Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

“ Isabel did not answer, and Joanna continued: "When people come to where I am now, they look at life so differently from how they used to look when the end of the road was not in sight; and they see that the things which once seemed important are trivial, and the things which once seemed trivial are the only things that matter. When you stand where I am standing, you won't care a scrap whether your pride and your self-respect received their due; but you will care infinitely whether you and Paul are together, or whether you will have to go down into the dark valley all alone." ”

“ It was years since Elisabeth had dreamed this dream—years since she had even remembered it—but Cecil's remark brought it all back to her, as the scent of certain flowers brings back the memory of half-forgotten summer days; and once again she felt herself drawn to him by that bond of similarity which was so strong between them, and which is the most powerfully attractive force in the world—except, perhaps, the attractive force of contrast. It is the people who are the most like, and the most unlike, ourselves, that we love the best; to the others we are more or less indifferent. ”

“ It was a better thing for Alice to love Edgar than it had ever been to love Paul, because Edgar was suited to her and Paul was not. A woman can always adapt herself to the man she loves, and be—for as long as she chooses—the sort of woman that he approves; but, though it is not difficult for a woman to be somebody else instead of herself for a time, it becomes fatiguing if kept up for too long. After a while it feels like walking in boots which are a shade too short, or biting crusts when one has the toothache. ”

“ She had refused them with such a world of pathos in her beautiful eyes—the Farringdon gray-blue eyes, with thick black brows and long black lashes—that the poor souls had never doubted her sympathy and comprehension; nor had they the slightest idea that she was totally ignorant of the depth of the love which she had inspired, or the bitterness of the pain which she had caused.
All the romance of Elisabeth's nature—and there was a great deal of it—was lavished upon Anne Farringdon. If Anne smiled, Elisabeth's sky was cloudless; if Anne sighed, Elisabeth's sky grew gray. ”

“ It was in the following winter that Paul Seaton's great book, Some Better Thing, took the literary world by storm, and carried its author at one bound from mere notoriety to abiding fame. Everybody read the book, and everybody who read it was the better for reading it. It was a novel with a purpose, and its purpose was to show that it is only by righteousness that men and nations prevail; also, that there is much that is humorous in life as well as much that is holy, and that healing virtue lies in laughter as well as in prayers and tears. ”

“ First, that I love you, and always have loved you, and always shall love you to all eternity. But how could I say this to you, sweetheart, in the days when my love spelled poverty for us both? And how could I say it when you became one of the richest women in Mershire, and I only the paid manager of your works? Nevertheless I should have said it in time, when you had seen more of the world and were capable of choosing your own life for yourself, had I thought there was any chance of your caring for me; for no man has ever loved you as I have loved you, Elisabeth, nor ever will. ”

“ Isabel shrugged her shoulders. "I think it rather lies in the fact that in drinking the draught of life we soon get through the white froth on the top and come to the small beer underneath."
"Well, I like Sunday evenings and hymns and things in that line," persisted Lord Bobby. "I even go to the length of liking Christmas Day."
"A man who can like Christmas Day will drink sweet champagne and enjoy it," remarked Madderley.
Lord Bobby shook his head. "Oh! I won't go that far."
"Now I, on the contrary," said Isabel, "cannot bear Christmas Day; it is neither one thing nor another." ”

“ I should like to feel that I was so good and clever that I was helping the man to be better and cleverer even than he was before."
"I should like all my happiness and all my interest to centre in that one particular man," said Felicia; "and to feel that he was a fairy prince, and that I was a poor beggar-maid, who possessed nothing but his love."
"Oh! I shouldn't. I would rather feel that I was a young princess, and that he was a warrior, worn-out and wounded in the battle of life; but that my love would comfort and cheer him after all the tiresome wars that he'd gone through. ”

“ But no mortal is wise at all times—not even when the mortal happens to be a woman; and this was a time of unwisdom on Isabel's part.
"Paul is too sure of your love," whispered Isabel's evil genius, "now that you are always nice to him he takes your niceness as a matter of course."
"Paul is right to be sure of my love," replied Isabel's better self, "it is a poor trick to try to enhance the value of anything by pretending that its existence is precarious."
"There is no good in having power if you never use it," argued the evil genius. ”

