Frances Hodgson Burnett

“ The sky seemed so much nearer than when one saw it from the street, that Lottie was enchanted. From the attic window, among the chimney-pots, the things which were happening in the world below seemed almost unreal. One scarcely believed in the existence of Miss Minchin and Miss Amelia and the school-room, and the roll of wheels in the square seemed a sound belonging to another existence.
"Oh, Sara!" cried Lottie, cuddling in her guarding arm. "I like this attic—I like it! It is nicer than down-stairs!"
"Look at that sparrow," whispered Sara. "I wish I had some crumbs to throw to him." ”

“ Where had his father stood when the King was crowned? Surely, he had stood at the King's right hand, and the people had adored and acclaimed them equally!
"King Ivor!" he murmured as if he were in a dream. "King Ivor!"
The Rat started up on his elbow.
"You will see him," he cried out. "He's not a dream any longer. The Game is not a game now—and it is ended—it is won! It was real—HE was real! Marco, I don't believe you hear."
"Yes, I do," answered Marco, "but it is almost more a dream than when it was one."
"The greatest patriot in the world is like a king himself!" raved The Rat. ”

“ After one lovely day we had spent on the moor in a quiet dream of joy almost strange in its perfectness, we came back to the castle; and, because the sunset was of such unearthly radiance and changing wonder we sat on the terrace until the last soft touch of gold had died out and left the pure, still, clear, long summer twilight.
When Mrs. MacNairn and I went in to dress for dinner, Hector lingered a little behind us because the silent beauty held him.
I came down before his mother did, and I went out upon the terrace again because I saw he was still sitting there. ”

“ Derrick obeyed his gentle touch with a faint smile.
"I am too fiery and tempestuous, and you want to cool me," he said. "You are as gentle as a woman, Grace."
The curate standing up before him, a slight, not at all heroic figure in his well worn, almost threadbare garments, smiled in return.
"I want to answer your question," he said, "and my answer is this: When a man loves a woman wholly, truly, purely, and to her highest honor,—such a love is the highest and noblest thing in this world, and nothing should lead to its sacrifice,—no ambition, no hope, no friendship." ”

“ She stopped, because Lisbeth frightened her again. She became so pale, that it was impossible to say anything more. Her great, dark eyes dilated, as if with a kind of horror, at something.
“You—you think I have a secret,” she interrupted her, with a hollow-sounding laugh. “And you are determined to make a heroine out of me, instead of allowing me to enjoy my ‘nerves’ in peace. You don’t comprehend ‘nerves,’ that is clear. You are running at a red rag, Georgie, my dear. It is astonishing how prone you good, tender-hearted people are to run at red rags, and toss, and worry them.” ”

“ Arbuthnot, what would you do?'"
"It is very cruel," said Agnes. "It is very hard."
"It is as cruel as Death!" said Arbuthnot. "It is as hard as Life! That such a thing is possible—that the bread and home and hopes of any honest, human creature should be used as the small change of power above him, and trafficked with to sustain that power and fix it in its place to make the most of itself and its greed, is the burning shame and burden which is slung around our necks, and will keep us from standing with heads erect until we are lightened of it." ”

“ Nay, a whole life of future bliss could never quite efface the memory of such a passion of remorse and pain.
“Oh, my God!” he prayed, “have mercy upon me!” And then he turned upon Mollie. “Tell me where to go to; tell me, and let me go. I must go to her now without a moment's waiting. My poor, faithful little girl,—my pretty Dolly! Dying,—dying! No, I don't believe it,—I won't. She cannot die yet. Fate has been cruel enough to us, but it cannot be so cruel as that. Love will make her live.” ”

“ To sit by a window and watch the kaleidoscopic human tide passing by on its way to its pleasure, to reach its work, to spend its money in unending shops, to show itself and its equipage in the park, was a wonderful thing to Lady Anstruthers. It all seemed to be a part of the life and quality of Betty, little Betty, whom she had remembered only as a child, and who had come to her a tall, strong young beauty, who had—it was resplendently clear—never known a fear in her life, and whose mere personality had the effect of making fears seem unreal. ”

“ Big Tom, sitting between them, saw it all. A man cannot live a score of years and more, utterly cut off from the life of the world, without having many a long hour for thought in which he will inevitably find himself turning over the problems which fill the life he has missed. Tom De Willoughby had had many of them. He had had no one to talk to whose mind could have worked with his own. On winter nights, when Sheba had been asleep, he had found himself gazing into the red embers of his wood fire and pondering on the existence he might have led if fate had been good to him. ”

