse that may fairly be called remote, since of the three railway stations in its neighbourhood the nearest is seven miles away across the wolds. It has been an interesting stay, because of its bringing one into close touch with those engaged on the soil. At the house of a great landowner one can never get quite the same thing. Between the most genial squire and his tenants there must be and is a something of distance that applies to his guests also. Here a bookish individual is regarded as a harmless nonentity; before him all sorts of questions may be debated with the utmost freedom. And it has been very pleasant to enter into the farmer’s wholesome and kindly atmosphere, and to some extent to think his thoughts, or, at any rate, to share his food and enter into his way of living.[”]

    ex “Country Notes” in Country Life Illustrated (“The Journal for all interested in country life and country pursuits”) 12:295 (August 30, 1902) : 259 : link

  155. A. something of that sort.
    A. something of that sort.

    Q. And you wanted to stop these complaints? — A. Something of that sort.
    Q. On behalf of the C.P.R.? — A. Something of that sort.

    Testimony by John S. Skinner, labour agent for the Canadian Pacific Railway (Montreal, July 21, 1904),
    in Appendix, Minutes of Evidence, ex Report of Royal Commission “Appointed to inquire into the immigration of Italian labourers to Montreal and the alleged fraudulent practices of employment agencies,” Sessional Paper No. 36b (Ottawa, 1905) : 21 :
    link

  156. a Something of Some Particular Sort. At any rate

          I rang the bell. Some uniform looked at me. I boldly said:
          “I’m the representative of the Wanderer.”
          It was six months before I got near enough to earth to call myself a reporter. The lackey’s automatic finger on his automatic arm pointed to an open door. I entered. The room was half filled with exclusively exclusive women, of assorted ages and sizes. To be a Dame, one must have descended from Something, I forget what, but I’m sure it was from Something, and that this Particular Something must have been a Something of Some Particular Sort. At any rate, there were only 566 Genuine Dames; all others were spurious, and didn’t have in ’em the Something which Somebody put there unknown centuries ago.
          Miss Annis Amquaint presided. She lived on a farm in shrubbery section of snobby Brookline, and there, with a neighbor a half a mile to the right of her, another a quarter of a mile to the left of her, two a mile in front of her, and three others three quarters of a mile behind her, she fed upon pedigreed meat and home-cured pork.

    ex The Mower-Man, The Hayfield Mower and Scythe of Progress 1:7 (Boston, Mass., 1904 ) : 60 : link (U Minnesota copy/scan)
    NYPL copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link

  157. About her hair, which was always most carefully dressed, there was a something of disorder

    Luisa knitted as she talked, her needles clicking continually, but her seeming calm and good spirits did not entirely conceal her inward excitement, which had begun on the previous day, had become more intense during a sleepless night, and was now steadily increasing as the moment for setting out drew nearer. Even in the playful tone of her voice an unusual chord seemed to be vibrating. About her hair, which was always most carefully dressed, there was a something of disorder, like the touch of a light breath brushing gently across her brow.
          Ester arrived at a quarter to two , and explained that she had come a little earlier because she had heard it thunder. Thunder?

    ex Antonio Fogazzaro, The Patriot (Piccolo Mondo Antico, translated from the Italian by M. Prichard-Agnetti); (1906) : 371 : link

    plot summary of Piccolo Mondo Antico at it.wikipedia : link

    Antonio Fogazzaro (1842-1911), trained in law, associated with the Scapigliatura movement, proponent of liberal Catholicism, novelist, poet
    wikipedia : link

  158. a Something of language study may be begun early. The words that have in older days

    a Something of language study may be begun early. The words that have in older days a meaning different from the one they have now — these words seem not uninteresting to pupils, if read with the context. That you allow this opinion ...

    OCR error, at W. F. P. Stockley, “English Literature in Secondary Schools,” (the first of two parts) in The Irish Educational Review (1908) : 143-153 (151) : link

    first landing (link) —

  159. A something of which the sense can in no way assist the mind to form a conception of.

    A something of which the sense can in no way assist the mind to form a conception of. — Daily Telegraph.

    being the second of three examples of “Superfluous prepositions, whether due to ignorance of idiom, negligence, or mistaken zeal for accuracy.”
    from H. W. F. and F. G. F. (Henry Watson Fowler and Francis George Fowler), their The King’s English, Second Edition (1908) : 165 :
    link

    see wikipedia on editions of Fowler’s Modern English Usage : link

  160. which every cowboy pretends to, and a something of logic

          Attention should be called to Mr. Justice Malden’s address, to Trinity College Classical Society, on the early history of classical learning in Ireland (Longmans, 1908). This subject still awaits its explorer; but enough is said to disclose an unexpected state of things. It may have been known that in the early centuries of our era Ireland kept the light of learning alight, and in particular that Greek was studied in her universities; but it is a surprise to learn how good were the Irish schools under the native chieftains, before wars destroyed the whole system. Yet even in the seventeenth century (about 1689) Sir Richard Cox says: ‘In the present day, very few of the Irish aim at any more than a little Latin, which every cowboy pretends to, and a something of logic.’ In the sixteenth century Latin was the common medium of intercourse with strangers.

    from “News and Comments,” in The Classical Review 23:2 (London; March 1909) : 59 : link

  161. a something of order grew out of the chaos

          When Israel was overthrown by Assyria, it was left at once to its fate, and the conquered district was filled with strangers. But Nebuchadrezzar tried to save Judah to a better fate, by appointing one of their own number — not as king any more, of course, but as governor — over the remnant of the remnant, and by trying to restore law and order in the unhappy land. The appointment of GEDALIAH to this office was a fortunate choice. He was a Judean of noble family and of no less noble character. He was the very man who had saved Jeremiah when the fanatic princes had sought his life. Had he been made king in place of the unstable Zedekiah, the calamity might not have occurred. He was gentle, though firm, and when we have said that he had been a pupil of Jeremiah, we have said everything. He inspired such confidence that at his request the lawless bands that were ravaging the country after the war was over settled down to orderly life again. Gradually, under his wise guidance, a something of order grew out of the chaos. Some of those who had fled to the surrounding lands of Moab, Edom, and Ammon, seeing how quietly and peacefully things were progressing, and how even some of the ruins were being restored under the new governor, stole back to the old home. Gedaliah made Mizpeh, in Benjamin, a sort of capital of the new government, for Jerusalem was in ruins. Of course, a Chaldean garrison was stationed there to prevent fresh insurrection.

