George A. Lawrence

“ So while Cecil was drawing on Mark Waring to talk about his daily life—sympathizing with him about his hard, distasteful work, and pitying his loneliness, she never guessed how her words were being branded, one by one, on the earnest, steadfast heart, that her own lofty nature was not worthy to understand. In a week after their first meeting she had drawn from him all the love he had to give; and men of Mark Waring’s mould can only find room for one love in a lifetime. ”

“ Guy was a few paces in front, when suddenly there broke from his lips such a sound as I have never heard from those of any mortal before or since.
It is impossible to describe it. It was utterly involuntary, as if some spirit had spoken within the man—a cry of horror and of unspeakable wrath, such as might have burst from the chest of one of the Old-World giants, when the rock fell from heaven that crushed him like a worm. The Italians, used to every tone that can express passion, shrunk and cowered back in terror. ”

“ So far as Alan knew, it was a simple case of business which called him away; more than once afterwards he thought it would have been better if he had died that night, with the music of Helen's whisper in his ears, the print of her ripe scarlet lips on his cheek, the pressure of her lithe twining fingers still lingering round his own.
Many men, before and since, have thought the same. It is, perhaps, the most reasonable of all the repinings that are more futile than the vainest of regrets. ”

“ The nature of many of us is so faulty and ill regulated, that it may be doubted if even advancing years will make us much better or wiser; but, when winter shall have closed in, and our hot blood is more than cool, is there no chance of an “open season?” Must it come to this—that the mere sight of the youth, and strength, and beauty that have left us far behind shall stir our bile, as though it were an insolent parade—that the choicest delicacies at our neighbor’s wedding-breakfast shall not pique our palate like the baked meats at his funeral? ”

“ All your ideas move round like tired mill-horses, in the narrowest circle, with an unhappy Ipse Ego for its centre: all the passing events of the outward world seem unnaturally dwarfed and distant, as if seen through an inverted telescope: the struggles of stranger nations move you no more than the battles on an ant-hill; the only question of civil or religious liberty in which you feel the faintest interest is the unimportant one involving your own personal freedom. ”

“ But the mourner strewed no flowers on the grave. It would have been too bitter a mockery; for, if there were sympathy in sweet roses and pure white lilies, on no other spot of God's earth would they have withered so soon: she hung up no wreath of immortelles; for, if such things could be, the dearest wish one could have formed for the dead man's soul would have been swift, utter annihilation.
Yet Fanny Challoner would scarcely have accepted Mohun's good offices if she had guessed that the blood of her seducer and tyrant was on his hand. ”

“ It is a clear breezy night, out in the midst of the Atlantic, the mighty steam-ship Panama ploughs her way through the long, sullen "rollers," steadily, and calmly, strongly, as if conscious of her trust, and of her ability to discharge it—the safe carriage of three hundred lives. A few wakeful passengers still linger on deck; amongst them is Alan Wyverne; the restless demon, ever at his elbow, has driven him abroad again, to see what sport may be found on the great Western prairies. ”

“ I see rich men casting down their gold, and strong men casting down their lives, as if both were dross, in the cause they have sworn to win; I see Sybarites enduring hardships that un vieux de la vieille would have grumbled at, without a whispered murmur; I hear gentle and tender women echo in simple earnestness the words that once were spoken to me by a fair Southern wife—"I pray that Philip may die in the front, and that they may burn me in the plantation, before the Confederacy makes peace on any terms but our own." ”

“ Nevertheless, there was little peace that night for Royston Keene; he passed it alone—how, no mortal can know; but the next morning his appearance fully bore out the truth of the ancient aphorism, “There is no rest for the wicked.” His face was set in the stoniest calmness, but the features were haggard and drawn, and fresh lines and furrows were there deeper than should have been engraved by half a score of years. A violent, passionate nature does not lightly resign the one object of its aims and desires. ”