“ A long, old wooden box was covered with a rug, and some cushions lay on it, so that it wore quite the air of a sofa.
Sara simply sat down, and looked, and looked again.
"It is exactly like something fairy come true," she said; "there isn't the least difference. I feel as if I might wish for anything—diamonds and bags of gold—and they would appear! That couldn't be any stranger than this. Is this my garret? Am I the same cold, ragged, damp Sara? And to think how I used to pretend, and pretend, and wish there were fairies! The one thing I always wanted was to see a fairy story come true. ”

“ Pamela had a love-story, and in Theo's eyes this one touch of forlorn romance was the silver lining to many clouds. Ten years ago, when Pamela had been a pretty girl, she had had a lover—poor Arthur Brunwalde—Theo always mentally designated him; and only a week before her wedding-day, death had ended her love-story forever. Poor Pamela! was Theo's thought: to have loved like Jane Eyre, and Agnes Wickfield, and Lord Bacon, and to have been so near release from the bread-and-butter cutting, and squabbling, and then to have lost all. Poor Pamela, indeed! ”

“ Skylarks would spring out of the fields and soar into the sky, dropping crystal chains of joyous trills. The cottage gardens would be full of flowers, there would be poppies gleaming scarlet in the corn, and in buttercup-time all the green grass would be a sheet of shining gold.
“When it all happens I shall be like a little East-Sider taken for a day in the country. I shall be asking questions at every step,” Tembarom said. “Temple Barholm must be pretty fine then.”
“It is so lovely,” said Miss Alicia, turning to him almost solemnly, “that sometimes it makes one really lose one's breath.” ”

“ You are a woman, and you are made to be loved; but there is something hard in your heart. You are proud of having mocked a man who was honest and loved you. But hear me: it is better, after all, to be less pretty and more a woman.”
He stopped an instant. She had changed her position, and stood by the jasmine, stripping the blossoms from it one by one. She began to smile and sing softly, as if to herself:
“Oh, bird at my window, Sing but one song to me, My lover who is light and gay.”
“And more a woman,” said Sebastiano. “It is women men want.” ”

“ I am going away from England with Ralph Gwynne. I am going away with him that I may be lost to my husband forever. You think I am a wicked woman, Lisbeth, and so I am, but God has laid his hand upon me and I am under a curse."
She gazed at me as if she believed I had gone mad indeed.
"You are going away?" she cried out—"You! Gervase! Gervase!"
Nothing more; but the fullness of divine pity and passionate appeal in her voice, in her face, even in her clasped hands, overpowered me. I sank into a chair, holding to its arms to steady myself. ”

“ Only when she thought of Mademoiselle Vallé and Dowie looking for her—with all London spread out before their helplessness—did she cry. After that, tears seemed impossible. The images trooped by too close to her. The passion hidden within her being—which had broken out when she tore the earth under the shrubbery, and which, with torture staring her in the face, had leaped in the child’s soul and body and made her defy Andrews with shrieks—leaped up within her now. She became a young Fury, to whom a mad fight with monstrous death was nothing. ”

“ Among the women, with whom she was not exactly a favorite, it was still conceded that she was not a young woman whom it was easy to ignore. Her beauty—of which it was impossible to say that she was conscious—was of a type not to be rivaled. When she entered a room, glancing neither to right nor left, those who had seen her before unavoidably looked again, and those who had not were silent as she passed. There was a delicate suggestion of indifference in her manner, which might be real or might not. Her demeanor toward Haworth never altered, even to the extent of the finest shadow of change. ”

“ His Grace and her ladyship were speaking softly together of the flowers, the sunshine, of the town and Court, and of beauteous Camylott. Once my lord Duke's laugh rang out, rich and gay like a boy's, and there was such youth and fire and happiness in his handsome face as made Mistress Anne remember that, as it was with my lady, so it was with him—that because he was so tall and great and stately, the world forgot that he was young.
"But," said the loving woman to herself with a sudden fear, "if he should come back. Nothing so cruel could happen—'tis past and dead and forgiven. ”