    ex Maurice H. Harris, The People of the Book : A Bible History for School and Home; Vol. 3 (of 3) : From the division of the Kingdom to the Prophet Malachi (New York, 1912) : 202 : link

    Maurice H(enry) Harris (1859-1930), Rabbi (Reform Judaism)
    wikipedia : link

  162. With a something of care, which resembled
          A cloud on a bright summer-day.
     
    And they laughed in despite of their reason

    In a city far famous, whose temples
          Were beleaguered by Northmen the while,
    Was a house near the James, where his rimples
          Encircle the Beautiful Isle.
     
    And here, on one eve, were assembled
          Companions whose features were gay,
    With a something of care, which resembled
          A cloud on a bright summer-day.
     
    And they laughed in despite of their reason,
          In despite of the war and its scath —
    For the heart of the young in its season,
          Is sublimer than danger or death.
     
    Now it chanced, and I know not how either,
          When Meridienne entered this hall,
    She became, in the lieu of the weather,
          The theme of discussion for all...

    ex “Merdidienne, or, The Department-Girl,” in The Land where We Were Dreaming; And Other Poems of Daniel Bedinger Lucas, Edited by‎Charles William Kent,Ph. D., and Virginia Lucas; with a critical introduction by Charles E. Kent... (Boston; Gorham Press, 1913) : 74-78 (75) : link

    Daniel Bedinger Lucas (1836-1909), “a Confederate officer, poet, lawyer and ultimately justice of the West Virginia Supreme Court;” also known as “The Poet Laureate of the Lost Cause”
    wikipedia : link

  163. or a shock, a something of character, may also be intended

    ...strike, or a shock, a something of character, may also be intended or
    cases it ht resulting in shock and not 50 resulting . We need , ho back to the idea that it is shoc a fact and howsoever caused Dething of importance . Art of Wilful Tort Causing Sle es ...

    — felicitous OCR result of a clumsily effected scan (Princeton copy), at The Central Law Journal (St. Louis, Missouri; September 18, 1914) : 204 : link

    on the same page (devoted to distinguishing “shock” (by its effects) from anxiety or fright, &c., &c.), is this —
    As showing susceptability to injury, an excerpt is made from George Eliot’s writings that: “She has been shaken by so many painful emotions, that I think it would be better, for this evening at least, to guard her from a new shock if possible.”

  164. something to “blurb” about, but a something of doubtful value as a sound

    “Is it advisable?” asks a young writer the worth of whose work is beginning to be understood by editors, “to sign an agreement to contribute exclusively to one magazine. I haven’t been asked to do this, but I notice The Cosmopolitan makes much of its exclusive contracts with Gouverneur Morris, Robert W. Chambers, Rex Beach and other writers.” Such agreements are good neither for the author nor the magazine. The magazine finds in such a contract something to “blurb” about, but a something of doubtful value as a sound advertising factor, something that displeases an appreciable number of thoughtful readers. The author is assured of a certain sum for each story he produces; that a story is not worthy of his talent often will escape the observation of a man tied to a money-producing contract. Unless the conditions are abnormal, a writer should not sign a contract to contribute to only one magazine, or to submit his books first to a certain publisher, or to allow one agent the exclusive right to dispose of his work. The wise writer keeps himself free from the possibility of dwarfing his ability by business considerations.

    ex “Considered Trifles” (editor’s column), in The Editor (“The Journal of Information for Literary Workers”) 43:4 (February 12, 1916) : 212 : link

  165. a something of chaos and infinity, he felt; a something not of this world. The starkness and loneliness

          “But the old wild goose,” he said, “if he lost his wife when he was only six or seven years old he’d be faithful to her memory in thought and deed till the day of his death. Often they live to be a hundred.”
          Somehow there came into Manners’s mind a vision of wild wintry hills, and of an old gray goose flying high through the clear, piercing cold with the piled-up anguish of eighty years of grief tearing at his wild and faithful heart. In such a love as that there was a something of chaos and infinity, he felt; a something not of this world. The starkness and loneliness of such loving appalled him. Where did the dumb bird find the will to go on living through the long generations? Surely, he thought, he must want to end it all and die. And perhaps there’s just the terrible part of it. He wants death. Every waking moment for eighty years he has wanted nothing but death, and he doesn’t know how to die. He doesn’t know how to kill himself.

    ex first installment of Gouverneur Morris, “The Wild Goose, A novel in defense of the home from the man’s standpoint,” illustrated by Arthur R. Keller (1867-1924, wikipedia) in Hearst’s International 34:3 (September 1918) : 168-172, 230, 232 (170) : link

    The same instance appears in the book The Wild Goose (1919) : 8 : link

    Gouverneur Morris IV (1876–1953)
    wikipedia : link

  166. a something of very recent origin; as old as the hills

          I suppose I should make some apology for the subject. It may be a little misleading, but let us see if we cannot get something out of it worthy of our consideration. “The Old Nails in New Kegs” are only figures of speech (camouflage, if you please). I might have said old thoughts with a new meaning, or an old subject in a new light, but what I want to do, if I can, is to present to you an old subject clothed with new thoughts. Therefore, I might have saved all this time had I at once announced the subject of my address as Efficiency, a subject almost worn out, a word terribly misused, spoken of at times by people who have little understood its significance, looked upon as a thing almost unattainable and recognized by most of us as a something of very recent origin, but it is not a new discovery. It is as old as the hills. It might be classed among the things spoken of by one of ancient. time when he said there is nothing new under the sun; there is nothing but what has been.
          It is like appendicitis...

