Paul's Letters to His Kinsfolk

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James Ballantyne and Company, 1816 - France - 468 pages
Contains letters written by the poet Walter Scott of the history of the Battle of Waterloo and his observations of the post-battle Waterloo battlefield and other places in Europe.

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Page 416 - In gentle stream; then rose the song, the loud Acclaim of praise. The wheeling plover ceased Her plaint; The solitary place was glad, And on the distant cairns the watcher's ear Caught doubtfully at times the breeze-borne note.
Page 174 - Believe me, nothing except a battle lost, can be half so melancholy as a battle won...
Page 18 - And arrowy frize, and wedged ravelin, Wove like a diadem its tracery round The lofty summit of that mountain green ; Here stood secure the group, and eyed a distant scene.
Page 417 - We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts; what shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for?
Page 433 - Yet even then he had a daring soul : His frame of mind was serious and severe Beyond his years : his dreams were of great objects. He...
Page 433 - His marvellous preservation had transformed him. Thenceforth he held himself for an exempted And privileged being, and, as if he were Incapable of dizziness or fall, He ran along the unsteady rope of life. But now our destinies drove us asunder: He paced with rapid step the way of greatness, Was Count, and Prince, Duke-regent, and Dictator. And now is all, all this too little for him ; He stretches forth his hands for a king's crown, And plunges in unfathomable ruin.
Page 301 - This superb esplanade takes its name from his luxurious and feeble descendant, and here, upon the very spot where I now stand, the most virtuous of the Bourbon race expiated, by a violent death inflicted by his own subjects, and in view of his own palace, the ambitions and follies of his predecessors. There is an awful solemnity in the reflection, how few of those who contributed to this deed of injustice and atrocity now look upon the light, and behold the progress of retribution.
Page 160 - You are uncommonly savage to-day," said an officer to his friend, a young man of rank, who was arming himself with a third sabre, after two had been broken in his grasp : " What would you have me do ?" answered the other, by nature one of the most gentle and humane men breathing, " we are here to kill the French, and he is the best man to-day who can kill most of them ;" and he again threw himself into the midst of the combat.
Page 197 - of the spearman was usually accompanied with a thrust of his lance, which gives countenance to the general opinion, that their orders were to give no quarter. Even the British officers who were carried before Bonaparte, although civilly treated while he spoke to them, and dismissed with assurances that they should have surgical assistance and proper attendance, were no sooner out of his presence, than they were stripped, beaten, and abused. Most of the prisoners...
Page 514 - ... their country, quite extraordinary and sublime. " Nor must we forget that these men, so terrible in the field of battle, were mild and tranquil out of it. The Scotch Greys, in escorting the French prisoners on the evening of the 18th, showed compassion to these unfortunate victims of war, while aa yet the result of that decisive day was unknown, and perhaps uncertain.

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