Emily Sarah Holt

“ Ah, dear heart, it is sore matter to find thy shrine deserted of the idol: yet not half so sore as to see the idol lie broken at thy feet, and to know thenceforward that it was nought but a lump of common clay. No god—only a lump of clay, that thy foolish heart had thought to be one! Well! all that lieth behind, and the sooner thou canst turn away and go on thy journey, the better. But for what lieth afore, Edith, look onward and look upward. Heaven will be the brighter because earth was darker than thou hadst looked for. ”

“ I’ve looked for thee to be some good man’s wife, and a happy woman,—such a good maid as thou always wast!—and now! Well, well! the will of the Lord be done!”
“A happy woman, Mother!” said Elizabeth with her brightest smile. “In all my life I never was so happy as this day! This is my wedding day—nay, this is my crowning day! For ere the sun be high this day, I shall have seen the Face of Christ, and have been by Him presented faultless before the light of the glory of God. Mother, rejoice with me, and rejoice for me, for I can do nothing save rejoice. ”

“ Phoebe tasted, for the first time in her life, the flattering ease of being waited on, instead of waiting on others; the delicate pleasure of being listened to, instead of snubbed and disregarded; the intellectual treat of finding one who was willing to exchange ideas with her, rather than only to impart ideas to her. Was it any wonder if Osmund Derwent began to form a nucleus in her thoughts, round which gathered a floating island of fair fancies and golden visions, all the more beautiful because they were vague? ”

“ Poor unfledged birds, fluttering your wings on the brim of the nest, and pooh-poohing the old bird behind you, that says, ‘Take care, my dears, or you will fall!’ She never flew out of the nest, did she?—she never preened her wings, and thought all the world lay before her, and she could fly as straight as any lark of them all, and catch as many flies as any swallow? ”

“ Men, women, lads! you’ve repeated the deed of Iscariot this day, for you’ve betrayed innocent blood—you have slain your benefactor and friend. Go home and ask God and the saints to forgive you—if they ever can. How they sit calm above yonder, and stand this world, is more than I can tell.—Poor, harmless, kindly soul! may God comfort thee in His blessed Heaven! And for them that have harried thee, and taken thy life, and have the black brand of murder on their souls, God pardon them as He may! ”

“ I have lost all faith, whether in religion, in morality, in man, or woman. I see the men of this city, Protestant and Catholic, either bent on pursuing their own pleasures, or on seeking their own interests—thinking of and caring for themselves and nothing in the world else; and I see the women, such as I have described them to you. I find none, of either faith, any better than the rest. What wonder, then, that the fire of my faith—the old, bright, happy trust of my childhood—has blackened and gone out?"
"But, Philip, dear Brother," pleaded Celia in great pain, "surely you believe in God?" ”

“ Clare was an imaginative child, and the topic of all her dreams was this mysterious mother whom she had never seen. Many a time, when Barbara only saw that she was quietly dressing or hushing her doll, Clare’s mind was at work, puzzling over the incomprehensible reason of Barbara’s evident dislike to her absent mother. What shocking thing could she have done, thought Clare, to make Bab angry with her? Had she poisoned her sister, or drowned the cat, or stolen the big crown off the Queen’s head? For the romance of a little child is always incongruous and sensational. ”

“ But beside the throne, and on it in all but name—his hand firmly grasping the reins of power, his voice the living law of the State—stands John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland; a man whose steel-blue eyes are as cold as his heart, and whose one aim in every action of his life is the welfare and aggrandisement of John Dudley. He professes himself a Lutheran: at heart, if he care at all for religion of any kind, he is a Papist. But it will not be of service to John Dudley at the present moment to confess that little fact to the world. ”

“ Ah, Mother Ada, but is not love worth knowing? or must they have that only from their happy mothers, who not being holy women are permitted to love, and not from a poor, crushed, hopeless heart like mine?
There is nothing in our life to look forward to. “Till death” is the vow of the Sisterhood. And death seems a poor hope.
I know, of course, what Mother Ada would say: that I have no vocation, and my heart is in the world and of the world. But God sent me to the world: and man—or rather woman—thrust me against my will into this Sisterhood. ”