    J. H. Lee (Muskegon, Michigan), “Old Nails : New Kegs” — A Live Dealer Advises the Michigan Retail Hardware Association of Several Prime Points of Modern Hardware Business, in Hardware Dealers’ Magazine 51 (June 1919) : 1209-1212 : link

    aside
    followed by “Some Observations on the Hardware Trade as a Woman’s Job,” by Mrs. Vice-President (H. O.) Duncan, of Oktaha, Oklahoma. pages 1213-1214 : link

  167. a something of that sort ?
    I’m tired, Elfie, and blue terribly blue.

          ELFIE. It’s a bully day out. [Crossing to bureau, looking in mirror.] I’ve been shopping all morning long; just blew myself until I’m broke, that’s all. My goodness, don’t you ever get dressed? Listen. [Crosses L. of table to C.] Talk about cinches. I copped out a gown, all ready made and fits me like the paper on the wall, for $37.80. Looks like it might have cost $200. Anyway I had them charge $200 on the bill, and I kept the change. There are two or three more down town there, and I want you to go down and look them over. Models, you know, being sold out. I don’t blame you for not getting up earlier. [She sits at the table, not noticing LAURA.] That was some party last night. I know you did n’t drink a great deal, but gee! what an awful tide Will had on. How do you feel? [Looks at her critically.] What’s the matter, are you sick? You look all in. What you want to do is this put on your duds and go out for an hour. It’s a perfectly grand day out. My Gaud! how the sun does shine! Clear and cold. [A pause.] Well, much obliged for the conversation. Don’t I get a “Good-morning,” or a “How-dydo,” or a something of that sort?
          LAURA. I’m tired, Elfie, and blue terribly blue.

    ex Eugene Walter, “The Easiest Way; An American play concerning a particular phase of New York life; in four acts and four scenes.” In Thomas H. Dickinson., ed., Chief Contemporary Dramatists (Second Series: Eighteen Plays); (1921) : 209 : link

    Eugene Walter (1874-1941), playwright; veteran of Spanish-American War
    wikipedia : link
    sketch by Marguerite Martyn (1878-1948), interesting life story : wikipedia : link

  168. a sudden rush, a something of sound behind me

          He did not move.
          Silence — then a sudden rush, a something of sound behind me.
          I wheeled and shot; and a man died in the air, even as he left his feet with arms out-thrown to grasp and pin mine to my sides. Some Chinese athlete, I suppose, for though he was not big he was quick, and the boldness of the attempt was what made it almost successful.

    ex the conclusion of Gordon Young his four-part story “Sourcery and Everhard,” in Adventure 30:3 (First August, 1921) : 116-140 (118) : link

    Gordon Young (1886-1948), writer of adventure and western stories; sometime cowboy, U.S. Marine (serving in the Philippines); literary editor of the Los Angeles Times
    wikipedia : link

  169. To be brief. It is necessary that a — something of very; enough, yet disquieting by reason of his indefiniteness. It was

          There stood our clerk of the note, though I saw that I had misplaced him, more by reason of his mode of address than owing to any change in his appearance. A steward, I judged him now, of some great man’s household; though at that I found him overly familiar, as indeed did my friend. We stood stiffly facing him; but his smile was ingratiating.
          “Messieurs will be good enough to be seated,” he invited. “While we discuss a small matter of business. To be brief. It is necessary that a — something of very great value, which the Guise would give much to hold, be spirited out of Paris to — a certain town not so far. For this purpose the services of two gentlemen of discretion and skill are needed. There will be perhaps some danger, which, I have had occasion to observe — ” he bowed to us both — “is no deterrent to you. I am empowered, then, to ask whether you will consider the undertaking of this task.”
          As I had suspicioned from the outset the matter was one of the countless factional plottings of the day. It was a prospect alluring enough, yet disquieting by reason of his indefiniteness. It was the coolheaded Trevor who voiced my first thought before I had well conceived it in my own mind.

    ex Gordon MacCreagh, “A Good Sword and a Good Horse,” (“High adventure and great stakes in olden France”) in Adventure 28:2 (January 1921) :132-145 (139) : link

    Gordon MacCreagh (1886-1953)
    wikipedia : link

  170. but a something of unreasoning goodness and understanding which rise above intellectual virtues

    ...She [my sister Eliza] had a rare instinct always to do the right thing without much reasoning power to know why it was right. In practical matters she would always acquiesce in my sister Julia’s decision, but she could not be said to reflect her nature in her thoughts and feelings; her own distinct personality was never lost. A passive serenity, all her own, added to her beauty as she grew up, had a great charm and attractiveness, especially for elderly people. She was noted in the family for her good luck; she would always win the prize in lotteries — she won Walter Bagehot — a prize indeed! She had that good luck which the ordainers of luck seem often to shower on those who have no showy gifts or special original genius, but a something of unreasoning goodness and understanding which rise above intellectual virtues.
          My sister Julia had a more positive nature, more alert to take the initiative, and, where she saw an advantage to be gained, more often an advantage for others than herself, would take lively action. Her mind was a sparkling, original mind, and she inherited much of my father’s powers in conversation. in conversation. Above all she possessed the rare gift of being able to enter sympathetically into views opposite to hers, while staunchly adhering to her own.

    The Servant of All : Pages from the Family, Social and Political Life of My Father James Wilson : Twenty Years of Mid-Victorian Life, by Emilie I. Barrington Vol. 1 (of two) (London, 1927) : 169-170 : link

    Emilie Isabel Barrington (1841-1933), “biographer, artist, novelist”
    wikipedia : link

  171. beauty with a something of the unearthly in it and requires an answering divinity to capture it. Now go.

    “She has her own instructions.”
          “I go,” said Antony, yet lingered. “Great Master, is she so beautiful?”
          “She has the beauty,” said Caesar with austerity, “which requires a high taste to appreciate it to the full. It is not the sort that has mastered you in Cytheris and a hundred others. It is beauty with a something of the unearthly in it and requires an answering divinity to capture it. Now go. And remember the Queen is a goddess.”

    ex E. Barrington, The Laughing Queen (1927; this 1929) : 117 : link

    Lily Adams Beck (1862-1931), “writer of short stories, novels, biographies and esoteric books, under the names of L. Adams Beck, E. Barrington and Louis Moresby [and others]... She was 60 years old by the time she started publishing her novels, which commonly had an Asian setting.”
    wikipedia : link

  172. a something of a linguist, rather tall, very slim, of unknown age; he lived in an impregnable moral enclosure of his own

    full text is not quite as snippeted —
    The dinner was admirable, and the service not less so, being in the hands of Mr. Friat’s butler-valet, Missenden, without whom his employer absolutely refused to travel. Missenden was a Jew, something of a linguist, rather tall, very slim, of unknown age; he lived in an impregnable moral enclosure of his own, where nobody — except possibly Mr. Friar — had ever been able to get at him ; whether he and Mr. Friar conversed like human beings, when the latter received Missenden in his bedroom before breakfast, and if so what they said to each other, none knew except themselves.

