Anne Warner

“ Jack was too saturated with sleep to be able to try any more. He went through to the smoker’s compartment, and Rosina looked apathetically out upon the Lake of Zurich and reflected her same reflections over again and again. The moon, which had looked down upon the Isar rapids, rode amidst masses of storm clouds above the dark sheet of water, and illuminated with its fitful light the shadows that lay upon the bosom of the waves. She felt how infinitely darker were the shadows within her own bosom, and how vain it was to seek for any moon among her personal clouds. ”

“ Thus much for Elzika—so far, so good. So far, not too good—for Gipsy blood is hot, and hot blood and a voice of divine magic do go charm's way often—and yet, in the end, good. And often very good. Tender, sympathetic, understanding. Ringing frequently to the old tunes of pride and power, gold, hunger, and thirst, but ringing oftener to the hymn of God that whispers in every heart until it also, perchance, swells as the voice of Elzika had swelled, and hushes all else before it. ”

“ It was a cold starlight night that night when Hendrik’s spirit rushed into rebellion. The Alps were great in their grandeur, lofty in their heavenly towering. I have often thought how the Alpine deva must satisfy himself in being so free from all the living struggles of the universe. Surely the eternal circle of desire and fulfillment is perfect there; surely the Alps and the stars alike have learned their mission. What human struggle can fly to either without finding solace? Hendrik had learned that lesson. ”

“ The look of ecstasy that had opened to Lassie the gate of Medieval faith, flooded her face. "What a life I shall live in those few brief days," she said, softly; "how we shall enjoy our little oasis of bliss in the desert of loneliness. I shall learn so much—so much. And the best of the learning will be that I shall learn it from him."
Lassie watched the uplifted look. The enthusiasm of the novice was hers. As she had confessed to Ingram, envy dwelt at her heart. I wonder whether envy is a vice or a virtue when it stirs a longing to emulate one whom we recognize as better than ourselves? ”

“ Lord Jeovil sprang up, his eyes staring:
“Sir William—do you—do you mean that—that Alix can live? Oh—you—you don't mean that.”
The old man stretched forth his hand.
“Dare,” he said, “you know why she had to promise not to marry you? I know, too. In the world's eyes you proved her mother right. In my eyes her mother condemned her more than she saved her. She has suffered to the limit for you; she will live now unless you choose to kill her. Remember.”
Jeovil stooped and swept his wife from her feet up into his arms.
“Alix,” he cried, “'you'll live to be a hundred!” ”

“ You'd know he was Jathrop Lathrop's child just by the way he sleeps. You remember what a one Jathrop always was for sleeping. I don't know as I remember Jathrop's ever being awake till he was fairly grown. Whatever you set him at always just made him more sleepy. You know yourself, Mrs. Macy, as he wouldn't be no grasshopper with Mrs. Lathrop for his mother, but a cocoon is a comet beside what Jathrop Lathrop always was. I don't know whether he's rich or not, but I do know that heathen Chinee is his son, and I know it just by the way he sleeps. ”

“ The banks on either side were beginning to show some touches of autumnal scarlet among those masses of vine whose ends trailed in the water below, and among the shrubs of the Promenade the same blood stain betrayed the summer’s death at the hands of the merciless frost king. The Peace Monument was there, piercing [174] heaven with its golden wings; the Lucaskirche towered to the east; above them all sat the lofty Maximilianeum, that open-work crown of Munich, whose perfectly curved approach and double arcaded wings must joy the soul of every artist-nature that lingers near it. ”

“ So the young General marched forth, head up, flags flying, his little heart drumming the best music in all the world, and his soul serenely conscious that out of the jaws of victory he had snatched a final and most glorious defeat. ”

“ If there is trouble in the diele when it storms without, the master is quickly on the spot. If the weather is bad for many days a hundred timely tasks lie close at hand without the need of facing the wet and sleet. As it is, so it was, and as all others were, so was it with ours. For more than four hundred years the old house had stood unchanged, and then—when the wonderful spirit of the wonderful Nineteenth Century had revolutionized the world even to Bremen—it had altered this particular place but slightly. ”

“ Lathrop, that dear blessed little Chinese angel—I tell you I shall never forget that boy. I liked his face when I first laid eyes on him, and when I thought he was Jathrop's lawful wife, I loved him as I'd loved even a Chinaman if he was your daughter; but when I saw him cleaning up my sink, polishing my pans, washing out my cupboards and all that, just the same as yours, then was when I see that a heathen Chinee has just the same right to go to heaven that anybody else has, and from then on I just trusted him completely and let him do every bit of the work till he left. ”

“ Presently a freight train, going by, drowned everything by its roaring clank for five minutes, and when all was still again, Alva said: "Come, let us dress for supper!"
She rose at once and lit the light, and Lassie saw with astonishment that she was smiling and bright as usual. Alva caught her surprised look. "I'm a creature of strong belief, dear," she said, laughing, "and I know that whatever is hard, is worth itself. That is what one must try never to forget. I wouldn't wish any one else my life to live, but it is its own reward. ”

“ The world has bruised us both—has tried to make outcasts of us both—has blackened us falsely.
"Let us go away together—to Yukon, to Ceylon, to where you will. Let us build for ourselves a free life—a new, clean life, out in those free, new clean surroundings."
He was actually surprised at his own eloquence and at how in earnest he felt; and how chivalrous. But he was still more surprised at how keen he was to prove to Rosamond that he had spoken truthfully.
"But I'm disfigured," said Nina behind her white windings. "Horridly disfigured." ”

“ To sum up in a word, Bermann was the buyer for the outer world—the world beyond the Alpine calm, the world the Alpine measure, the world in all its worldliness—that world which through long being has branded itself on brow and breast with its own name. ”

“ The servants had expected nothing so loud as that when they had understood that milord was going to practice with his pistol. They hurried before they heard the single piercing shriek of the wretched young wife, and then they all came at once into the great hall where a man lay in a pool of blood, with a woman fainting on his bosom.
Autumn was drifting down from the north and in from the sea, the ocean was restless, even the Weser was more or less troubled along its placid length. ”