Harold Bell Wright

“ You, a white woman, shall hear an Indian. I, Natachee, will speak.
“It would be easier to number the drops of water that fell in the storm to-night than to tell the years of these mountains that look down upon the Cañada del Oro and the desert beyond. They have seen the ages pass as the cloud shadows that race across their foothills when the spring winds blow. Before the beginnings of what you white people call history they had watched many races of men rise to the fullness of their strength and pride, and fall as the flowers of the thistle poppies fall in the desert dust. ”

“ Amy, dearest, tell me that you love me and will be my wife. Give me the right to protect you. Let us go to your father together and tell him all. He dare not refuse us then."
The beautiful girl trembled with emotion. "You must not. Oh, you must not," she said. "Don't, don't tempt me." She buried her face in her hands again. "You—you cannot take for your wife one who has been what I have."
"Amy dear, listen," said Dick. "You and I are Christians. We each have fallen; but Christ has forgiven and accepted both. God has only one love for each, one Saviour for each, one forgiveness for each. ”

“ He faced toward the river and looked away into the night where The King's Basin lay—a weird dream-country under the light of the moon. And because it was impossible to think of Barbara's Desert without thinking of Barbara he smiled again, musing that there would be little sleep that night for the girl in Rubio City if she knew what he and Abe were considering. From across the river came the shrill, snarling, yelping coyote chorus and the engineer saw again the body of a dead woman at the dry water hole, an empty canteen, and a big-eyed, brown-haired baby stretching out her arms to him. ”

“ Everywhere in the room were things that cried aloud to him of his ministry; his library—books of peculiar interest to ministers, papers and pamphlets filled with matters of the church, written for church men, his sermons—one lying half-finished on the study table, the very pictures on the walls and the unanswered letters on his desk. Standing in the midst of these things, so much a part of his chosen life that they seemed a vital part of himself, he heard, the voices in the garden. He knew that she was there.
Since the beginning men like Dan Matthews have fought for women like Hope Farwell. ”

“ You, in your life place, are no less a creature of circumstances—an accident—than I, here in my wheel chair—than Jake Vodell. We are all—you and I, Jake Vodell, Adam Ward, Peter Martin, Sam Whaley—we are all but parts of the great oneness of life. The want, the misery, the suffering, the unhappiness of humanity is of that unity no less than is the prosperity, peace and happiness of the people. Before we can hope to bring order out of this industrial chaos we must recognize our mutual dependence upon the whole and acknowledge the equality of our guilt in the wretched conditions that now exist. ”

“ Under any circumstances it was no small thing to have defeated the champion strong man and terror of the hills. It was a glorious thing to have done the deed for the girl he loved, and under her eyes. Sammy might give herself to Ollie, now, and go far away to the great world, but she could never forget the man who had saved her from insult, when her lover was far too weak to save even himself. And Young Matt would stay in the hills alone, but always he would have the knowledge and the triumph of this thing that he had done. ”

“ All the other gifts of that Christmas time were as nothing to the little girl beside that gift from the boy. The other things she would enjoy all the more because the supreme wish of her heart had been granted; but, had she been disappointed in that, all else would have had little power to please. Under all her Christmas pleasure there would have been a longing for something more. Her Christmas would not have satisfied. Her cup of happiness would not have been full. So, all the treasures that the world can lay at woman's feet will never satisfy if the one gift be lacking. ”

“ I know! I'm like that with my music! When I look at the mountains sometimes--or at the trees and flowers, or hear the waters sing, or the winds call--I--I get so full and so--so kind of choked up inside that it hurts; and I feel as though I must try to tell it--and then I take my violin and try and try to make the music say what I feel. I never can though--not altogether. But you have made your picture say what you feel. That's what makes it so right, isn't it? They said in Fairlands that you were a great artist, and I understand why, now. ”

“ Only through the possession of gold can you hope to win the woman you love and who loves you.
“You say you would give your soul for the gold which means so much to you. Good! I believe you. I am glad. Here is the gold—look at it—handle it—dream of all that it would bring you. Here is freedom from your hell—here is love—here is happiness—here is the woman you love. It is all here, within reach of your hand, and you shall never touch one grain of it. If you had a hundred souls to offer in exchange, you should not touch one grain of it. Because you are a white man, and because I am an Indian. ”

“ The boat seemed undecided. Would it hold to the harbor of safety into which it had been drawn by the friendly current? Would it swing out, again, into the main stream, and so to its own destruction?
Three times the bow, pointing out from the eddy, crossed the danger-line, and, for a moment, hung on the very edge. Three times, the invisible hands which held it drew it gently back to safety. And so, finally, the little craft, so helpless, so alone, amid the many currents of the great river, came to rest against the narrow shelf of land at the foot of the bank below Auntie Sue's garden. ”

“ Sammy had seen few people who did not belong to the backwoods. The strangers she had met were hunters or cattlemen, and these had all been, in dress and manner, not unlike the natives themselves. This man, who had come so unexpectedly out of the mists the night before, was unlike anyone the young woman had ever known. Like Jed Holland, she felt somehow as if he were a superior being. The Matthews family were different in many ways from those born and raised in the hills. And Sammy's father, too, was different. But this stranger—it was quite as though he belonged to another world. ”