    Arnold Bennett, Dream of Destiny, an Unfinished Novel : And Venus Rising from the Sea (1932)

    first landing —

    one (of two scans) borrowable at archive.org : link

  173. a something of night fell; that moment was such as none else

    ... a something of night fell , and shut out the view ; but it was not night - only the frown of Osiris . " It happened the subject of his speech that moment was such as none else than they could think of ; and he arose , and said ...

    OCR error result from The World’s Greatest Literature, Volume 10 (1936), first landing (link) thus —

    the correct passage being —
    And Isis arose, and took off her girdle of stars, and waved it to Sita — to Sita, mind you — waved it in glad salute. And instantly, between the marching host and the two on the golden roof, a something as of night fell, and shut out the view; but it was not night — only the frown of Osiris.
    ex Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur : A Tale of the Christ (1880) : 403 : link
     

  174. while, the name of, a something of night, so may the whole course of your life

    ... a something of night , so may the whole course of your life bellarkīties , And may someone with voice that will not make • my curse a lie read these verses to you on your birthday and on the Kalends of January : © All those ye Gods of ...

    snippet and “from inside” of Mary Roberta Irwin, Ovid’s Ibis : A Translation and Commentary, M.A. Thesis, Indiana University (1937) : 7
    Indiana U library catalog :
    link

    first landing (link), snippet view

    second landing : link

    Mary Roberta Irwin (1914-1995)
    “...retired in 1977 after 32 years as an analytical specialist for the National Security Agency. She had also taught high school Latin 10 years including at Jackson Township and Colfax.
    She graduated from Jackson Township High School in 1930, received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Indiana University, and a PH.D. fr[o]m Cornell University. She had received the National Jaffe Award for exceptional contributions in the Cryptographic linguistics field.”
    findagrave : link

    Mary Roberta Irwin, Republicanism and freedom of speech in Rome in the first century, Cornell U dissertation (1945) : Cornell library catalogue : link

    authored “Are We Wasting Linguistic Time?” in Cryptolog (National Security Agency, Fort George G. Meade, Maryland; May 1975) : link (archive.org)
    and possibly “Learning from Mistakes” (elsewhen/where, same internal publication)

  175. a Something of more opportune character

    a Something of more opportune character presented itself in the case of the proposed extensions of the sewage disposal works. .The Council was recommended to apply to the Government Department concerned for renewal of the sanction ...

    OCR misread/confusion, at Municipal Journal 48 (1939) : 2529

    pointing to


    link

  176. A.   Something of very little value; we know which are the good ones and which are the bad

    Q.   Now, Mr. Van Arnam, in the candy industry, what is meant by the term “cops”?
    A.   Those are the better quality, better ones.
    Q.   What are the ballys?
    A.   Something of very little value, as a general rule, but something in each package. When we sell the package to the audience, they may get the bigger ones, and better ones, but there is something in each one, but the value is not very heavy in the bally, and as to that, I want to say one other thing.
          When these cartons of candy come from the manufacturer, the ballys and the cops are put in one box, and the candies are put in another, so that when we take up our trays to go out to sell to the audience, we know which are the good ones and which are the bad.

    ex testimony of John R. Van Arnam, in Petition for review of order of the Federal Trade Commission, in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, No. 7904, Louis Keller and William Carsky, Individually and Trading as Casey Concession Company, Petitioners, vs. Federal Trade Commission, Respondent. (1942) : 42 : link

  177. bowing down before a—something—of darkness

    ...of a dead and forgotten world flared by him in the dark.
          He saw the man-things in their great shining cities bowing down before a—something—of darkness that spread monstrously across the white-lit heavens ... saw the beginnings of Great Pharol . . . saw the crystal throne in a room of crystal where the sinuous man-formed beings lay face down in worship

    C. L. Moore, from one of the stories in her collection Northwest of Earth (1954) : 33
    google books snippet only :
    link

    Catherine Lucille Moore (1911-87), science fiction and fantasy writer
    wikipedia : link

  178. a something of the sea

    The glittering gate
    lost fables
    a something of the sea
    a study in sources and meaning

    Accessions List: A Classified Catalogue. University of London. Library (1957) : link

  179. a something-of-the-sea corresponding to the wires of a harp

    Let us then consider the line, ‘Afternoon burns upon its wires’ — a line written and then rejected by Spender in the course of composing Seascape... ‘Its’ refers to the ‘the sea’ ... Since seas do not literally have wires (if we exclude submerged cables), the word ‘wires’ must have taken the place of something else...
          Visualizing this, we have a mental model in which the wires are taut, thin lines, are metallic, occur at regular intervals, etc. From this mental model, we have to supply to the something-or-other of the sea a particular reference...
          All this pother about a single line may serve to bring home the fact that the interpretation of a metaphor is a complicated process. It involves linguistic inferences — as to a something-of-the-sea corresponding to the wires of a harp — and, when these have been made, a sorting of our knowledge of sea-structure and our knowledge of harp-structure until we come up with whatever particular aspect of sea best corresponds to harp-wires and best meets all the other specifications given by the utterance we are interpreting—the wires must be wires upon which ‘afternoon’ can be said to ‘burn’. A metaphor is thus a set of linguistic directions for supplying the sense of an un¬written literal term... The directions lead us, not to the term ‘ridges’, not to the term ‘swell’, not to the term ‘humps’, not to the term ‘crests’, but to that which in nature is the common target of all these verbal shots. By not using any of these terms, metaphor allows us to supply an uncontaminated image from our own experience of the physical world.

    from Winifred Nowottny, her discussion of metaphor (“all this pother about a single line”) in The Language Poets Use (1962; 1965) : 58-59 : link (google books)
    archive.org : link (20250126)

  180. a something of trouble and unease in the poet’s mind; black scratches and a fine

    ... a something of trouble and unease in the poet’s mind. The illustrations, as it were black scratches on rough plaster, show us images of death and corruption, skulls, fish, owls, lobsters, serpents, bats, insects, and a fine ...

    ex google books snippet view, page 95 somewhere in Vol. 5 (1966), The Dublin Magazine
    second landing :
    link

    first landing —

    possibly from a review of poetry by Austin Clarke ?

