E. Temple Thurston

“ Sally rose to her feet and crossed to the mantelpiece. The spirit in her prompted her to considered lethargy, as though the remark were as inconsequent to her as it had been to the maker; but the gentleness of her nature made it impossible for her to give insult for insult. Her steps were not slow—they were almost eager—and her lips smiled. She gave the very impression that she would have died rather than create—the apparent sense of pleasure in which she felt in being addressed at all.
For a moment she stood looking into the impassive, brutal face of James Brownrigg. ”

“ For this is life as it seems to me—a crowd of undignified little creatures, pathetically, humorously, in all loveableness, trying to assume a dignity which they do not possess; only in great moments proving the nobility of their creation, when, by the sudden force of circumstance, they are, willy-nilly, driven to be themselves.
I little imagined as I amused myself by these thoughts with Moxon standing by, staring down with me at the timid blossom of that little snowdrop, that I for one was upon the eve of such an event as would force me by its circumstance to some definite course of action. ”

“ At last Sally had left the court. She could bear the strain of it no longer.
The thoughts which that incident had given rise to in her mind, had thrown their shadows upon all her lightness of heart for many days afterwards. There she had seen the keen acid of implacable justice separating, with undeviating precision, the dross from the gold. She had beheld the naked fact of adultery—stripped of all the silk of glamour, all the velvet of romance which once it had worn—held in its cringing shame before the unsympathetic eyes of twelve men in a public court of law. ”

“ But see that man without his armour, this woman without her ermine, these in the crowd without their motley and the merry, merry jangling of the bells, and you will find how slender are the muscles that the armour lays bare, how shrivelled the breast that the ermine strips, how dragged and weary is that pitiable, naked figure which a few moments before was dancing fantastically, grimacing with its ape.
Traill took it as it came; the man forced to a crude philosophy, as Life, if we get enough of it, will force every soul of us. You must have a philosophy if you are going to accept Life. ”

“ When the meal was over, we walked out into the garden.
There is such color in Ireland after rain, as you will never see in any other country in the world. Blues, purples and greens, deep as the dyes they knew of in Tyre and Sidon, spread far away into every distance that your eyes can find. Across the Bay of Ballysheen, as we stood there then, the purple cliffs of Helvic Head sank nobly down into a sea of emerald. On the far horizon rose the misty mountains, blue as the light of moonstones in the sun. ”

“ To Sally, such reasoning as this would have robbed her of all romance—the shattering siege gun that thunders through a town, and tumbles the images from their altars in the little church.
Two ways there were in which to view the matter truly. If she were the great woman, she would have loved for the love of love itself—let it end where it might. If she were the revolutionary seeking truth, demanding freedom, then she would have loved the transaction for the transaction's sake—let it end to-morrow if it willed. ”

“ Kent is full of them; and when the apple blossom is out and lambs are in the orchard, I can tell you you want to live then. You want to be up with the sun lest you should miss an hour of it. I've been all round the world, but I've never seen anything to touch an apple orchard in Kent, or any English meadow in the heat of summer. I know nothing like it—I know nothing equal to it, unless it is those cliffs at Ballysheen when the gorse and the heather are out and the whole place throbs with the humming of bees. ”

“ The man who knows how to choose a meal and savour those intervals between the courses with anecdote, has reached a high-water mark of social excellence. Devenish was the type. He was not hampered with the possession of intelligence. Wit he had, but it was not his own. The man, after all, who can echo the wit of others and suit its application to the moment is a man of no little accomplishment. The least that can be said of him is that he is worthy of his place at a dinner-table where conversation is as empty as the bubbles that shoot through the glittering wine to the frothy surface. ”

“ For hours—I have seen them since, with the boat lying idly on the tranquil waters, the men dozing lazily at their oars, while high above them is that watchman the one man alone in all the village whose keen eye can follow the passage of the school—for hours they will wait in easy idleness as he sits there on guard about them, his chin resting rigidly upon his knees, his sombrero hat pulled heavily down above his eyes, motionless and silent as a piece of statuary which the rough hand of Nature has carved out of such living marble as is only hers to mould. ”

“ When once she became conscious again of her bodily existence, felt the pulses throbbing in her forehead, and knew that her heart was beating like the muffled rattling of a kettledrum, she shuddered. Traill, she knew, had nothing to do with it. If that thought, with the force of conviction behind it, had entered her mind, she would have fled; driven with the curling lash of fear—fear of life itself, fear of everything. But she did not even contemplate it. It was the woman her instinct mistrusted. She had realized her an enemy before ”

“ Two men wrangling about the bloom of a snowdrop do not present an object for much respect! But when you come to think of it, it is just of such incidents as these that life is composed, with here and there some real event falling heavily into the peaceful rippling of the stream. It may fall upon a gravel bottom, when the broken water catches in a thousand points of light the glorious reflection of the sun. It may fall where there is sleeping mud which, disturbed, sullies all the clearness of the stream. Then only Time, who not alone heals but cleanses, shall sweep the ugliness of it away. ”