“ Martha told me about it first and then Dickon. When Dickon talks about it you feel as if you saw things and heard them and as if you were standing in the heather with the sun shining and the gorse smelling like honey—and all full of bees and butterflies."
"You never see anything if you are ill," said Colin restlessly. He looked like a person listening to a new sound in the distance and wondering what it was.
"You can't if you stay in a room," said Mary.
"I couldn't go on the moor," he said in a resentful tone.
Mary was silent for a minute and then she said something bold. ”

“ Clorinda!” Anne cried, running to her and kneeling at her side. “Clorinda! God have mercy! What is’t?”
Never before had her face worn such a look—’twas colourless, and so drawn and fallen in that ’twas indeed almost as if all her great beauty was gone; but the thing most awful to poor Anne was that all the new softness seemed as if it had been stamped out, and the fierce hardness had come back and was engraven in its place, mingled with a horrible despair.
“An hour ago,” she said, “I swooned. That is why I look thus. ’Tis yet another sign that I am a woman—a woman!” ”

“ Ah, Hector!” a sudden pity kindling in her gentle breast, as she met his eyes, “Ah, Hector, people often envy you, and call you fortunate, but there are times when I am sorry for you—sorry from my heart.”
“Georgie,” answered the young man, not quite able to control a tremor in his voice, “there are more times than you dream of, when I am sorry for myself.”
“Sorry for yourself?” said Georgie, softening at once. “Then you must be more unhappy than I thought. To be sorry for one’s self, one must be unhappy indeed. But why is it? Why should you be unhappy, after all? ”

“ Theo glanced up at Priscilla Gower, mute with misery for a moment. The erect, black-robed figure stood between herself and the fire, motionless, but the fixed face was so white that it forced a low cry from her. She could not bear it a second longer. She slipped upon her knees on the hearth rug, and caught the hem of the black dress in her hands, in a tumult of despair and remorse.
"He does not know what he is saying," she cried, breathlessly. "Oh, forgive him, forgive him! I will go away now, if you think I ought. He knows that you are better than I am. ”

“ The end might be anything—calamity, failure, death!—but to-night he had taken his first step toward that end.
"To-night I shall begin as he began," he thought; "to-night."
He threw himself full length upon the grass, clasping his hands beneath his head, his face turned upward to the vast clearness and depth above him. He had known it would come some day, but he never thought of its coming in this way. The man who slept under the earth at his side had begun with hope; he began as one who neither hoped nor feared, yielding only to a force stronger than himself. ”

“ Poor Mollie! It would be a humiliating view to take of a first conquest, but it would be the best thing for her in the end. Dolly sighed over the mere prospect of the task before her. She remembered what her first conquest had been, and how implicitly she had believed in her new power, and how trustingly she had swallowed every sugared nothing, and how she had revelled in the field of possible romance which had seemed spread before her, until she had awakened one fine day to find the first flush of her triumph fading, and her adorer losing his attractions and becoming rather tame. ”

“ He had seen men like himself die, leaving behind them the force they had controlled, and he had seen this force—controlled no longer—let loose upon the world, sometimes a power of evil, sometimes scattering itself aimlessly into nothingness and folly, which wrought harm. He was not an ambitious man, but—perhaps because he was not only a man of thought, but a Vanderpoel of the blood of the first Reuben—these were things he did not contemplate without restlessness. When Rosy had gone away and seemed lost to them, he had been glad when he had seen Betty growing, day by day, into a strong thing. ”

“ And in this strange way out of the history of Samavia, five hundred years before Marco's day, the young prince had walked—singing softly to himself the old song of Samavia's beauty and happiness. For he was never seen again.
In every nook and cranny, high and low, they sought for him, believing that the king himself had made him prisoner in some secret place, or had privately had him killed. The fury of the people grew to frenzy. There were new risings, and every few days the palace was attacked and searched again. But no trace of the prince was found. ”

“ I stopped among the heather and threw my arms out wide. I drew in a great, joyous morning breath.
"Free—like that! It is the freeness, the light, splendid freeness, I think of most."
"The freeness!" he repeated. "Yes, the freeness!"
"As for beauty," I almost whispered, in a sort of reverence for visions I remembered, "I have stood on this moor a thousand times and seen loveliness which made me tremble. One's soul could want no more in any life. But 'Out on the Hillside' I knew I was part of it, and it was ecstasy. That was the freeness." ”