“ She had known them only in the hours of their dreaming—when, as they looked out upon life, they talked confidently of the future: she was learning now to know them when they were working out their dreams; at times with hopes high and courage strong; at other times discouraged, frightened, and dismayed. She had known them only as they dreamed of the past—when they talked in low tones of the days that were gone: now she saw them as they thought only of the present and the days that were to come. So this woman, from the world into which she had gone, gained knowledge of mankind. ”

“ Involuntarily, the painter went to stand by his side before the picture.
"Look at it!" cried the novelist. "Look at it in the light of your own genius! Don't you see its power? Doesn't it tell you what you could do, if you would? If you couldn't paint a picture, or if you couldn't feel a picture to be painted, it wouldn't matter. I'd let you ride to hell on your own palette, and be damned to you. But this thing shows a power that the world can ill afford to lose. It is so bad because it is so good. Come here!" he drew his friend to the big window, and pointed to the mountains. ”

“ And that was the horror of the situation which had set him adrift on the river that night when, in his last drunken despairing frenzy, he had left the world with a curse in his heart and had faced the black unknown with reckless laughter and a profane toast. It is to be doubted if there can be a hell of greater torment than that experienced by one who, endowed by nature with a capacity for great living, is betrayed by the very strength of his genius into a situation that is intolerable of his real self, and is forced, thus, to a continuous self-crucifixion and death. ”

“ We do not want your music, your art, your libraries and schools. An Indian does not want any of the things that this yellow stuff means to the white man.
“Could I, with this gold, restore to my people the homeland of their fathers? Could I destroy your cities, your government, your laws and all the institutions of your civilization that you have built up in this, the land that you have taken by force and treachery from my people? Could I, Natachee, with this gold bring back the forests you have cut down, the streams you have dried up or poisoned, the lands you have made desolate? ”

“ Who but He that looketh upon the heart of man could know the battle that was fought in the soul of that giant of the hills? He uttered no sound. He sat in his seat as if made of stone; save once, when he walked to the end of the porch to stand with clenched hands and passion shaken frame, facing the dark clump of pines on the hill.
Slowly the moon climbed over the ridge and lighted the scene. The mountaineer returned to his chair. All at once he raised his head, and, leaning forward, looked long and earnestly at the old shepherd, where he sat crouching like a convict awaiting sentence. ”

“ The real anarchists, old world, are not those who loudly vociferate to the rabble on the street corners but those who, operating under the laws of your approval, betray their country in its greatest need—its need of children. The real anarchists, old world, are those whose banners are made red by the blood of babies; who fatten upon the labor of their child slaves; and who seek to rule by the slaughter of children even as that savage of old whose name in history is hated by every lover of the race. Regicides at heart, they are, for they kill, for a price, the God ordained rulers of mankind. ”

“ Forgetting self, as he was unconscious of his technic, he worked as the birds sing, as the bees toil, as the deer runs. Under his hand, his picture grew and blossomed as the roses, themselves, among which the beautiful girl stood.
Day after day, at that same hour, Sibyl Andrés came singing through the orange grove, to stand in the golden sunlight among the roses, with hands outstretched in greeting. Every day, Aaron King waited her coming--sitting before his easel, palette and brush in hand. Each day, he worked as he had worked that first day--with no thought for anything save for his picture. ”

“ As one listens to the song of a bird without thought of musical notes or terms; as one senses the fragrance of a flower without thought of the chemistry of perfume; as one feels the presence of spring in the air without thought of the day of the week, so they were conscious of the beauty, the glory, and the peace of the evening.
Only when the soft darkness of the night lay over the land, and river and mountain and starry sky were veiled in dreamy mystery, did Auntie Sue speak: “Oh, it is so good to have some one to share it with,—some one who understands. I am very lonely, sometimes, Brian. ”

“ As men through the ages had braved the dangers and endured the hardships of desert and mountains to gain the yellow wealth from the Cañada del Oro, so men braved dangers and endured hardships everywhere. Every dream of man was a dream of gold. Every effort was an effort for gold. Every hope was a hope for gold. For gold was life and honor and power and love and happiness. And gold was death and dishonor and murder and hatred and misery.
It was gold that had led Marta’s father to purchase the rich mining property from the ignorant owners, for a price that was little more than nothing. ”

“ Operations at the woodpile suddenly ceased and Young Matt was first at the barn-yard gate.
Miss Sammy Lane was one of those rare young women whose appearance is not to be described. One can, of course, put it down that she was tall; beautifully tall, with the trimness of a young pine, deep bosomed, with limbs full-rounded, fairly tingling with the life and strength of perfect womanhood; and it may be said that her face was a face to go with one through the years, and to live still in one's dreams when the sap of life is gone, and, withered and old, one sits shaking before the fire ”

“ The boy of her Yesterdays lived only in those days that were gone. He had no place in the dreams of her womanhood. He was only the playmate of the little girl. Even as those years were gone the boy had gone out of her life. But somewhere, perhaps, that one who was to go with her through the old, old, open door was even then building for her a home—their home. Perhaps, some day, an all wise Mother Nature would tell her to leave the world that gave her no welcome—that could not recognize her womanhood—that made her heart rebel in humiliation and shame—and go to do her woman's work. ”