“ Maude was listening entranced, with parted lips; Constance carelessly, as if she knew all about it beforehand, and were chiefly amusing herself by watching the rapt face of her fellow-listener.
“Long years thereafter,” resumed Dame Agnes, “ay, and even now, men said and say, that at times ye may yet hear the sound and see the sight of the drowned cities of the Lyonesse. Ever sithence that tempestuous night, the deep green sea lies heavy on the bosom of the lost land; and no man of unpure heart, nor of evil life, ne unbaptised, ne unshriven, may see nor hear. ”

“ I am sure Uncle Edward never made her a coat of many colours. Mistress Pandora, is it very wicked of me to feel as if I could not bear to look at Uncle Edward, and hope that he will never, never, never come to see us any more?”
“’Tis not wicked to hate a man’s sinful deeds, dear heart; but we have need to beware that we hate not the sinner himself.”
“I can’t tell how to manage that,” said Christie. “I can’t put Uncle Edward into one end of my mind, and the ill way he hath used dear Aunt Alice into the other. He’s a bad, wicked man, or he never could have done as he has.” ”

“ Isoult had dwelt there for two years with Lady Lisle; and there were few places nearer to her heart. Perhaps we can hardly picture to ourselves how nearly that loss touched every English heart. It was as if each man in the land had lost a piece of his estate. Calais belonged to every Englishman.
“Well, my friends in the monastery!” was the greeting of Mr Ferris, “that I promised Underhill I would look to by times. Hath your secluded ear been yet pierced with the tidings this morrow—that be making every man all over London to swear and curse, that loveth not his soul better than his anger?” ”

“ Worst of all, and beyond all, were two better feelings—the honest affection which Aubrey had scarcely realised before that he entertained for Thomas Winter, and the shock and pain of his miserable fate: and even beyond this, a sense of humiliation, very wholesome yet very distressing, at the folly of his course, and the wreck which he had made of his life. How complete a wreck it was he had not discovered even now: but that he had been very foolish, he knew in his inmost heart. And when a man is just making that valuable discovery is not the best time for other men to tell him of it. ”

“ It was winter again; and the winds blew harshly and wailingly around the Castle of Arundel. In the stateliest chamber of that Castle, where the hangings were of cramoisie paned with cloth of gold, the evening tapers were burning low, and a black-robed priest knelt beside the bed where an old man lay dying.
“I can think of nothing more, Father,” faintly whispered the penitent. “I have confessed every sin that I have ever sinned, so far as my memory serveth: and many men have been worse sinners than I. I never robbed a church in all my wars. ”

“ Now, if one might order one’s own life, methinks it should be a right pleasant thing. For I reckon I should not go a-fooling, like as some lasses do. Mine head is not all stuffed with gallants, nor yet with velvet and gold. But I would love to be great. Not great like a duchess, just a name and no more: but to make a name for myself, and to have folks talk of me, how good and how clever I were. That is what I would fain be thought—good and clever. I take no care to be thought fair, nor in high place; howbeit, I desire not to be ugly nor no lower down than I am. ”

“ Thus graciously dismissed, Celia retired from her step-mother's dressing-room, with a long look at Lady Ingram, whom she had never before seen so splendidly attired. She wore a blue robe, with a long sweeping train, robe and train being elaborately embroidered with flowers, in white, crimson, and straw-color; a petticoat of the palest straw-colored satin, a deep lace berthe, and sleeves of lace reaching to the elbow; long white gloves advanced to meet the sleeve, and jewels of sapphire and diamond gleamed upon the neck and wrists. ”

“ And I cannot bear to think of her as a lost soul, with that face so like my Anegay, and that voice—
“Now, shame upon thee, Bruno de Malpas! Is Belasez more to thee than to Him that died for her? Canst thou not trust Him who giveth unto His sheep eternal life, not to allow this white lamb to be plucked out of His hand? O Lord, increase my faith!—for it is very low. I am one of the very weakest of Thy disciples. Yet I am Thine. Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee!” ”

“ Heliet looked up with her bright smile.
“Very like maidens’ fancies,” she said. “For me, I am never like to wed, so I can look on from the outside.”
“But what manner of man shouldst thou fancy, Heliet?”
“Oh ay, do tell us!” cried more than one voice.
“I warrant he’ll be a priest,” said Elaine.
“He will have fair hair and soft manners,” remarked Olympias.
“Nay, he shall have such hair as shall please God,” said Heliet, more gravely. “But he must be gentle and loving, above all to the weak and sorrowful: a true knight, to whom every woman is a holy thing, to be guarded and tended with care. ”

