Eden Phillpotts

“ You had no right to think for yourselves."
"The old British fallacy," answered Stark. "Freedom of thought can be denied to none. Deny all other freedom, if you will. But freedom of thought is an immortal fact."
"And duty to your betters is also an immortal fact. Your nation—so to call it—has disgraced itself at the opening of its history. It has begun its separate existence in its father's blood. For what prosperity and blessing shall the country seek that blots the first page of its history with such a crime?"
"A revolt against ignorance, oppression, greed and dishonesty is no crime. ”

“ He strode along like a conqueror of kingdoms, frowned and scratched his curly head as problem after problem rose, smiled when he solved them, and entered the solution in his book. For the wide world was full of young green, and this sanguine youth soared lark-high in soul under his happy circumstances. Will breathed out kindness to all mankind just at present, and now before that approaching welfare he saw writ largely in beggarly Newtake, before the rosy dawn which Hope spread over this cemetery of other men’s dead aspirations, he felt his heart swell to the world. ”

“ And secret waters twinkle out by many a hidden channel to them, bedewing their foliage with grey moisture.
On a cloudy day night never departs from the deepest caverns of this gorge, and only the foam-light reveals each polished rib and buttress. The air is full of mist from a waterfall that thunders through the darkness, and chance of season and weather seldom permit the westering sun to thrust a red-gold shaft into the gloom. But that rare moment is worth pilgrimage, for then the place awakens and a thousand magic passages of brightness pierce the gorge to reveal its secrets. ”

“ It has too often scourged the only really precious members of society from the temple of life. It has cast the brave and clean and virile into outer darkness, and exalted the staple of humanity, which is never brave, or virile, and seldom really clean. A hideous wave submerges everything that matters. The proud, the beautiful—the only beings that justify the existence of mankind—will soon be on the hills with the hawks and leopards, and hunted like them—outcast, pariah, unwanted, hated."
"The spirit of Christianity is socialistic, I fear," said Sir Walter. ”

“ The criterion of love, such as I feel to Jenny, is that nothing else weighs a mustard seed in the balance against it. If she were a pauper, or if she owned millions, my attitude of heart is not changed. I worship her with the whole of myself—so that there is not a cranny left in my spirit where hunger for money can find foothold, or fear of poverty exist. Happiness never depends upon cash, or the lack of it; but without love no real happiness shall be found in the world. ”

“ I said to myself, 'Nature does neither right nor wrong; it is only the foolish man who calls her cruel or kind. She rises above these human ideas. And so will I.' Yes, I thought to copy Nature and follow the thing she prompted. I dinned into my own ears that what I did was far above right or wrong. I said to myself, 'Let the fools who like words call their actions "good" or "evil." Do you, for your part, look to it that your actions are "reasonable," and so content your conscience that demands only reason.' What a light has burned in on all that preposterous nonsense since! ”

“ Humphrey Baskerville continued to stalk the stage of life like a lonely ghost, and still obscured from all men and women the secrets of his nature, and the fierce interest of his heart in matters human. The things that he most wished to display he deliberately concealed, as a shy child who makes a toy, and longs to show it, but dares not, yet grows warm to the roots of his being if the treasure is found and applauded. ”

“ There were but few Tregenzas left and soon there would be none unless Tom carried on the name. Michael was the quintessence of the Tregenza spirit, the fruit of generations, the high-water mark. He stood on that giddy pinnacle which has religious mania for its precipice. To damn a dead woman was easier than to accept a wanton daughter. Better an unfaithful wife than that any soul born of Tregenza blood should be lost. So he washed his hands of both, thanking God, who had launched the truth into his mind at last; and then he rose to his feet as Joan entered the room. ”

“ Margery fluctuated and on her feeblest days the desire to return home became most intense. For her own sake she longed to be back at Red House; for his sake she wanted to be with Jacob. Her emotions towards him eluded her; but when she knew definitely from Auna that his only dream on earth was to see her again beside him, pity woke a faint ghost of the old love. Red House itself drew her, for she felt that if the remainder of her life was to be spent as a sick woman, she could be a more useful one and a happier one in her home than with her parents. ”

“ A few seconds more would have seen Jerry Withycombe past the spot, on his way to work in the valley; but chance so willed it that, as he rounded a bend on his way, he saw beneath him, but still far distant, a woman's sun-bonnet, and he recognised its faded blue. She with whom his melancholy thoughts were concerned was evidently approaching, and the fact that she should be out so early, and on the way she knew he must be travelling to his work, created sudden, deep emotion in the woodman. His quarrel with Jane bulked larger in his eyes than in hers. ”