  181. a something of which nothing could be either said or known; a something of the form x [ idea ]

    ... ( a ) something of the form ' x has [ idea ] at ť and ( b ) a statement about ideas had at times other than t and , perhaps , about what ideas would have been had at various times if certain conditions had obtained . Where Berkeley errs ...

    Jonathan Francis Bennett, Locke, Berkeley, Hume : Central Themes (1971) : 82 and 143

    first landing —

    second landing —

    and

    removed from borrowable at archive.org : link

    Jonathan Bennett (1930-2024), philosopher, interesting man
    wikipedia : link
    his Some Texts from Early Modern Philosophy : link

  182. a (something) of language — hence

    Fifth, the question of whether logic is a model or a replacement of language implies that the third choice should be of the same order — a (something) of language — hence whatever it is, it must be in relation to language.

    — from a discussion of what logic is “about” — ordinarily thought of as being language, thought, and reasoning — and shortcomings in the ordinary sense, as encountered in an introductory textbook, Benson Mates his Elementary Logic (1965), in Charles Pyle, “Logic, Markedness, and Language Universals” (July 11, 1991) : 34
    academia.edu :
    link
    tagged : Logic, Linguistics, Charles Sanders Peirce, Language Universals, Markedness

    via search, redirected from google books, for “a something of language” : link

    Charles Pyle, at academia.edu : link
    aside — interesting papers !

  183. a something of which it is equally false and equally true
    a something of which there are modifications in form but in itself stays the same

    ...without substance, comparable to the optical illusion and the dream, a veil enveloping human consciousness, a something of which it is equally false and equally true to say that it is and that it is not. Now Kant not only expressed the same doctrine in an entirely new and original...
    81

    ...representation, a something of which there are modifications in form but in itself stays the same, then Schopenhauer must account for its relationship to will independently of his account of how representations are related to it. The invoking of the “material world”
    142

    two instances, ex Douglas L. Berger. The Veil of Maya : Schopenhauer’s System and Early Indian Thought (Global Academic Publishing, 2004) : link (snippets only)

  184. In the latter case, a “something of One” is the product rather than the agent of discourse

          Part Two, “Theology and the Other Lacan,” more explicitly and intensively reworks Lacan in theological terms... In his essay “There Is Something of One (God): Lacan and Political Theology,” Ken Reinhard rereads Lacan’s formulas of sexuation in a political theological context... and suggests that Lacan offers not only a political theology of sovereignty based on a masculine logic of exception, which accords with Schmitt’s political theology, but also a political theology of the neighbor based on a feminine logic of not-all. In the latter case, a “something of One” is the product rather than the agent of discourse. Here the “subject” of political theology is not God but the neighbor.
          From the idea of the One in Lacan, we turn to the question of “Woman and the Number of God...”

    ex “Introduction — Traversing the Theological Fantasy,” in Creston Davis, Marcus Pound, and Clayton Crockett, eds., Theology after Lacan : The Passion for the Real (2014) : link

    The Lacan passages treated in the text can be found in Feminine Sexuality : Jacques Lacan and the école freudienne, Edited by Juliet Mitchell and Jacqueline Rose; translated by Jacqueline Rose (1982) —

          For a long time now I have laid down with a certain There is a something of One the first step of this undertaking. This There is something of One is not simple — to say the least. In psychoanalysis, or more precisely in the discourse of Freud, it is set forth in the concept of Eros, defined as a fusion making one out of two, that is, of Eros seen as the gradual tendency to make one out of a vast multitude. But, just as it is clear that even all of you, while undoubtedly you are here a multitude, not only do not make one but have no chance of so doing — as is shown only too clearly, and that every day, if only by communing in my speech — so Freud had to raise up another factor as obstacle to this universal Eros, int he shape of Thanatos, which is the reduction to dust.
    from his Seminar XX, Encore (1972-73)
    p 138

    This discussion came up in my search, and is helpful —

          A sexual rapport therefore always hangs on a fantasy of oneness. A couple believes that there is something of One alone, a fusion that miraculously “makes one out of two”, that “makes one out of a vast multitude.” For Lacan, this fantasy of "oneness” comes from language. It is because of language that we believe in this fantasy. However, this fantasy does not orginate in any language or in language in general. In order to make sense of the way this fantasy is articulated, Lacan coined the word “lalangue” to mean that part of language which reflects the laws of unconsious processes, but whose effects go beyond that reflection, and escapes the grasp of the subject.

    Jean-Paul Martinon, On Futurity : Malabou, Nancy and Derrida (2007) : 87 : link

  185. to go out and be somebody, to become, what a former colleague in higher education call, “a something of something.”

