Leonard Merrick

“ Only, once in a blue moon, Jules, there is a woman born of the People with a gift that is a blessing, and a curse—and her genius makes an epoch, and her name makes theatrical history. And if a lover of the stage like me discovers such a woman, you stodgy old soldier, and blazes her genius in his work, he feels like Cheops, Chephrenus, and Asychis rearing the Pyramids for immortality! ”

“ Now and again, when some man plays ducks and drakes with a fortune for a cocotte there are shrieks enough to wake his ancestors; but marriage ruins a precious sight more men every year than the demi-monde and the turf and the tables put together, and nobody shrieks at all—except the irrepressible children. Did it never occur to you that the price paid for the virtuous woman is the most exorbitant price known in an expensive world?"
"No," said Kent shortly, "it never did."
"And they call you 'an acute observer'! Marriage is Man's greatest extravagance." ”

“ The deception had gone further still, and there began for the blind man a period in which he tasted all the triumphant rapture of possessing a beautiful and celebrated woman whom he adored. When he embraced Polly, his delusion gave him Rosa Duchêne in his arms; when Polly clung about him it was Duchêne's touch that thrilled his blood and Duchêne's lips that burned. He lavished on Polly the madness of the passion that Duchêne had inspired; he saw with his brain the form of the famous woman that intoxicated him, while Polly the insignificant was lying on his heart. ”

“ The baby's paroxysm ceased almost at once; her gaze grew wide. Striking her ear when it did, the ballad that she had created in her preceding incarnation revivified her consciousness of the former life. The veil was rent; the female infant was at heart a husband—and looking in the faces of Violet and her new lover. Van Norden remembered all.
She could say nothing—speech was not yet granted to her—could not proclaim, "I am Otto," though she beheld her widow wooed by another man. Life holds no moment more terrible than an experience like this. ”

“ A fool to yourself, you think. I have changed, and you should have known I must have changed; it would have spared you the bother of seeking me, the disillusion when we met—there are no wrinkles creeping on the statue! Oh, it has been a fraud for you; I realize the sell! But you are not the only sufferer by your folly. A man can not talk to a woman as you have talked to me, and leave her cold; he can not say, 'I felt all this for you before I saw you—now, good-by!' and leave her proud; he can't adore her in the marble and disdain her in the flesh without her being ashamed. ”

“ In the daytime, Frisonnette ate delicate food, and sauntered through stately show-rooms, robed like a queen—and in the evening she turned slowly to her little old frock, and supped on scraps in the garret. And now her laughter sounded seldom there. Gradually the contentment that had found a heaven under the tiles changed to a petulance that found beneath them nothing to commend. Her gaze was sombre, and often she sighed. And the misgiving that Floromond had tried to stifle knocked louder at his heart. ”

“ I can write what I feel much better than I can say it. I began to write a play once, and the girl said just what I felt. It was a bad play, but a big relief. I've sometimes thought that if I walked about with a pen in my hand, I should be a good conversationalist."
"Try to tell me what you feel without one," said Heriot.
"You encourage me to bore you. Mr. Heriot, I yearn, I crave, to do something clever. It isn't only vanity: half the craving is born of the desire to live among clever people. Ever since I can remember I've ached to know artists, and actors, and people who write, and do things. ”

“ Corri?"
"Mr. Corri's not in," he replied, fingering the pen; "he'll be back by-and-by."
Mary lingered irresolutely. Her temples throbbed, and in her weakness the sight of a chair magnetised her.
"Shall I wait?" she murmured; "perhaps he won't be very long?"
"Eh?" said Kincaid. "Oh, wait if you like, madam."
She sank into a seat mutely. The response had not sounded encouraging, but it permitted her to rest, and rest was what she yearned for now. How indifferent the world was! how mercilessly little anybody cared for anybody else! ”

“ When I am old and grey, it will be living to me still—his voice, his touch, and the joy that was singing in my heart.
And by-and-by we all went out. "I have pennies to spend," pleaded my lover, "let's be lavish!" Could I be wise on such a night? Away we sped from Montparnasse into the Paris where the cabs darted and the cafés glittered; and we had syrups and fizzy waters under the trees in the starlight, and made believe that we were rich. I thought Miss Niblett must have been in love herself once upon a time—she was so tactful. ”

“ No woman was ever vainer of her form than was Hercule of his. No woman ever contemplated her charms more tenderly than Hercule regarded his muscles. The latter half of his "turn" was fatiguing, but to posture in the limelight, while the audience stared open-mouthed and admired his nakedness, that was fine, it was dominion, it was bliss.
Hercule had never experienced a great passion—the passion of vanity excepted—never waited in the rain at a street corner for a coquette who did not come, nor sighed, like the juggler, under the window of a girl who flouted his declarations. ”

“ How little the audience at Le Jardin Extérieur suspected the passion that devoured their grotesque comedian while he cut his capers, and turned love to ridicule! How little they divined the pathos of a situation which condemned him behind the scenes to whisper the most sentimental assurances of devotion when disfigured by a flaming wig and a nose that was daubed vermilion! Truly is it said. "Not half the world knows how the other half lives!" ”