“ Life is so full of joys for those who love and, being mated, are given by their good fortunes the power to live as their hearts lead them. These two were given all things, it seemed to the world which looked on. From one of their estates to the other they went with the changing seasons, and with them carried happiness and peace. Her Grace, of whom the villagers had heard such tales as made them feel that they should tremble before the proud glance of her dark eyes, found that their last Duchess, whose eyes had been like violets, could smile no more sweetly. ”

“ She was thinking of Clorinda, and wondering sadly that she was of so high a pride that she could bear herself as though there were no human weakness in her breast, not even the womanly weakness of a heart. How could it be possible that she could treat with disdain this gallant gentleman, if he loved her, as he surely must? Herself she had been sure that she had seen an ardent flame in his blue eyes, even that first day when he had bowed to her with that air of grace as he spoke of the fragrance of the rose leaves he had thought wafted from her robe. How could a woman whom he loved resist him? ”

“ So long as Colin shut himself up in his room and thought only of his fears and weakness and his detestation of people who looked at him and reflected hourly on humps and early death, he was a hysterical half-crazy little hypochondriac who knew nothing of the sunshine and the spring and also did not know that he could get well and could stand upon his feet if he tried to do it. When new beautiful thoughts began to push out the old hideous ones, life began to come back to him, his blood ran healthily through his veins and strength poured into him like a flood. ”

“ He was not in the mood to be either just or generous, and he saw in Ralph Gowan nothing but a man who had both the power and will to rival him, and rob him of peace and hope forever. If Dolly had been with him, in all probability his wretchedness would have evaporated in a harmless outburst, which would have touched the girl's heart so tenderly that she would have withheld nothing of love and consolation which could reassure him, and so in the end the tempest would have left no wound behind. But as it was left to himself and his imaginings, every thought held its bitter sting. ”

“ That night Robin lay in the dark thinking of the dream. Had there been a dream—or had it only been like the other things one dreamed about? Sometimes an eerie fearfulness beset her vaguely. If there were letters each day! But letters belonged to a time when rivers of blood did not run through the world. She sat up in bed and clasped her hands round her knees gazing into the blackness which seemed to enclose and shut her in. It had been true! She could see the wood and the foxglove spires piercing the ferns. She could hear the ferns rustle and the little bird sounds and stirrings. ”

“ And he waved his hand over the park with its sward and coppice and bracken and the deer cropping in the late afternoon gold.
“To begin what again?” said Betty. It was an extraordinary enough thing, seen in the light of conventions, that they should stand and talk like this. But the spark had kindled between eye and eye, and because of it they suddenly had forgotten that they were strangers.
“You are an American, so it may not seem as mad to you as it would to others. To begin to build up again, in one man's life, what has taken centuries to grow—and fall into this.” ”

“ If the Castle was like the palace in a fairy story, it must be owned that little Lord Fauntleroy was himself rather like a small copy of the fairy prince, though he was not at all aware of the fact, and perhaps was rather a sturdy young model of a fairy. But there was a sudden glow of triumph and exultation in the fiery old Earl's heart as he saw what a strong, beautiful boy this grandson was, and how unhesitatingly he looked up as he stood with his hand on the big dog's neck. It pleased the grim old nobleman that the child should show no shyness or fear, either of the dog or of himself. ”

“ Osmonde’s deep eye met hers gently and held it. “My Lord Dunstanwolde is always gracious and warm of heart to his kinsman,” he replied. “Do not let him think me discourteous or ungrateful. In truth, your ladyship, I am neither the one nor the other.”
The eyes of each gazed into the other’s steadfastly and gravely. The Duke of Osmonde thought of Juno’s as he looked at hers; they were of such velvet, and held such fathomless deeps.
“Your Grace is not so free as lesser men,” Clorinda said. “You cannot come and go as you would.” ”

“ He was a young man and a handsome one, but had the look of an ill liver, and as he stood in a careless, insolent attitude he gazed steadfastly and with burning eyes at my Lady Dunstanwolde.
"There is somewhat devilish in his air," his Grace thought. "It is some dissolute dandy in love with her and raging against her in his soul. Heaven's grace! how she sits and gazes past his impudent face with her great eyes as if he were not a living thing! She will not see him, and he cannot force her to it, she so holds herself in hand." ”