“ The tears dried on Elisabeth's lashes. The old feeling of being at war with Christopher, which had laid dormant for so long, now woke up again in her heart, and inclined her to defy rather than to plead. If he cared for duty more than for her, he did not care for her much, she said to herself; and she was far too proud a woman ever to care for a man—even in the way of friendship—who obviously did not care for her. ”

“ As she sat beside Paul in Chayford Chapel that Sunday morning she was at her best. Her love for him stimulated the religious, and stifled the worldly, side of her character. Herein lay the fundamental difference between herself and Joanna: Joanna was a good woman because she loved God; Isabel was a good woman because she loved a good man—a lower type, perhaps, from a spiritual point of view, but one none the less to be considered, since the vessels in a great house are not all of equal honour, and the stars in the firmament are not all of the same glory. ”

“ Help me to be as I was then, dear friend."
"How can I?"
"By simply being yourself and letting me watch you. I always feel good and ideal and unworldly when I am near you. Don't you know how dreadful it is to wish to do one thing and to want to do another, and to be torn asunder between the two?"
Elisabeth shook her head. "No; I have never felt like that. I can understand wanting to do different things at different times of one's life, but I can not comprehend how one person can want to do two opposing things at the same time." ”

“ Isabel went on; "I love you in a restful, prosaic kind of way; and I thought that that would be enough, and that the sort of love I had given to Paul was a dream of the past which I could never dream again. But I was wrong. My love for Paul Seaton is no half-forgotten vision, but the strongest thing in me; and I cannot marry any other man."
"My darling, I quite understand," said Lord Wrexham; "it was only natural that a dull man like myself should fail to win your love. ”

“ Felicia shook her head. "We can't really be happy unless we are good; and if we are good we shall 'love not the world,' but shall stand apart from it."
"But I must love the world; I can't help loving the world, it is so grand and beautiful and funny. I love the whole of it: all the trees and the fields, and the towns and the cities, and the prim old people and the dear little children. I love the places—the old places because I have known them so long, and the new places because I have never seen them before; and I love the people best of all. I adore people, Felicia ”

“ Paul shook his head. "Of course education helps us with technique; but I think that art itself is independent of education. The artist, like the poet, is born, not made."
"Then do you mean to say," asked Lord Wrexham, "that the artist of to-day is none the better for the art produced in the centuries that lie behind him?"
"He is a richer man," replied Paul, "but not, I think, a better artist. There is no heritage in art, as there is in science. The artist is complete in himself, without ancestors or successors." ”

“ Elisabeth looked him full in the face with clear, grave eyes. "No; and I hope I may never meet such a man as long as I live. I have always been so strong, and so proud of my strength, and so sure of myself, that I could never forgive any one for being stronger than I, and wresting my dominion from me."
"Dear lady, you are a genius, and you have climbed to the summit of the giddy pinnacle which men call success; but for all that, you are still 'an unlesson'd girl.' Believe me, the strong man armed will come some day, and you will lower your flag and rejoice in the lowering." ”

“ It is simply fiendish to throw a woman's nose in her teeth in that fashion."
"Poor Isabel!"
"I always envy the women with good noses more than I can express," continued Miss Carnaby, leaning back in her chair and gazing thoughtfully up to the ceiling; "eyes grow dim and teeth depart and figures increase, but a good nose is an abiding resting-place for your vanity. You know that it will last out your time, whatever happens; and that age cannot wither nor custom stale its satisfactory proportions."
"That is so," agreed Lady Farley, tenderly stroking her own perfect little aquiline. ”

“ There is nothing that I can not do with you to help me, Elisabeth. You must be good to me and hard upon me at the same time. You must never let me be content with anything short of my best, or willing to do second-rate work for the sake of money; you must keep the sacredness of art ever before my eyes, but you must also be very gentle to me when I am weary, and very tender to me when I am sad; you must encourage [Pg 311] me when my spirit fails me, and comfort me when the world is harsh. All these things you can do, and you are the only woman who can. Promise me, Elisabeth, that you will. ”