“ This, then, is Miss Hallard—adventuress in a great philosophy. Her thin lips, her shifting, disconcerting eyes, set deep beneath the brows; the long and narrow face, the high forehead on which the hair hangs heavily; that thin, reedy body, that ill-formed, unnatural breast which never was meant to suckle a child or nurse the drooping of a man's head—all these are the signs of her calling. A woman—by the irony of a fate that has thwarted the original design of Nature.
Sally Bishop is a woman before everything. Miss Hallard is a woman last of all. ”

“ People use it in little art circles in London. 'Remember' is the word. Listen to that gull—that's calling to you; listen to the sea—every time a wave breaks, it's the world drawing in its breath. Pavements and houses aren't alive like that. I try in London sometimes to think that the houses talk to each other—but how can they talk if they never draw a breath! Look at the sky! Look at the sea! You're absolutely right—it's impossible to forget here. I'd give all I know to live in that little cottage there in the hollow and remember the whole day long, the whole year round. ”

“ Apsley Manor; she said it half aloud, and the picture was thrust into her mind. She could see red gables, old tiled roofs, latticed windows, overlooking sloping lawns, herbaceous borders with the shadows of yew trees lying lazily across them. She could smell the scent of stocks. The colours of sweet-peas and climbing roses filled her eyes. In that moment, she had fallen into the morass of romance, and through it all, like a gift of God, permeated the sense that it belonged to this man who had dropped like a meteor upon the cold, uncoloured world of her existence. ”

“ At which, both knowing it to be a most excellent lie, we smiled each to the other and set off through the garden.
Up a narrow boreen, banked on each side by low walls of grass-sod and stone where grew violets and primroses in the company of moss and ladder fern, we made our way to Cruikshank's little cottage on the high land above Ballysheen. Here there are fields of young wheat, breaking in brilliant green through the stony, unpromising ground. There are fields of pasture, too, that stretch away to the sheer cliff's edge where the sheep browse and the gulls go circling all day long. ”

“ There is very seldom a hand-to-hand encounter. Only your French Revolutions and your Russian Massacres mark the spots where the two armies have met, where blood has flowed like wine from the broken goblets of some thousands of lives. But usually it is the forced marches, with the enemy ever retreating over its own ground. And in this position of women, it is the army of Nature that has begun to move. Not the mere rising of a rebellious faction, but the entire unconquerable force of humanity whose whole existence is threatened by the invading power of population. ”

“ He waited just a moment, thinking, doubtless, to hide from me the fact that he had seen me; then, leaning across the table, he whispered something into Clarissa's ear. With that same startled expression of the frightened bird, she looked across the room and her eyes met mine.
In that one sudden moment, I felt she was recalling every word I had said to her that morning on the cliffs at Ballysheen. For her eyes had no hatred in them now; only fear, the fear as when one is discovered and is ashamed. ”

“ Only upon that mimic platform of fame, raised where the eyes of all can watch the figure as it treads the boards, have women stood apart where the recorder can jot their names upon a scroll of history for the world to read. There is no virtue essential here; virtue indeed but adds a glamour with its absence.
There is some subtle attraction in a Catherine of Russia or a Manon Lescaut which tempts the cunning lust of men to cry their praise for the nobility of heart that lies beneath. But what elusive charm is there in the mother of children whose stainless virtue is her only personality? ”

“ There may be a certain beauty in sympathy which makes any abasement worth while, but so far as I am concerned it is a quality in human beings I have done without for so long, that a childish sense of dignity has double its value to me.
Now it would have been most undignified to tell any one of the folly of my adventure, or to seek to gain their sympathy because it had failed. The real tragedy of failure is not its want of success; it is the knowledge that you may not tell it to a soul. ”

“ Together they both drew a deep breath as Traill turned the handle and opened the door. A physical sickness made them weak. Janet half tumbled, half ran into the room. The length of Traill's strides brought him even with her.
Sally was there. Sally was in the room. She lay crumpled on the bed, her legs drawn up, twisted, bent; one arm thrown out covering her face, her other hand gripping a corner of the bed-clothes, stretching out from her in tautened creases. She looked as though some giant hand had knotted her fragile body with fingers of iron. ”

“ So high are you there, that only a mere ribbon strip of the far sea is visible, but the muted sound of it as it swells upon the rocks, comes to your ears in a sonorous sibilant note, which grows and grows into the very music of the place. So swiftly do your ears become attuned to it, that soon you hear no sound of it at all; it is all one motive of the great, still symphony of Silence which Nature is forever playing on her thousand instruments of string and reed. ”

“ The generalship of a woman is never so keen, so instinct with strategy, as when she gives battle against another of her sex. Her campaign against men, when once she takes up arms, is mimic warfare—a sham fight—compared to this. Against a man, she needs but a company of fascinations, and in one attack his squares—the stern veterans of determination—are driven to flight. But with a woman, whole regiments of cunning, whole battalions of craft, with all the well-trained scouts of intuition and all the dashing cavalries of charm, are needed to rout her absolutely from the field. ”