“ She kept close to the houses, so that she might be in their shadow, and a little sob broke from her as she hurried along,—a sob of joy and fear and excitement. At the end of the row of houses somebody was standing under the street lamp,—a man. Was it Grif,—or could Grif have gone even in this short time? Fate could never have been so cruel to him, to her, to them all, as to let him come so near and then go away without hearing that Dolly was lying at death's portals, and no one could save her but himself and the tender power of the sweet, old, much-tried love. ”

“ Lady Anstruthers rose with as involuntary a movement as if a strong hand had drawn her to her feet. She stood facing Betty, a pathetic little figure in her washed-out muslin frock and with her washed-out face and eyes and being, though on her faded cheeks a flush was rising.
“Oh, Betty!” she said, “I don't know what there is about you, but there is something which makes one feel as if you believed everything and could do everything, and as if one believes YOU. Whatever you were to say, you would make it seem TRUE. If you said the wildest thing in the world I should BELIEVE you.” ”

“ He was overwhelmed by exquisite compassions in his thoughts of Robin, he was afraid for her youngness, her sweetness, the innocent defencelessness which was like a child's. He was afraid of his own young rashness and the entrancement of the dream. The great lunging chariot of War might plunge over them both.
But never for one moment could he force himself to regret or repent. Boys in their twenties already lay in their thousands on the fields over there. And she would far, far rather remember the kind hours and know that they were hidden in his heart for him to remember as he died—if he died! ”

“ He was the offspring of a great love, of noble bodies and great souls. Did such powers alone create human beings, the earth would be peopled with a race of giants.
Amid the veiled spring sunshine and the flower-scented silence, broken only by the twittering of birds nesting in the ivy, her Grace lay soft asleep, her son resting on her arm, when Anne stole to look at her and her child. Through the night she had knelt praying in her chamber, and now she knelt again. She kissed the new-born thing’s curled rose-leaf hand and the lace frill of his mother’s night-rail. ”

“ Beauties who paraded themselves before him to attract his heart and eye—even sweetly tender ones who blushed when he approached them and sighed when he made his obeisance and retired—all were treated with a like courtesy and grace of manner, but he gave none more reason to sigh and blush, to ogle and languish, than another, the honest truth being that he did not fall in love, despite his youth and the warmth of his nature, not having yet beheld the beauty who could blot out all others for him and reign alone. ”

“ It was a strange, sweet crimson which flowed over her face, and seemed to give a wondrous deepness to her lovely orbs. She rose as a queen might have risen had a king come to her, but never had there been such pulsing softness in her look before. ’Twas in some curious fashion like the look of a girl; and, in sooth, she was but a girl in years, but so different to all others of her age, and had lived so singular a life, that no one ever thought of her but as a woman, or would have deemed it aught but folly to credit her with any tender emotion or blushing warmth girlhood might be allowed. ”

“ Before she read a word she kissed it passionately a score of times, paying no heed that Anne sate gazing at her; and having kissed it so, she fell to reading it, her cheeks warm with the glow of a sweet and splendid passion, her bosom rising and falling in a tempest of tender, fluttering breaths—and ’twas these words her eyes devoured:
“If I should head this page I write to you ‘Goddess and Queen, and Empress of my deepest soul,’ what more should I be saying than ‘My Love’ and ‘My Clorinda,’ since these express all the soul of man could crave for or his body desire. ”

“ Anne had forborne going to bed, and waited for her return, longing to see her spirit’s face again before she slept; for this poor tender creature, being denied all woman’s loves and joys by Fate, who had made her as she was, so lived in her sister’s beauty and triumphs that ’twas as if in some far-off way she shared them, and herself experienced through them the joy of being a woman transcendently beautiful and transcendently beloved. To-night she had spent her waiting hours in her closet and upon her knees, praying with all humble adoration of the Being she approached. ”

“ Anne slipped from her bed and ran to her, falling upon her knees and clinging to her, weeping bitterly.
“Poor heart!” she cried. “Poor, dearest heart!”
Her touch and words seemed to recall Clorinda to herself. She started as if wakened from a dream, and drew her form up rigid.
“I have gone mad,” she said. “What is it I do?” She passed her hand across her brow and laughed a little wild laugh. “Yes,” she said; “this it is to be a woman—to turn weak and run to other women—and weep and talk. Yes, by these signs I am a woman!” She stood with her clenched hands pressed against her breast. ”