“ Guy had risen, and stood still, with his head bent down on his breast. For the first time in his life he was unable to raise his eyes, weighed down by the heavy sense of bitter disgrace and forfeited honor.
But the bright flush on Flora's cheek spoke more of exultation than of shame; the bouquet which she raised to her lips only half concealed a smile of triumph. She wreathed her slender neck haughtily while she met her rival's glance without flinching. She thought that, if she had played for a heavy stake—no less than the jeopardy of her fair fame—this time, at least, the game was her own. ”

“ The noon of night is past, and Helen Vavasour is alone in her chamber, without a thought of sleep. In truth, the damsel is exceeding fair to look upon—though it is a picture over which we dare not linger—as she leans back, half reclining, on the low couch near the hearth; a loose dressing-robe of blue cashmere faced with quilted white satin, draping her figure gracefully, without concealing its grand outlines: her slender feet, in dainty velvet slippers broidered with seed-pearl, crossed with an unstudied coquetry that displays the arched instep ravishingly ”

“ Mark Waring leans over the carriage door to say “Good-by:” the hand he presses lies in his grasp, unresponsive and unsympathetic as a splinter from an iceberg. His sad, earnest look pleads in vain, for there is no softening or kindness in Cecil’s desolate, dreamy eyes. The road on which they are to travel is the same for some leagues as that along which Royston Keene must return, and she is thinking, divided between hope and fear, if there may not be a possibility of their meeting. ”

“ All the weariness of the long night-journey will not prevent a traveler from appreciating the superb Hudson, along whose banks the last part of the road, from Albany, is carried. You are seldom out of sight of the Caatskill range—blue in the distance or dark in the foreground—but the crowning glory of the river are the old cliffs, where the rock soars up sheer from the water's edge, with no more vegetation on its face than will grow in the crevices of ancient walls. ”

“ When I recovered I saw dimly the group of men, awe-stricken and whispering, and Guy still gazing down at the face that rested on his knee, as if it fascinated his eyes. I could not bear to look upon the piteous sight. All through the bright hair the dark blood had soaked, and a slow stream was stealing through it still; the fair features were all defaced and deformed with the wrath and agony of the last mortal struggle. ”

“ Hot blinding tears stream down Dido's stricken face as she steals on board her galley in the harbour of Tyre; for nights she will not close her heavy eyes, lest a dead man should stand by her couch pointing to the gash of Pygmalion's dagger; the boldest of her true friends and leal vassals dares not trouble with a word of comfort that great hopeless sorrow. But see—the headlands of Cyprus are yet blue in the leeward distance, and the rich blood has begun to colour the pale cheek again; when the dark lashes lift, men see that the divine light is not quenched in the glorious eyes ”

“ Before I met you I could have offered to any woman, who thought it worth her acceptance, a healthy, honest love; now—even if I could conquer my present infatuation—I could only offer a feeling something warmer than friendship; to promise more would be base treachery. Do you think I would stand by God’s altar with a worse lie than Ananias’s on my lips? Is it nothing that, to gratify your vanity or your whims, you should have condemned a man, whose blood is not frozen yet, to something worse than widowhood for life? My religion may be a false and vain idolatry ”

“ Then a dull, hot weight closes round your brows, as if a heavy, fever-stricken hand was always clasping them; there it lies—at night, when the drowsiness which is not sleep overcomes you—in the morning, when you wake, with damp linen and dank hair: plunge your forehead in ice-cold water; before the drops have dried there it is burning—burning again. The distaste for all food grows upon you, till it becomes a loathing not to be driven away by bitters or quinine: there is no savor in the smoke of Kinnekinnick, nor any flavor in the still waters of Monongahela. ”

“ Dear Hubert, you are growing romantic yourself again, or you would scarcely call Alan a child. If he is one he is very wise for his years. But on the principle of love levelling everything, I suppose all ages are the same when people forget to be prudent. Of course it was a great surprise to me. I can hardly realize it yet; but—has not Helen told you? I do approve more than I ought to do, and I hope and pray that good may come of it to both of them. I love Alan nearly as well as I do my own Helen, and she and you know how dearly that is. ”

