Cleveland Moffett

“ Here, heaving with the tide, is an aged car-float with a watchman's shanty on it, heaped with its rusted boilers, its anchors, cranes, gear-wheels, cables, pumps, a tangle of iron things that were once important. Here is a scuttled tug-boat that has been in a law-suit (and the mud) for years. Here is a coal-barge, wedged open and sunk by her owner to steal the insurance money. Wrecks spread all about us, and above them rise the masts and cranes of pontoons and pumping-craft, that seem, in the shadows and desolation, like things of evil omen guarding their prey. ”

“ Betty was glad to be alone, and for some minutes she sat thinking—thinking—while a perplexed smile played about her sweet mouth and a new gladness shone in her eyes, a gladness that kept coming back and would not be denied, try as she would to frown it away. There were difficulties and sorrows attending Miss Elizabeth Thompson, but one great cheering fact rose above them and made life seem worth living after all, the eternally blessed fact that, when youth hears the call of love, then nothing else in the world matters very much. ”

“ The resemblance to Burwell was unmistakable, the proof against him was overwhelming. In looking upon that piece of pasteboard the wife had seen a crime which the mother could never forgive, the partner had seen a crime which the friend could never forgive. Think of a loved face suddenly melting before your eyes into a grinning skull, then into a mass of putrefaction, then into the ugliest fiend of hell, leering at you, distorted with all the marks of vice and shame. ”

“ The prisoner shook his head. "I don't know them—I never saw them."
"Groener," warned the magistrate, "there is no use keeping up this denial, you have betrayed yourself already."
"No," cried the prisoner with a supreme rally of his will power, "I have betrayed nothing—nothing," and, once more, while the doctor marveled, his pulse steadied and strengthened and grew normal.
"What a man!" muttered Coquenil.
"We know the facts," went on Hauteville sternly, "we know why you killed Martinez and why you disguised yourself as a wood carver."
The prisoner's face lighted with a mocking smile. ”

“ We are drunk with prosperity. We are deaf and blind to the truth which is known to other nations, known to our enemies, known to the ablest officers in our army and navy.
“The truth is that, as a nation, we have learned nothing from our past wars because we have never had to fight a first-class power that was prepared. But the next war, and it is surely coming, will find us held in the grip of an inexorable law which provides that nations imitating the military policy of China must suffer the fate of China.” ”

“ Stepping over-side again, here we are in the home of the fire-boat crew. It's more like a club than an engine-house. No horses stamping about, no stable; but pictures on the walls, and men playing cribbage or reading, and nobody in a hurry. Plenty of time for tales of adventure, unless that gong takes to tapping.
And here comes Gallagher, sliding down yonder brass column from the sleeping-rooms. He's the lad who did fine things in that great fire at the Mallory pier—saved a man's life and made the roll of honor by it. ”

“ Pinkerton's business to study criminals and understand their natures. He knew that a crime like this one was much beyond the power of an ordinary criminal. Let a robber be ever so greedy of gold, reckless of human life, and indifferent to consequences, he would still think many times before declaring war to the death upon twelve men in a narrow car, on a swiftly moving train. This was surely no novice in crime, reasoned Mr. Pinkerton, but a man whose record would already show deeds of the greatest daring; a brave fellow, though a bad one. ”

“ How much must the doctor know in order to help me—to save me?
Shall I reveal myself to him as I really was during those agitated years before my marriage when I faced the struggle of life, the temptations of life—an attractive young woman alone in New York City, earning her own living?
And how shall I tell the truth about my unhappy married life—the torture and degradation of it? The truth about my widowhood—those two gay years before the great disaster came, when, with money enough, I let myself go in selfish pursuit of pleasure—playing with fire? ”

“ It was a long night at the Ansonia and a hard night for M. Gritz. France is a land of infinite red tape where even such simple things as getting born or getting married lead to endless formalities. Judge, then, of the complicated procedure involved in so serious a matter as getting murdered—especially in a fashionable restaurant! Long before the commissary had finished his report there arrived no less a person than M. Simon, the chief of police, round-faced and affable, a brisk, dapper man whose ready smile had led more than one trusting criminal into regretted confidences. ”

“ How extraordinary that this vigorous young American, whom she had not seen for years, should have suddenly—without intending to do it, without dreaming that he had done it—should have—well, what had he done? What was the truth about her feeling for this playmate of her childhood, Bob Baxter?
Does a woman ever admit, even to herself, that a man has won her heart until she has good reason to believe that she has won his? Does a pretty woman, a young and charming woman, ever admit such a thing? Probably not, and Betty was no exception to this rule of feminine reserve. ”

