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Such were the persons upon whom depended the liberty and happiness of Alfieri's lady, the possibility of that high-flown Platonic intercourse which constituted Louis d'Albany's whole happiness, and Alfieri's strongest incentive to glory; a word from them could exile Alfieri and lock the Countess up in a convent.
She was a thin little woman, with an unsteady head, physically and morally speaking; full of kindness of heart, sentimentality, high-flown principles, and other bygone ladylike commodities. Her small, eager face, of a ruddy and weather-worn complexion as if she had, at some early period of her existence, been left out all night in an east wind was puckered up with a sense of her own negligence.
She suddenly remembered that her father and her step-mother ought both to be informed that Mr. Dubourg was a perfectly presentable person at the rectory: she decided on writing to her father. On this occasion, she made no difficulty about permitting me to hold the pen, while she told me what to write. We produced between us rather a flighty, enthusiastic, high-flown sort of letter.
It is almost a shock to hear her use our modern vernacular, and when she relapses into the somewhat stilted language in which she is still accustomed to think, it is a positive relief. She is conscious that she is apt to be a little high-flown, and when she forgets herself and is natural, she quickly pulls herself in with a round turn, which is an apology in itself.
She was fond of the works of Le Sage, particularly Gil Blas, which she lent me, and recommended to my perusal. I read this performance with pleasure, but my judgment was not yet ripe enough to relish that sort of reading. I liked romances which abounded with high-flown sentiments. Thus did I pass my time at the grate of Mademoiselle du Chatelet, with as much profit as pleasure.
"Surely, you will not be so inhuman?" "Look here, boy," said the captain, "you needn't try to come any of your high-flown notions about humanity over me. I owe you a debt, and, by Heaven! I'm going to pay it! You didn't think much of humanity when you wounded me." "I couldn't help it," said Robert. "I didn't want to hurt you. I only wanted to protect your uncle."
Presently the mare came round to the door of the principal hotel. The people there were just stirring, and visions of brooms and unkempt back-hair were frequent. At last we were on the road to Clare Castle, which might, in the high-flown language of the West, be fitly described as the "seaport" of Ennis.
And after these long looks into the past, Sam would be more forbearing in pronouncing verdicts on his brethren, worsted in the effort to express what was inherent in their minds; would not decide quite so dogmatically, that all a man had to do was to be sound and diligent, and keep himself far apart from high-flown rubbish, like a common-sense, sober-minded Englishman.
If people were offended to find it supported upon no authority, they were much more so with its confused and embarrassed style, its precision so restrained and so decided, its barbarous terms which seemed as though taken from a foreign tongue, above all, its high-flown and far- fetched thoughts, which took one's breath away, as in the too subtle air of the middle region.
"I need not talk any high-flown nonsense about such a simple duty, need I?" she said, once more with a soft laugh. Instead of making the most of her pathetic position, she would always ignore the claims she had upon sympathy. Her simple duty, that was all.
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