    And the definitions of success are quite clear: social status and resources, high-profile education, and material accumulation. In order to accomplish, or perhaps accumulate, success in this narrative, these young people are told quite explicitly to go out and be somebody, to become, what a former colleague in higher education call, “a something of something.”
          A something of something is a title and position easily recognized and exuding social status... Usually, being the something of something involves a string of academic letter, and it always involves responsibility for some combination of organizing, communicating, and managing.

    ex Craig T. Cocher, “Living a Life of Consequence : How Not to Chase a Fake Rabbit,” in Scott T. Allison, Craig T. Kocher, and George R. Goethals, eds., Frontiers in Spiritual Leadership : Discovering the Better Angels of Our Nature (2017) : 183-195 (185) : link (google preview)

  186. or a something of some kind to help pass the time

    And say that this encounter happens — not because the zero is ‘intentionally’ searching for, say, another zero-like playmate or a something of some kind to help pass the time or to help make sense of its multi-dimensional not-nothingness — but because there is some kind of attraction. Now, suppose that this attraction can be denoted in some way. It would not be quite correct to suggest that it would look like another zero or a bunch of zeroes or a satisfied zero that has swallowed up its attraction.

    ex Johnny Golding, “The Courage to Matter,” in Johnny Golding, Martin Reinhart and‎Mattia Paganelli, eds., Data Loam : Sometimes Hard, Usually Soft. The Future of Knowledge Systems (2020) : 480 : link
     

    dictionaries

  187. [A.] something of acknowledged and received authority; well attested

    definition of “Authentic,” in
    John Marchant, comp., A new complete English Dictionary, Peculiarly adapted to the Instruction and Improvement of those who have not had the Benefit of a learned or liberal education, or who have not leisure for reading a multitude of books... (London, 1760) :
    link (BL copy/scan)
    Princeton copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link

  188. a something of the mule kind betwixt God and man.

    The word hero is synonimous with Demi-God, a something of the mule kind betwixt God and man. It is also used for a person of great valour.

    ex definition of “hero,” in An Archaeological Dictionary; or, Classical Antiquities of the Jews, Greeks, and Romans, Alphabetically Arranged: Containing an account of their manners, customs, diversions, religious rites, philosophy, festivals, oracles, laws, arts, engines of war, weights, measures, money, medals, computation and division of time, chronological terms, heresies in the primitive church, &. &. The Second Edition, with Considerable Additions. (London, 1793) : link

  189. a something of a bad quality, though

    sense 6 for — but more a note on nuance of — the word “stubborn”
    In all its uses it commonly implies something of a bad quality, though Locke has catachrestically used it in a sense of praise.

    the “a” from an OCR cross-column misread, at A Dictionary of the English Language : In which the words are deduced from their originals... By Samuel Johnson, LL. D., Vol. 2 (of 2), The Eighth Edition; corrected and revised (London, 1799) : link

  190. A something of indifference, more

    instance 26, under the head “bravery — courage — fortitude,” thus —

    His blade is bared; in him there is an air
    As deep, but far too tranquil for despair;
    A something of indifference, more than then
    Becomes the bravest, if they feel for men.
                                  Byron’s Lara.

    ex John T. Watson, M.D., A Dictionary of Poetical Quotations : Consisting of Elegant Extracts on Every Subject. From various authors, and arranged under appropriate heads. (Philadelphia, 1847) : 99 : link

    aside
    interesting volume, whose preface commences thus :
          In this book-making age, various are the causes which have induced men to become authors. With some, chill Penury has been the only stimulus; with others, Ambition, that spur to great and noble deeds as well as vices, has been the chief excitant. Some have been influenced by true Benevolence, and a sincere wish to ameliorate the condition of mankind; while others have written to gratify rapacious Avarice or fell Revenge. Science, with its occult truths, and the wonderful and gratifying disclosures it makes to its followers, has produced many authors; and another and quite numerous class has been generated by pure Ennui — an intolerable weariness at having nothing to do.
          None of these potent causes has exercised much influence in the conception and execution of this Work: it may be said to have been the result of mere accident...
    p. v link

  191. a something of which there will be no end

    Ewigkeit, f. [in poetry pl. -en] 1) time or duration, whose beginning is not remembered, or cannot be traced and ascertained. Von — her, from time immemorial or from time out of mind. Fig. a) something of which there will be no end, a perpetuity...

    ex A Dictionary of the English and German, and the German and English Language. Cheaper Edition. German and English. Part I. A-K. (Carlsruh, 1857) : 334 : link

  192. A something of Germanism clings about the style

    extract supporting sense 3 of the word “Germanism,” Affectation of what is German; a disposition to adopt German modes of thought or expression. —
    1807 W. Taylor in Ann Rev
    * V. 507 A something of Germanism clings about the style of these first two cantos.
    in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, Part 1. F (1901) : 132 : link

  193. a something of every known science
    and a something of his own

    instances under sense 5 for the word “something,” here with article or demonstrative pronoun, or in plural. —
    under “b” : 1848 Thackeray Vanity Fair lvi, The young gentlemen . . might learn a something of every known science; and
    under “c” : 1827 Scott Chron. Canongate vi, He . . had enjoyed legacies, and laid by a something of his own, upon which he now enjoys ease with dignity.
    6. a. Something or other,...

    A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles ; founded mainly on the materials collected by The Philological Society. Vol 9. Part 1. SI-ST (Oxford, 1919) : link
     

    somethings of melancholy

  194. a something of melancholy foreboding
    her beautiful but hectic bloom

    It was while on a visit in the Highlands that I first met Jane and Agnes Tracey, and dearly did I soon love those high-born and beautiful orphans. Jane was the elder, and her beauty was of the same noble and majestic character as her mind. Never have I seen such eyes, such bright starlike-eyes; and her hair was black as the darkest feathers in the raven. Her betrothed husband, Lord William Graham, was with the sisters; and how fond he used to look on his promised bride! She was, indeed, a glorious creature; and yet I never gazed upon her face without experiencing a thrill of melancholy feeling. Her beautiful but hectic bloom, and those painfully bright eyes, seemed to say to me that Jane Tracey was not long to be a dweller upon earth. But for Agnes — my light-hearted, smiling Agnes — I had no such gloomy fears. How often have I sat and watched her with delight, as she bounded over the heath like a creature of the skies. Never did I look upon such cherub beauty. I seem to see her now before me, with that long golden hair floating on the wind, and those cloudless eyes smiling on me in their innocent gladness. It was in autumn that I parted with the sisters, and in a few weeks the noble Jane was to become a bride.
          The letters of the orphans displayed the same contrast that was visible in their characters and manners. Jane wrote in the lofty and dignified tone that became her queen-like bearing; but Agnes poured forth all the innocent overflowings of her young heart. The letters of Jane, perhaps, improved and schooled the understanding; those of Agnes inspired happiness and joy whenever they arrived. About the time that Jane became a wife, I thought she wrote with even a higher tone of religious feeling than formerly; occasionally I imagined I could perceive a something of melancholy foreboding in her expressions; and then again her mild sad eyes, and her beautiful but hectic bloom, rose upon my mind, and haunted me like spectres. Then she entirely ceased writing to me, and many painful fancies crowded on my thoughts; but from Agnes I regularly heard, and her letters still continued heralds of gladness...