“ De Fronsac breathed again. The fellow was, after all, out of his mind! He wondered what was Péricat's specialty.
"Hallucinations," said Péricat, as if divining his interest, "hallucinations are my affair! And they are unique--so natural, so heartrending. When I am otherwise than sane this is one of my lucid intervals--I shriek at the sight of any person wearing white. Whether it be a nun in her cap, a servant in her apron, or a workman in his blouse, I imagine that it is the spirit of my wife who died. It is very pathetic; everybody pities me much." ”

“ The quiet parlour, with his pipe, and a novel, had been pleasant. He had gone up to his room at night without a groan, and seated himself at his desk in the morning with an unfamiliar zest. Only a month! Well, let him make the most of it!
But that was easier to say than to do. Death no longer figured in his thoughts as a perpetual holiday; now that he was a widower, it figured as a skeleton, and thrust itself into the cosiest hours. Perhaps Chick was on his knee and he was stroking her hair—and the skeleton clanked. ”

“ It was in May that they parted; they parted on the day of her owning that she cared for him. The virtue was hers, not his; yet because he loved her, and realised that she was too good a woman to defy her conscience and be happy, he acquiesced in her decision—refrained from pleading to her, refrained from trying to see her again.
His only indulgence was to send violets to her home in Paris for the ninth of December; the ninth of December was her birthday, and violets, she had once told him, were her favourite flower. ”

“ For the selfish is the peace. The suffering was for the woman who had felt—for me, to whom the reconciliation had proved more painful than the estrangement—for me, whom reality had robbed of a dream I Always I had seen him as he had been—now I could see only the man he had become. Our meeting had killed Remembrance; I could spend hours in the past no longer. I tried, I tried for months, but the spell was gone. The husband of my youth would come to my mind no more—I met only a middle-aged poseur, from whom I turned and fled. ”

“ You don't mean to say that, if you cared for somebody else who wanted you, you'd marry your fiancé still?"
"If the somebody else were a millionaire," she said, "he would never hear that I cared for him. Yes, for love it is just possible that I might break off my engagement; but I should want my love to be understood. A millionaire would always doubt it in his heart of hearts—he would always think I had been disloyal for the sake of his wealth."
"If I were a millionaire," said Mayne, "I should be only too ready to believe anything of the kind you told me!" ”

“ Aided by a lady whose birth gave her the passport to society, and whose income made her amenable to a financial offer, madame de Val Fleury, or, as she now called herself, Victorine de Beaulieu, was the sensation of Paris that autumn. The consummate toilettes permitted by her wealth lent to her face a beauty even more transcendent than Berthe Cheron's had been. When she drove, people pressed forward on the sidewalks to regard her. When she entered her box at the Opéra, everybody in the house to whom the box was visible looked at her as much as at the stage. ”

“ Merrick implies the quite wholesome truth that he always was. Through books and bookish dreams—beautiful, wise dreams—lies the passage to life of many boys and girls. But the healthiest instincts in them are seeking still a real world in which it will be both sane and fine to live. Their dreams are mostly a hard test of it when it is found; and, oh, the pity if the finding it quite breaks their dream!
In sum, then, it was Mamie's tragedy to seek her realities during a phase of art and letters which, in their utter unreality, seemed to deny the very existence of any real world at all. ”

“ To confess the truth, I am more drawn to the garden than to Mr. Boultbee. Years ago I spent a summer here, and being in the neighbourhood again I couldn't resist the temptation to come and dream over the top rail of your gate."
"Oh—er—would you care to look round the place?" she murmured with a tentative wave of the scissors.
"I should be charmed," said Conrad, "if I am not intruding."
"Of course you don't see it to advantage now. Last month—" She moved across the lawn beside him, telling the falsehoods with which everybody who has a garden always dejects a visitor. ”

“ He would have taken her to his heart with as profound a reverence as if no shame had ever touched her. If all the world had been cognizant of her disgrace, he would have triumphed to cry "My wife!" in the ears; of all the world. A baser love might well have; thirsted for her too, but it would have had its hours of hesitation. Kincaid's had none. No flood of passion blinded his higher judgment and urged him on; no qualms of convention intervened and gave him pause. ”

“ It was as if they had been married that morning.
"And yet," continued the young man, releasing her at last, "to own the truth, your kisses are not satisfying as a menu; they are the choicest of hors d'oeuvres—they leave one hungry for more."
They were still making love when Sanquereau burst in to wish them a
Happy New Year.
"How goes it, my children?" he cried. "You look like a honeymoon, I swear! Am I in the way, or may I breakfast with you?"
"You are not in the way, mon vieux," returned Julien; "but I shall not invite you to breakfast with me, because my repast consists of Juliette's lips." ”

“ Supposing that once upon a time there was an actress who came to South Africa and met a man she was fool enough to like very much—to love very much—to love as I love you! Suppose they had meant to go to London together, and then,—one morning, learnt that the boy was too ill—that the woman must give up everything to stay with him, or go away alone and give up him? If through that first dreadful day she wasn't able to decide—if just at first she did hesitate; if she tried to stamp her love out, only to find that it was worth more to her than the stage, than her Paris, than her life ”

“ Roses bloom before my feet, and the little larks are singing in the sky. I dance, I skip! How beautiful, how sublime is friendship—better than riches, than youth, than the love of woman; riches melt, youth flies, woman snores. ”