“ Loud and full rang the volume of voices in the kitchen of the King’s Head at Colchester, that winter evening. They did not stand up in silence and let a choir do it for them, while they listened to it as they might to a German band, and with as little personal concern. When men’s hearts are warm with patriotism, or overflowing with loyalty, they don’t want somebody else to sing Rule, Britannia, or God Save the Queen; the very enjoyment lies in doing it themselves. Nobody would dream of paying another person to go to a party or to see a royal procession for him. ”

“ Verily, I myself, only this last spring-time, was ready to yield to the witch’s spell—never was woman such enchantress as she!—and athwart all the past, despite all I knew, gazing on that face, even yet fairer than the faces of younger women, to think it possible that all the tales were false, and all the past a vision of the night, and that the lovely face and the sweet, soft voice covered a soul white as the saints in Heaven! And men are easier deluded by such dreams than women—or at least I think it. ”

“ It were jolly work to fall of idle tale-telling, when all the work in the house gapeth for to be done!—Thou weary, dreary jade! what art thou after now? (Agnes was hastily mending a rent in the curtain.) To fall to dainty stitchery, like a gentlewoman born, when every one of the trenchers lacketh scraping, and not the touch of a mop have the walls felt this morrow! Who dost look to, to slave for thee, prithee, my delicate-fingered damsel? Thou shouldst like well, I reckon, to have a serving-maid o’ thy heels, for to ’tend to all matter that was not sweet enough for thy high degree! ”

“ She takes you captive. There is a charm about her that I cannot put into words. Only it is as different from the spell that Cecilia Osborne threw over me (at first) as light differs from darkness. The charm about Annas feels as if it lifted me higher, into a purer air. Whenever I had been long with Cecilia, my mind felt soiled, as if I had been breathing bad air.
When Flora introduced me, Miss Keith turned and kissed me, and I felt as if I had been presented to a queen.
“We want to know you,” she said. “All Flora’s friends are our friends. You will come, both of you?” ”

“ There is a great deal in giving names to things. So long as you call your pride self-respect and high spirit, you will reckon yourself much better than you are; and so long as you call your discontent low spirits or vapours, you will reckon yourself worse used than you are. Don’t split on that rock, Phoebe. The worst thing you can do with wounds is to keep pulling off the bandage to see how they are getting on; and the worst thing you can do with griefs and wrongs is to nurse them and brood over them. ”

“ Wit ye all what marriage truly meaneth? It is to be a slave, and serve a man at his beck, all the days of thy life. A maid is her own queen, and may do as it like her—”
“Would I might!” said Blanche under her breath.
“But a wife must needs search out her lord’s pleasure.”
“Or make him search out hers,” boldly interposed Blanche.
“Child, lay thou down forthwith that foolish fantasy,” returned Rachel with great solemnity. “So long time as that thing man is not sure of thee, he is the meekest mannered beast under the sun. He will promise thee all thy desire whatsoever. ”

“ Derette, child, are you sure you’ll not be sorry?”
“No, I don’t think I shall, Mother. I shall have more liberty in the anchorhold than in the nunnery.”
“More liberty, quotha!” cried Isel in amazement. “Whatever can the child mean? More liberty, penned up in two little chambers, and never to leave them all your life, than in a fine large place like Godstowe, with a big garden and cloisters to walk in?”
“Ah, Mother, I don’t want liberty for my feet, but for my soul. There will be no abbess nor sisters to tease one in the anchorhold.” ”

“ All hope for this world died out of the heart of Alice Benden. No more possibility of reconciliation and forgiveness for Edward!—no more loving counsels to Christabel—no more comforting visits from Roger. Instead of them, one awful hour of scarcely imaginable anguish, and then, from His seat on the right hand of God, Christ would rise to receive His faithful witness—the Tree of Life would shade her, and the Water of Life would refresh her, and no more would the sun light upon her, nor any heat: she should be comforted for evermore. ”

“ The man who loves me must love me supremely—must care for nothing but me: must find his sweetest reward for every thing in my smile, and his bitterest pain in my displeasure. That is what I call love.”
“Well! I should call that something else—if Margaret wouldn’t scold,” murmured Marie in an undertone.
“What is that, Marie?” asked Margaret, with a smile.
“Self-conceit; and plenty of it,” said the child.
“Ask Father Bruno what he thinks, Beatrice,” suggested Margaret, after a gentle “Hush!” to the somewhat too plain-spoken Marie. “Thou canst do it, but it would not come so well from us.” ”