“ You say you're a man now. Then be a man and take man's views and look on ahead and think of your future life. Far from helping me, you're only hindering me. We've come to a time when life's altered and the old life here is done. We're going to begin life together—you and me—and you're going to make our fortunes; but it's a mad lookout if you mean to put all your strength into hating them that have no hate for you. It will make you bitter and useless, and you'll grow up a sour, friendless creature, like Levi Baggs. What's he got out of all his hate and unkindness to the world? ”

“ And honestly, the longer I live, the less I see to laugh at in the world, for a thinking man with high resolves to better things. People laugh for two reasons, I believe: to throw their neighbours off the scent of the truth; or else because they are rattle-pated, light-minded fools, with no more in them than an empty pot. The ‘empties’ make the most noise, don’t they? All the same, I like to hear you laugh, because you laugh honest and it means you’re happy. And God knows if there’s one thing I want to make happy before everybody on earth, it’s you, Medora. ”

“ I can’t stand that. ’Tis fatal. My days are nought to me without you. They are narrowed to a word; you, you, you! Think what I can give you if you’ve no liking for myself. I’ve got heaps of money—a small fortune. Hundreds of pounds—all for you. Never another stroke of work. Your own servant you shall have; and your own slave, too. I’ll be that. Let me show you what love for a woman is—what love for a woman can do. Be content to share life with me. Don’t drive me mad by saying ‘no’ again. Don’t turn my love into gall. For ’twill be poison, and that poison will mean death. ”

“ Existence, that had meandered without personal incident save of a description common to them all, was, within twelve hours, to confront men and women alike with reality. They were destined to endure at close quarters an occurrence so astounding and unparalleled that, for once in their lives, they would find themselves interesting to the wider world beyond their own limited circuit, and, for their friends and acquaintance, the centre of a nine days' wonder.
Most of them, indeed, merely touched the hem of the mystery and were not involved therein, but even for them a reflected glory shone. ”

“ Below the mass of the river, very dark under its creaming veil of foam, shouts and hastens; above, there slope upwards the cliff-masses to a mere ribbon of golden-green, high aloft where the trees admit rare flashes from the azure above them. Beech and ash spring horizontally from the precipices, and great must be the bedded strength of the roots that hold their trunks hanging there. With the dark forces of the gorge dragging them downward and the sunshine drawing them triumphantly up—between gravitation and light—they poise, destruction beneath and life beckoning from above. ”

“ Here, indeed, the first that came in the flesh are the last to vanish in their memorials; here Nature, to whom the hut-circle of granite, all clad in Time’s lichen livery of gold and grey, is no older than the mushroom ring shining like a necklace of pearls within it—Nature may follow what course she will, may build as she pleases, may probe to the heart of things, may pursue the eternal Law without let from the pigmies ”

“ The life and activity of Fox Tor Farm have vanished into the eternal past, and graves widely scattered hold those who buried Miller then; but none sleep so grand, so solitary as he in his forgotten tomb under the heather. A repulsed civilisation has retreated before the severity of the land, before the far-flung granite, hungry peat and rough greeting of winter winds and storms; but these forces, harsh to living man, are the patient watchers beside his grave; this earth and stone he cannot tame, yet they open their hearts to him at the last. ”

“ An ancient bridge like a rainbow still spans Nervia, and the houses climb up the hills among the vines and olives, while frowning down upon all things is the mighty ruin of the Doria's castle—a great ghost from the past. In the midst of all the human business and bustle, removed by a century from the concerns of men, it stands, hollow and empty, with life surging round about, like the sea on the precipices below us. ”

“ Having peeped shyly about her, Joan took off her clothes, placed them on the altar-stones, shook down her hair, and glided softly to the stream. At one point its waters caught the sunshine and babbled over white sand between many budding spikes of wild parsley and young fronds of fern. Naked and beautiful the girl stood, her bright hair glinting to her waist, all rippled with the first red gold of the morning, her body very white save where the sun and western wind had browned both arms and neck; her form innocent as yet of the mystery hid for her in Time. ”

“ I don't believe in no future life myself, but I don't quarrel with them that do. I'm like my old master—large-minded, I hope. And if another life there is, then this I will swear, that the people as be called home have got their senses, and the next world have its duties and its upper ghosts set over the unknown country to rule and direct it. You can't suppose that everybody's on his own there, to moon about and poke about, like a lot of birds, with no law and order. ”

“ Behind the mass of Lydford castle a moon, just short of fall, was sinking amid vast clouds. Some were very dark and some were luminous; some, while circled with flame, yet moved in masses unutterably black. The firmament seemed troubled by this conflagration. The setting moon, surrendering her silver, took upon her bosom the tinctures of earth; and the stormy clouds burnt with her stained radiance. Above them the light exhaled and shot upward into heaven, where stars shone through the vaporous floor of the sky. Orion wheeled his far-flung glories westward and followed the red moon. ”