“ I know that if a man breaks the laws of Society he will find neither remission nor mercy, for there is no forgiveness in Society; but I believe that if a man breaks the law of God his transgression can be taken away as though it had never been, for 'there is forgiveness with Thee that Thou mayest be feared'."
"It is a grand gospel that you preach, father, and seems almost too good to be true."
"Nothing is too good to be true; the truth is the best of everything."
"I believe that," said Paul, "but I did not always." ”

“ The days of his recovery were wonderful days to Elisabeth. It was so strange and new to her to be doing another person's will, and thinking another person's thoughts, and seeing life through another person's eyes; it completely altered the perspective of everything. And there was nothing strained about it, which was a good thing, as Elisabeth was too light-hearted to stand any strain for long; the old comradeship still existed between them, giving breadth to a love which the new relationship had made so deep. ”

“ The years had not dealt quite as kindly with Joanna as with Paul. She was short and thin and colourless; one of those whitey-brown-threads of women who are constantly being overlooked by their friends and neighbours, and whose natural abode is supposed to be the outlying districts of other people's lives. And she took no pains to make herself attractive, as a vainer girl would have done; for she was as yet young enough to cherish that admirable and false belief that folks love us according to our excellencies. ”

“ It was beautiful weather, too, which helped to increase their happiness; that still, full, green weather, which sometimes comes in the late summer, satisfying men's souls with its peaceful perfectness; when the year is too old to be disturbed by the restless hope of spring, too young to be depressed by the chilling dread of autumn, and so just touches the fringe of that eternity which has no end neither any beginning. The fine weather hastened Christopher's recovery; and, as he gained strength, he and Elisabeth spent much time in the old garden, looking toward the Welsh mountains. ”

“ Lady Esdaile sighed. "Yes, you are. And then, again, you hate us for getting old, and you laugh at us for trying to keep young. You really are tiresome creatures!"
Paul was amused. "I own we are hard upon you when you tell fibs about your ages, because such fibbing seems so foolish to us. When will women learn to be as proud of being old as they are now of being young?"
"When men admire old women as much as young ones, and not a moment before," replied Isabel smartly. ”

“ You know me so well, dear little girl, that you will quite understand how the thought of life-long poverty has proved too much for me. I am not made of such coarse fibre as most men—those men who can face squalor and privation, and lack all the little accessories that make life endurable, without being any the worse for it. I am too refined, too highly strung, too sensitive, to enter upon such a weary struggle with circumstances as my marriage with a woman as poor as myself would entail; therefore, my darling Quenelda, much as I love you I feel it is my duty to renounce you ”

“ Paul nodded, and Edgar continued: "If we had ever loved that person, I do not think we should like to feel that they—through us—had wrought lasting evil; this conviction would be a source of endless remorse to us, for the old love's sake, even long after that love was a thing of the past. We might be content to bear the consequences of our own share of ill-doing; but we could not endure the idea that we ourselves had increased the responsibility of any one who had once been dear to us, however thoroughly they might have forfeited our affection. ”

“ She had never craved to be loved, as some women crave; she had only asked to be allowed to love as much as she was capable of loving, and the permission had been denied her. As she looked back over her past life, she saw that it had always been the same. She had given the adoration of her childhood to Anne Farringdon, and Anne had not wanted it; she had given the devotion of her girlhood to Felicia, and Felicia had not wanted it; she had given the truest friendship of her womanhood to Christopher, and Christopher had not wanted it. ”

“ When the walk was over, Isabel went to her own room and looked at herself in the glass. "Miss Carnaby," she said, "you are not really a handsome woman, and Fate has given you far more than you deserve. In exchange for a pretty wit and an indifferent face and a most admirable figure, you will receive a coronet and twenty thousand a year, with the best husband in the world thrown in as a perquisite, like a present of books with so many pounds of tea. ”

“ Since I can not marry you whom I love, I have put romance and sentiment forever out of my life; it is a bitter sacrifice for a man of my nature to make, but it must be done; and I have decided to enter upon a mariage de convenance with Miss Farringdon, [Pg 320] the Black Country heiress. Of course I do not love her as I love you, my sweet—what man could love a genius as he loves a beauty? And she is as cold as she is clever. But I feel respect for her moral characteristics, and interest in her mental ones; and, when youth and romance are over and done with, that is all one need ask in a wife. ”