“ They'll scream to you from the house-tops that the world is an ugly place. You will go to the theatres you speak of and there they'll tell you that men and women are unfaithful. They'll keep driving into your ears that truth and beauty are at opposite poles of the earth. Never, never for one moment, if they can help it, will they let you forget. You will find those who have even passed the desire of forgetfulness, and that is the last and the worst stage of all. For there are people in London now who only want to remember that the world is ugly. ”

“ There is no more disarming passe in the everlasting duel between a man and a woman than this appeal—whether it be made intentionally or not—the appeal to his honour as a gentleman. Up flies the glittering rapier from his hand, he is weaponless—and at her mercy. For every man, even more especially when he is not one, would be thought a gentleman.
Traill, disarmed, defenceless, weighing every possibility, every intention, was still faced with the unequal balance, her gentle faith in the best of him dragging down the scale. ”

“ For if you are a woman, I believe, and reach the age which poor Miss Teresa has attained, there comes into your eyes, whether you will it or not, the look of watching for some phantom thing which never rides the seas upon your actual horizon. You know it is there, because you hope it is there. Maybe it is the disappointed spirit of maternity which has waited so long upon the road that its eyes are tired of watching. ”

“ In the first realization, the thought of adventure thrilled her. A life, quiet and uneventful such as hers, looks of necessity for its happiness to the little thrills, the little emotions that combine to make one day less monotonous than another. But when, having reached Garrick Street and, looking hurriedly over her shoulder, she found that not only was he still following, but that he had perceptibly lessened the distance between them, the spirit of interest sank—died out, like a candle snuffed in a gale. ”

“ It was almost safe to suppose that she knew I had been to meet Clarissa. But how could she possibly realize all that had happened? So I stood there silent for a moment, waiting while I considered how far I could decoy her from the truth. I did not know then, so well as I know now, that the truth itself is the only thing with which to mislead a woman's intuition. All that lies behind deception she can so easily detect. It is the truth behind the truth which confuses her. ”

“ You are never to know how deep the iron has entered your soul until Fate begins to draw it out.
When Traill had left her, Sally's mind had been numbed with misery. The despair of such loneliness as hers is often a narcotic, that drugs all power of thought. In the beating of her pulses, when she had first heard Devenish's footsteps mounting the stairs, she was forced to the realization that hope was not yet dead in the heart of her. That undoubtedly was why, despite all Janet's efforts, she had refused to leave her rooms. ”

“ Here the whole summer, the whole autumn and winter had passed with every varied color and design. The spring was back again, and the whole world about us was the same once more as it had been the previous year. The gulls were beating up against the thrusting wind; the songs of larks rose like glittering bells, trilling and tinkling in the bright air above us. Now the gorse was in its full blazonry of yellow, and all the heather buds shook out their music to each little breeze. ”

“ To such a day, from the grey fogs and lightless hours of winter, one comes, finding life well worth its while. Sally sat with her hand wrapped in Traill's, giving vent to a thousand expressions of delight, drawing his sudden attention to the thousand things that pleased her eye—the faint wash of green from the buds upon the hedgerows, the bright clusters of primroses that struck light through the shadows in the wood, forcing life through the thick carpet of dead leaves that the trees had given back to earth. ”

“ In that little acre which, with such simple vanity, he calls his own, his garden, a man will plant his tiny slips of wood to mark the spot where life is hidden for a while; hidden, only to come forth and blossom for his happiness. When, then, I had thought so far as that, there came with a rush into my mind the words in Maeterlinck's "Blue Bird," "There are no dead," and suddenly I saw it all.
The body of a man holds a seed. Through life it ripens, as all seeds do. ”

“ But last and most poignant of all in the bitterness of this lesson that she had learnt, was her understanding of the place she held in the eyes of such men as Devenish. With those who knew of her life, no friendship was possible. One relationship, one only could exist—a relationship, at the thought of which her whole nature shuddered in violent disgust.
Janet was right. Janet had seen things from their proper point of view. As a trade she should have looked at it. As the leaving of one master to labour in the service of another she should have weighed its issue. ”

“ I know a man who every evening of his life partakes of a glass of milk for his health's sake. One night his dog fell foul of it and consumed it all. But it was not for punishment alone that he stole two of the dog's biscuits in return. What can be more undignified than having your evening's milk stolen by your dog! What, then, can more perfectly regain your dignity than stealing two of his biscuits and calling it the adjustment of punishment to the crime? If Moxon could not openly admit that he had seen the snowdrop before, I could not entirely agree with him. ”

“ So, therefore, rob them of their virtue and you prize a jewel from its setting, you wrench a star from the mystery of the heavens and bring it down to earth, you filch from the generous hand of Nature that very possession which she holds most dear. For without virtue, these women are nothing. Without virtue, you may see them dragging the bed of the streets for the bodies they can find. It is the last task which Nature sets them—bait to lure men from the theft of that virtue in others which they can in no wise repay. ”