“ If I was a well-favored young damsel with five hundred pounds in my pocket, and a silk gown, and a coach for to ride in, well, I dare say I should be as stuck-up as a peacock. But whatever has an old sinner like me to be proud of? Why, I'm always doing somewhat wrong all day long."
"I am afraid I am a greater sinner than you, Mrs. Cicely," said Patient Irvine's quiet voice in answer. "You have nothing to be proud of, and you are not proud. I have nothing to be proud of, and I am."
"Well, surely, a white devil is the worst devil," responded Cicely. ”

“ Colonel Keith did not die for that Cause. He died for right and righteousness, for truth and honour, for faithfulness, for loyalty and love—no bad things to die for. Not for the Prince—only for God and Flora, and a little, perhaps, for Angus. God forbid that I should judge any true and honourable man—most of all that man who gave his life for those we love. Only, Cary, the Cause is dead and gone. The struggle is over for ever: and we may thank God it is so. ”

“ It does seem as if the hardest thing in all the world was for man to trust God. You would not think I paid you much of a compliment if you heard me say, ‘I’ll trust Phoebe Latrobe as far as I can see her.’ Yet that is what we are always doing to God. The minute we lose sight of His footsteps, we begin to murmur and question where He is taking us. But, my dear, I must not let you tarry longer; ’tis nigh sundown.”
“Oh, dear!” and Phoebe looked up and rose hurriedly. “I trust Madam will not be angry. ’Tis much later than I thought.” ”

“ I come back now to the life of every day—that quiet humdrum life (as Milly hath it) which is so displeasant to young eager natures, and matcheth so well with them that be growing old and come to feel the need of rest. And after all said, Mistress Milisent, a man should live a sorry life and a troublous, if it had in it no humdrum days. Human nature could not bear perpetual sorrow, and as little (in this dispensation at the least) should it stand unceasing joy.
I fell a-thinking this morrow, how little folks do wit of that which lieth a-head. ”

“ But one more word did I dare to utter.
“Is obedience so much better than love, Mother?”
“What hast thou to do with love, save the love of God and the blessed Mother and the holy saints? The very word savoureth of the world. All the love thou givest to the creature is love taken from God.”
“Is love, then, a thing that can be measured and cut in lengths, Mother? The more you tend a plant, the better it flourishes. If I am to love none save God, will not my heart dry and wither, so that I shall not be able to love Him? ”

“ Never canst thou be loveless, Bruno de Malpas, while the deathless love of Christ endureth; never canst thou be lonely and forlorn, whilst thou hast His company who is the sunlight of Heaven. Perhaps it would not have been good for me, had my beloved stayed with me. ”

“ I have as much fear for all of you, except Celia, and, perhaps, Harry. Have we feared God, child, as a family? Hath there not been mere form and habit even in our devotions? Have we not shown much unevenness, and walked unequally? Have we cared to serve or please Him at all? Ah, my children! these are grave questions, and I take bitter shame to myself to have lived as many years as I have, and never thought of them. God forgive you—and me!"
"Aye, to be sure, my dear!" said old Cicely upstairs, afterwards. ”

“ Flora ran down the walk with a glad cry of “Annas!” and then she stood up, and I saw Annas Keith.
A princess! was my first thought. I saw a tall, slight figure, a slender white throat, a pure pale face, dark grey eyes with black lashes, and a soul in them. Some people have no souls in their eyes, Annas Keith has.
Yet I could not have said then, and I cannot say now, when I try to recall her picture in my mind’s eye, whether Annas Keith is beautiful. It does not seem the right word to describe her: and yet “ugly” would be much further off. ”

“ There be mind depths, the which are at times, as Milly saith, displeasant: at other times not displeasant. But there be soul depths for the which displeasant is no word. When the Lord seems to shut every door in thy face and to leave thee shut up in a well, where thou canst not breathe, and when thou seest no escape, and when thou criest and shoutest, He shutteth out thy prayer: when thine heaven above thee is as brass, and thine earth below thee iron: when it seems as if no God were, either to hear thee or to do for thee—that is a deep pit to get in, Helen, and not a pleasant one. ”