    [anon.], “The Sisters. — A Sketch.” La Belle Assemblée : Or, Court and Fashionable Magazine (June 1826) : 256-257 : link

    on La Belle Assemblée, see wikipedia : link

    same in Ladies’ Miscellany 1:2 (Salem, Massachusetts; January 6, 1829) : 5 : link

  195. something of melancholy, too, on his countenance

                            Near yonder cave,
          What lonely straggler looks along the wave
    ?
    Byron.

    The individual, whose opportune arrival had, as we have noted at the conclusion of the preceding chapter, so successfully aided in disembarrassing Julia and her sister from the presence of her rough intruder, was a young man, who was just entering upon his first career of ambition. His features, without possessing those precise lines, which connoisseurs affirm to be essentially requisite to merit the appellation of handsome, had, nevertheless, by a rare combination, so much spirit and expression, as to be rendered [68] eminently pleasing. There was a something of melancholy, too, on his countenance, which, as we rarely see it on the flushed and animated features of youth, added greatly, and at first sight, to the interest, which you had already taken in his behalf. It was not that melancholy, which is common to the close observer, and which is assumed by various persons, and with various views, but which, nevertheless, is still assumed. It was not the look of sanctity, which the libertine hypocrite can at times so masterly express, when he goes forth, in conscious power, to seduce and to betray. It was not the pale sickly hue, which the man of fashion will frequently put on to invite your curiosity or purchase your sympathy. It was no artificial melancholy — it was an expression, which conveyed a meaning that could not be mal-construed — it was, in him, a passion of the heart. Yet, if there were ornaments, which Nature, in her forgetfulness, had neglected to bestow upon his visage, she had never, probably, formed a nobler figure or fashioned more distinguished graces. Having thus lightly remarked upon a character, which will hold a position somewhat conspicuous in our story, we shall resume our narrative, from which we have briefly but necessarily digressed.

    ex Chapter 4, [anon.], The Duel in High Life: or, De La Macy and Emily Clifforde : A Romantic Tale. Vol. 1 (of 2); (London, 1839) : 68 : link

    but
    J. R. W. Lomas, identified as author of earlier (London, 1834) edition : link
    National Library of Scotland : permalink

  196. a something of melancholy, which betokened the habitual sadness of his thoughts, but mixed

    Marco Visconti was about forty-five years of age, and the fire and freshness of youth had long been worn off by the storms of his troubled life; to the expression of joy and confidence, which animated his countenance at the period spoken of in our last chapter, had succeeded a gravity, firm without sternness, a something of melancholy, which betokened the habitual sadness of his thoughts, but mixed with no shade of bitter feeling or abject despondency. His figure was tall, handsome, and powerful; his features well-formed and regular, and, when lighted up by the fire of the spirit within, were singularly prepossessing. But whoever had seen him in his fierce and angry mood-his eyes flashing fire from beneath his bent brows — his forehead furrowed with a heavy frown — his cheek blanched to a deadly paleness — would have been reminded of the calm surface of some lake, suddenly lashed into fierce and threatening waves by the blast of the rushing tempest.

    ex Chapter 8, of Marco Visconti : A story of the Fourteenth Century — Translated from the Italian of Tommaso Grossi, by Hougomont. In The Literary Garland (“A montly magazine, of tales, sketches, poetry, music, engravings, &c. &c.”) 1:4 (Montreal; April 1843) : 169 : link

  197. The extinguishment of a race of men from the face of the earth, hath about it a something of melancholy interest; hence it is that the North American Indians hold so completely the sympathies of the civilized world. In the contemplation of the probability of this one event, all else is forgotten. We then pause and remember that although savages, they are nevertheless men, possessed of feelings and affections like our own, and whatever may be peculiar in their character, we are willing to confess that they are as the Creator made them; and while we may condemn their cruelties, we are constrained to admit their grievances, admire their independence, and mourn their decay.

    in notes, to Part III, Thomas Richard Whitney his The Ambuscade : An Historical Poem (New York, 1845) : 80 link
    same (Princeton) copy/scan, via hathitrust : link

    Thomas Richard Whitney (1807-58), “jeweler, engraver and watchmaker before turning to journalism and politics,” member of Know Nothing party, congressman (briefly)
    wikipedia : link

  198. Thus Harrold’s energies and ingenuity bore fruit in Australia — the result of careful investigation, patience, and experience. There were hours of solitary toil, when far from human faces, and the voice of man, except a distant “cooee!” far off, perhaps, in the bush; and he had no letters to look for, nothing to expect when he returned home; yet a natural buoyancy of disposition made him keep looking onwards. He knew there was as good a Providence over him there as in old England, and he would not grow hopeless and cold, though he could never love again, he told himself, or care for woman’s ways, having lost his first affection, Sheridan Herbert. He could think of her with calm, passionless regret, not with repining or rebellious vexation, but as a tide of love gone outa flower which bloomed and passed away-an opportunity gone by; and if a something of melancholy did tinge his life, it gave a charm to it and to himself, subduing fiercer fervour, and bringing materials for happiness from all things surrounding him by a pure philosophy, which made him look for the bright side, and make the best of everything.

