Waverley — Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 405 pages of information about Waverley — Volume 1.

Waverley — Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 405 pages of information about Waverley — Volume 1.

Flora Mac-Ivor bore a most striking resemblance to her brother Fergus; so much so that they might have played Viola and Sebastian with the same exquisite effect produced by the appearance of Mrs. Henry Siddons and her brother, Mr. William Murray, in these characters.  They had the same antique and regular correctness of profile; the same dark eyes, eye-lashes, and eye-brows; the same clearness of complexion, excepting that Fergus’s was embrowned by exercise and Flora’s possessed the utmost feminine delicacy.  But the haughty and somewhat stern regularity of Fergus’s features was beautifully softened in those of Flora.  Their voices were also similar in tone, though differing in the key.  That of Fergus, especially while issuing orders to his followers during their military exercise, reminded Edward of a favourite passage in the description of Emetrius: 

    —­whose voice was heard around,
    Loud as a trumpet with a silver sound.

That of Flora, on the contrary, was soft and sweet—­’an excellent thing in woman’; yet, in urging any favourite topic, which she often pursued with natural eloquence, it possessed as well the tones which impress awe and conviction as those of persuasive insinuation.  The eager glance of the keen black eye, which, in the Chieftain, seemed impatient even of the material obstacles it encountered, had in his sister acquired a gentle pensiveness.  His looks seemed to seek glory, power, all that could exalt him above others in the race of humanity; while those of his sister, as if she were already conscious of mental superiority, seemed to pity, rather than envy, those who were struggling for any farther distinction.  Her sentiments corresponded with the expression of her countenance.  Early education had impressed upon her mind, as well as on that of the Chieftain, the most devoted attachment to the exiled family of Stuart.  She believed it the duty of her brother, of his clan, of every man in Britain, at whatever personal hazard, to contribute to that restoration which the partisans of the Chevalier St. George had not ceased to hope for.  For this she was prepared to do all, to suffer all, to sacrifice all.  But her loyalty, as it exceeded her brother’s in fanaticism, excelled it also in purity.  Accustomed to petty intrigue, and necessarily involved in a thousand paltry and selfish discussions, ambitious also by nature, his political faith was tinctured, at least, if not tainted, by the views of interest and advancement so easily combined with it; and at the moment he should unsheathe his claymore, it might be difficult to say whether it would be most with the view of making James Stuart a king or Fergus Mac-Ivor an earl.  This, indeed, was a mixture of feeling which he did not avow even to himself, but it existed, nevertheless, in a powerful degree.

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Waverley — Volume 1 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.