“ Every man you come across is an avaricious, designing creature. Oh dear! ’tis a weary weary world, and ’tis no good living!”
“Yes, Rhoda dear, there is one good in living, and ’tis always left to us, whatever we may lose,” said Phoebe, earnestly. “Don’t you remember what the Lord Jesus said to His disciples—‘My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me?’ There is always that, Rhoda.” ”

“ Richard de Clare bent over the bed, pouring passionate, unanswered kisses upon dead violet eyes, and tenderly smoothing the tresses of the cedar hair.
“The Lord has been here!” said Beatrice involuntarily.
“O Lord, be thanked that Thou hast given Thy child quiet rest at last!” was the response from Bruno.
Richard stood up and faced them.
“Is this God’s doing, or is it man’s?” he said, in a voice which sounded almost like an execration of some one. “God gave me this white dove, to nestle in my bosom and to be the glory of my life. Who took her from me? Does one of you dare to say it was God? ”

“ I will not believe it. He that gave His own Son to die for man can be no Moloch delighting in human suffering—caring not how many hearts be crushed so long as there be flowers upon His altar, how many lives be made desolate so long as there be choirs to sing antiphons! Annora, it is not God who does such things, but men. ”

“ How little does a Christian know the heart of a Jew! Canst thou not guess that in our eyes it is a degradation for a daughter of Israel to be looked on by such as you Gentiles—that for one of you so much as to touch her hand is pollution that only blood can wipe away? Why! I wanted to revenge myself on thee, and if it were not too late, to save the child’s soul. Thou canst hang me now, if thou wilt: I have had my revenge!’ And I said, ‘Licorice, my faith teaches me that revenge must be left to God, and that only forgiveness is for the lips of men. ”

“ O holy and immaculate Virgin, O Saint Margaret, Saint Agnes, and all ye blessed maidens that dwell in Heaven, have mercy on me, miserable sinner! My soul is earth-bound, and I cannot rise. I am the bride of Christ, and I cannot cease lamenting my lost earthly bridal. ”

“ Snappishly as she spoke, yet—I hardly know why,—I did not feel the appeal to her as hopeless as to Mother Ada. To entreat the latter was like beseeching a stone wall. Mother Gaillarde’s very peevishness (if I dare call it so) showed that she was a woman, and not an image.
“Mother Gaillarde,” I said, suddenly—for something seemed to bid me speak out—“be not angry with me, I pray you. I am afraid of letting things alone. My heart seems to be like a dry bough, and my soul withering up, and I want to keep them alive and warm. Surely death is not perfection!” ”

“ This also I will ask Father Mortimer.
Lack-a-day! this world is full of puzzles, or rather it is this life. I would one might see the way a little clearer—might have, as it were, a thread put into one’s hand to guide one out of the labyrinth, like that old Grecian story which we teach the children. Some folks seem to lose their way easier than others; and some scarcely seem to behold any labyrinth at all—they walk right through those matters which are walls and hedges to others, and look as though they never perceived that any such things were there. ”

“ Margaret, art thou thinking that if this be so, I shall love thee no more? Nay, for I shall love thee more than ever. Beloved, God is not stone and ice; He is not indifference nor hatred. Nay, He is love, and whoso dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected in us. Open thy heart to that love, and then this little, little life will soon be over, and we shall dwell together beside the river of His pleasures, unto the ages of the ages.’
“‘It sounds fair, Roland,’ I said; ‘but it is far away. My soul is hard and dry. ”

“ That it is sin in me to love Roland shall I never own. But lest we should love each other better than we love Him, we journey apart for this lower life. And I do not think our Lord is angry with me when at times the longing pain and the aching loneliness seem to overcome me, for a little while. I think He is sorry for me. For since I learned—from Roland—that He is not dead, but the Living One—that He is not darkness, but the Light—that He is not cold and hard, but the incarnate Love—since then, I can never feel afraid of Him. ”

“ Ah, children—for we are children to an aged woman like me—life looks different indeed, seen from a deathbed, to what it does viewed from the little mounds of our human wisdom as we pass along it. Here, there is nothing great but God; there is nothing fair save Christ and Heaven; there is nothing else true, nor desirable, nor of import. Every thing is of consequence, if, and just so far as, it bears on these: and all other things are as the dust of the floor, which ye sweep off and forth of the doors into the outward. Life is the way upward to God, or the way down to Satan. ”