    John Pomeroy. A Double Secret and Golden Pippin. Vol. 1 (of 3); (London, 1870) : 272 : link

    Anne Denn Pollard (1831–1893)
    Bassett, Troy J. “Author: Anne Denn Pollard.” At the Circulating Library : A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837—1901 (31 December 2024) : link (accessed 20250116)

  199. Friday, May 22nd [1874]. We went to the British Museum and saw the bronzes and gold ornaments of the Castellani collection — very interesting. The gold ornaments, necklaces, &c., are of most elaborate and exquisite workmanship, and in vast variety. The bronzes wonderfully fine: — I do not know that I have seen any like them except in the Naples Museum. Those I particularly remarked were : — A head of a goddess (Aphrodite ?) of extraordinary beauty and grandeur — in a grander style, it strikes me, than Aphrodite is commonly represented, with a something of melancholy in the expression. A strigil of bronze (for use in the bath), with a very beautiful naked figure of Aphrodite for its handle, she is represented holding a similar strigil. A beautiful figure called Orestes, taking refuge at the altar — I should have called it a warrior falling.

    ex Chapter 11, “Record of Conversations,” in The Life of Sir Charles J. F. Bunbury, Bart. Edited by his sister-in-law Mrs. Henry Lyell. Vol. 2 (London, 1906) : 310 : link

  200. It was perhaps a good thing for Errington that this accident had happened. The physical shock seemed in some measure to counteract the effect of the moral shock which he had sustained just before. For some days he hovered between life and death, passing a good deal of the time in an unconscious or semi-unconscious state. It is certain that, but for the infusion of new life into his veins by the operation, he could not possibly have survived. As it was, his vitality remained for some time very low. In this state, impressions, feelings, reminiscences-all are dulled and deadened. Attenuated vitality, even in the young, means old age anticipated. If pleasures lose their zest, pains lose their poignancy. The realities of life no longer stand out sharp and clear, but melt into a kind of haze that blurs their outlines. The man lies passive, contemplative, regarding things from the outside, no longer feeling himself in vital relation to the events which circle round him. If there is in this a something of melancholy, it is the melancholy of dream-land, thin and bloodless. Nature always has her compensations; strength is necessary for suffering; and the poorer the life, the richer its exemptions.
          So it was with Errington.

    The Outcasts : Being Certain Strange Passages in the Life of a Clergyman (1888; this edition Leipzig, Tauchnitz Vol 2573, 1889) : 66 : link

    Rev. Albert Eubule Evans (1839–1896)
    Bassett, Troy J. “Author: Rev. Albert Eubule Evans.” At the Circulating Library: A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837—1901 (31 December 2024) : link (accessed 20250116).

  201. Beyond that fact I could not go: all efforts to know more, or to imagine more, ended in failure, as all such efforts must end. On another occasion, as I propose to show in a later chapter, the wished vision of the past came unsought and unexpectedly to me, and for a while I saw nature as the savage sees it, and as he saw it in that stone age I pondered over, only without the supernaturalism that has so large a place in his mind. By taking thought I am convinced that we can make no progress in this direction, simply because we cannot voluntarily escape from our own personality, our environment, our outlook on Nature.
          Not only were my efforts idle, but merely to think on the subject sometimes had the effect of bringing a shadow, a something of melancholy, over my mind, the temper which is fatal to investigation, causing “all things to droop and languish.”

    ex W. H. Hudson, Idle Days in Patagonia (1893; New York, 1917) : 40 : link

    William Henry Hudson (1841-1922), born and until 1874 lived in Argentina; thereafter, England; naturalist, ornithologist
    wikipedia : link
     

    pendings

    a something of vulgarity 1817
    a something of energy and dread 1832

    a something of utility / The American Monthly Magazine 1834 : 296

    had lost a something of its roundness, such a majesty in her still brilliant eyes / The American Monthly Magazine 1834 : 311

    a something of meagre and of vapid 1835
    a something of interesting and piquant 1835
    a something of the high ambition 1838

    many results for writings by George John Whyte-Melville (1821-78), “Scottish novelist much concerned with field sports, and also a poet” (wikipedia)
    those results, at google books : link

    “His marriage was not a happy one, and this led to the ‘constantly recurring note of melancholy’ that runs through all of his novels, ‘especially in reference to women’. His wife also was not happy with the marriage.”
     

afterword / subtext

A set of “a something of” phrases (in a document dated 13 December 2017) resurfaced not long ago. I had forgotten that project; it was a line I did not pursue. Near those collected phrases, I had written “bored with my own methods. the same old.” Maybe that was it. I don’t work this way any more; nor scarely any way or how, for whom or what.

No matter, now is January 2025, and I pick up the threads. Some are short, or dead-end links; and I’ve added a few (too many) new finds, too. I wonder where this leads.

something on the senses and nuances of “a something of” phrases will follow.

one of its uses seems to be to keep things vague, unnamed... a rhetorical device...
a snobbishness, perhaps, or striving, used where one’s experience/knowledge does not reach, does not carry one, and so best leave it vague.

synonyms... a “certain” or peculiar quality... a hint of or participation in, too subtle to capture in mere words, but one that “the knowing ones” elect will understand...
the merest suggestion of, hint of, whiff of.
an essence detected but not yet identified...

an element that is the subject of a present, experimental essay, its nature or extensions or compass not fully comprehended — its very existence in question, and even doubt.

the ineffable. a substance or idea that wants to be left vague, mutable, high-valence able to join, combine, thread with other “somethings;”
a something not yet fully come into view (as through the aperture of a Magic 8-Ball);
the vaguest blur — in the night sky? — to be noted, to be returned to later with stronger/better instrumentation and theory.

What follows is not quite “a something of” nor “a something of nothing,” but it had turned up initially, and it is too good too leave out. One of many such passages in Henry Needler, The Works of (1724):

...But the Argument here brought to prove this, is far from being Conclusive.
      The Substance of the Argument is; Something is as distant from or opposite to Nothing, as Nothing to Something; therefore to make that, which is Something, Nothing, must needs be as difficult, as to make that which is Nothing, Something; But to make that which is Nothing, Something, requires an Act of infinite Power. Therefore to make that which is Something, Nothing, must likewise require an Act of infinite Power.
268 : (
link)

I find little on Needler (1690-1718), save for
Alfred Ridley Bax, “Henry Needler, A Forgotten Poet and Philosopher of Surrey,” in Surrey Archaeological Collections, Relating to the History and Antiquities of the County 25 (1912) : 101-115 : link
 

a something of, 1800-2008 — via the Ngram viewer —
link
about Ngram viewer (release notes, how to use, etc.) : link
 

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