“ Here was a tamer in sorest need, for the weight of the lions kept the iron doors from opening and barred out the rescuers. In the audience was wildest panic, and the building resounded with shouts and screams and the roars of angry lions. Women fainted; men rushed forward brandishing revolvers, but dared not shoot; and for a few moments it seemed as if the tamer was doomed.
But Bonavita's steady nerve saved him. As Denver opened his jaws to seize a more vital spot, the tamer drove his whip-handle far down into his red throat, and then, with a cudgel passed in to him, beat the brute back. ”

“ Bismarck called them a nation of house-servants, and knew that in racial aptitude they are and always will be hopelessly inferior to Anglo-Saxons.
“Conquer America? They can no more do it than they could conquer England. They can make you suffer, yes, as they made us suffer; they can fill you with rage and shame to find yourselves utterly unprepared in this hour of peril, eaten up with commercialism and pacifism just as we were. But conquer this great nation with its infinite resources and its splendid racial inheritance—never!
“The Germans despise America just as they despised England. ”

“ Meantime the girl herself, the object of Merle's loving solicitude, sat motionless on the broad, low bench between the friendly fir trees. Dazed, frightened, yet full of a strange joy, Hester was thinking of this extraordinary, this unbelievable thing that had happened. A meek little man, with amusing side whiskers, had spoken to her, had looked into her eyes and, suddenly, her whole life was changed, absolutely and irrevocably changed. She was not and never again would be the girl she had been. ”

“ The fact is, a diver has quite as much as he can attend to with the burden of his suit (about a hundred and seventy-five pounds) , and his two lines to watch and keep from kinks and entanglements. Touch one of these lines, and you touch his life. Fasten a new line to him, or two new lines, and you enormously increase his peril. Imagine yourself stumbling about in a dark forest, with a man strapped on your back, and several ropes dragging behind you among trees and rocks, each separate rope being to you as breath and blood! That is precisely the diver's case. ”

“ It was not until after vespers that Alice was able to leave Notre-Dame and start for the Villa Montmorency—in fact, it was nearly five when, with mingled feelings of confidence and shrinking, she opened the iron gate in the ivy-covered wall of Coquenil's house and advanced down the neat walk between the double hedges to the solid gray mass of the villa, at once dignified and cheerful. Melanie came to the door and showed, by a jealous glance, that she did not approve of her master receiving visits from young and good-looking females. ”

“ Add to this a widespread spirit of disorder and disunion, strikes and rioting in many cities, dynamite outrages, violent addresses of demagogues and labour leaders, pleas for peace at any price by misguided fanatics who were ready to reap the whirlwind they had sown. These were days when men of brain and courage, patriots of the nation with the spirit of ‘76 in them, almost despaired of the future.
Through all this storm and darkness, amid dissension and violence, one man stood firm for the right, one wise big-souled man, the President of the United States. ”

“ We must establish the right love-connections. We must set the love-current flowing, and keep it flowing, from God to us and from us back to God; and this can be done only by confessing our sins, by cleansing our hearts of evil thoughts and desires. Not even God Himself can make the sun shine upon those who wilfully hide in the shadows!
I saw that they were listening impatiently and more than once Roberta tried to interrupt me, but I persisted and said what I had to say as well as I could, with all the love in my heart, for I knew that my precious Penelope's fate was hanging in the balance. ”

“ Now and then there is a creaking of the basket or a rustle of fabric, as you pass from one wind current to another, but as you drift along there is perfect stillness. I know nothing like the peace of a balloon sweeping in a storm. You feel like a disembodied spirit. You have no weight, no bonds; you fly faster than the swiftest express train. More than once Carlotta has raced a train going fifty miles an hour and beaten it. ”

“ Beneath this effective covering her hair was discreetly shadowed, her eyes, if they were calculating, seemed only pensive, and the pouting of her mouth was transformed to an expression of winsome pleading—so much for the wizardry of a woman's hat.
As she stood before the mirror Mrs. Baxter's half-turned face wore that sidelong, disquieted look with which a woman always regards her newest hat, half pleasure of possession and half regret for that other hat, the one in the shop that she did not buy and whose fetching colors and enticing lines have ever since haunted her. ”