“ Flora said, leaning over toward him, her eyes glittering in the firelight.
The thrill in her voice—strangely contagious it was—told how much she was interested. I do not wonder at it. There was only one man on earth for whom she had ever really cared—he sat beside her then—and, I believe, what attracted her most in him was the daring disregard of opinions, conventionalities, and more sacred things yet, which carried him on straight to the accomplishment of his thought or purpose. In those days, if either were an obstacle, he flinched no more before a great moral law than at a big fence. ”

“ Could any thing be more improbable than that the most triumphant beauty of the season should seriously incline to share the long up-hill struggle of a rising barrister? Those dull Temple-chambers are lucky enough if the sun condescends to visit them at rare intervals in his journey westward. But Waring’s own singleness of purpose beguiled him more effectually than the most inordinate vanity could have done. Putting character out of the question, he thought a woman could only derogate by allying herself to one of inferior birth; and he knew his own blood to be nearly equal to Miss Tresilyan’s. ”

“ We smile at the critical point of a spasmodic tragedy, complacently as the Lucretian philosopher looking down from the cliff on the wild sea; we yawn over the wailings of Werter and Raphael, but we ponder gravely over the last chapters of the Heir of Redclyffe, and feel a curious sensation in the throat—perhaps the slightest dimness of vision—when we read in The Newcomes how that noble old soldier crowned the chivalry of a stainless life, dying in the Gray Brother's gown. ”

“ Maud Brabazon seemed to diffuse round her an atmosphere of temptation. Cold-blooded men, of austere morals and rigid propriety, felt irresistibly impelled to make love to her on the shortest acquaintance, not wildly or passionately, but in an airy, light-minded fashion, which left no remorse, hardly a regret, behind. It was strange that she had never yet got entangled in any of the toils she wove so deftly, for the bitterest of friends or foes had never dared to impute to her any darker crime than consummate coquetry. ”

“ I know a very meritorious parish-priest, of fair repute too as a preacher, who has striven for years, hard but unavailingly, to divest himself of the martial air he brought with him out of the K.D.G. He strides down the village street with a certain swagger and roll, as if the steel scabbard were still trailing at his heel, acknowledging rustic bows with a slight quick motion of the finger, like troopers’ salutes; on the smooth shaven face is shadowed forth the outline of a beard, nurtured and trimmed in old days with more than horticultural science ”

“ We have been comfortable in our country-houses for centuries. Even in those rough-and-ready days—when the hall was strewn with rushes, and the blue wood-smoke hung over the heads of the banqueters like a canopy, and the great tawny hounds couched at their master's feet, gnawing the bones as they fell from the bare oak tables, and the maids of Merry England recruited their roses with steaks and ale in the early morning—I believe the Anglo-Saxon squire had a right to be proud of his social privileges, and to contrast them favourably with the short-comings of his Continental neighbours. ”

“ I see him, too, with his pleasant face, round, rosy, and beardless as a child-cherub of Rubens, tempting pale men with splitting heads to throw boots at him in the bitterness of their envy as he entered their rooms on the morning after a heavy drink, his eyes so clear and guileless that you would never guess how sharp they could be at times when a dangerous horse was coming up on his quarter. ”

“ More plainly than all—he saw a low, green mound, just beyond the chancel walls, where one was sleeping who had lavished on him all the treasures of a rare, unselfish, trusting love; the dear, meek, little wife, who was so proud of her husband’s few poor talents, so indulgent to his many failings, who ever had an excuse ready to answer his self-reproaches, whose weak, thin hand was always strong enough to pluck him back from ruin and dishonor, till it grew stiff and cold. ”

“ I dare not sit at home and think for an hour. I have to feed my miserable vanity, to keep my conscience quiet. I am pure in act and deed, and no one can whisper away my honour; but in thought I am viler than many outcasts—treacherous, and sinning every day, not only against my marriage vow, but against him. I often wish I were dead, but I am not fit to die."
She had fallen forward as she spoke, and lay prone with her head buried in Helen's lap—a wreck of womanhood in her abasement and self-contempt. ”