Mary Imlay Taylor

“ Until now she had thought only of herself, of her own misery, but the touch, the voice of the little girl had reached her very soul; after lying dormant and unknown all those years it was awakening, awakening to a reality so dreadful that it was appalled, without hope, desolate. And shame, the shame of a woman’s heart swept over her and shook her being to its depths. The humiliation which comes upon a woman when she knows, by some overwhelming perception, that her love is not fully returned; she felt as if she had stripped her soul naked and left it lying in the dust at Fox’s feet. ”

“ Cyr laughed a little at the picture the girl drew of Père Ambroise, but the laugh died in a sigh. She had all the misgivings, the faint-heartedness of age, while Rosaline was as full of life and spirits as a child, and as thoughtless of the dreadful fate that might any day overtake her. She laughed now and told Truffe to beg for a tart, and then scolded the poodle for eating sweets, all the while making a picture of youthful loveliness that made the old room bright with hope and joy. The finger of fate had not yet been laid on Rosaline’s heart; she knew neither love nor fear. ”

“ LADY BETTY shaded her eyes with her hand and looked out on the rose garden of Althorpe.
At her feet the lawn was close clipped and green; beyond was a garland of many colors, roses by hundreds and tens of hundreds, the warmth and glow of the sun upon them; behind them, the long avenue of limes and beeches, and between the trees vistas of level land with the deer moving to and fro.
The butterflies—a little host of them—whirled under the window, and her ladyship smiled.
“Come, Alice,” she said, “’tis too fair a day to linger indoors. ”

“ The storm in the street below rose and fell, like a hurricane catching its breath. Colonel Royall looked out of the window; the crowd in the alley had overflowed into the square, and swollen there to overflow again in living rivulets into every side street. He looked down on a living seething mass of human beings. The sunlight was vivid white; the heat seemed to palpitate in the square; low guttural cries came up. The names of Yarnall and Eaton caught his ear. He remembered suddenly the significance of Judge Hollis’ glance at him, and he did not need to remember the blood feud. ”

“ Beauty is like the flame of a candle, in some eyes; it not only draws the moths but it is easily extinguished.
"It will be horrible," Eva sighed. "It will kill me—after I'm dead—will you forgive me, Rachel?"
"You've done a very terrible thing; you've sacrificed your sister's good name to save yourself from the consequences of your own folly."
"No one knows what I said but Johnstone, no one will ever know but Johnstone. I didn't mean it, I thought you'd help me, that you'd marry Belhaven to save us both. I believed in you, you're so good!"
"Why should I marry Belhaven? I don't even like him." ”

“ She paused, and stood there a picture of triumphant beauty; a woman with the tigress in her nature, passionate, bold, ambitious; a peasant, a slave, an empress to be. I have never forgotten her, her haughty head erect, her eyes sparkling with emotion, her full red lips parted and showing her teeth; young and handsome, and marked out by a strange destiny to be the favorite, the mistress, the secretly wedded wife of Peter the Great, and, at last, Empress of all the Russias. ”

“ THE PRINCESS DARIA AS I approached the palace of the Prince Voronin I entered a street which gave me a view of the open space beyond, where the Iberian Chapel stood, overlooking the Red Place, and farther off were the white buildings of the Kremlin, bathed in sunlight, their roofs of scarlet and green and blue, and their crosses of gold, glowing and flashing like so many stars at noonday. I caught, too, a gleam of the Moskva, and heard again the hum of busy life, for there was a throng of people in the Red Place. ”

“ Day after day, night after night, the horror of that frozen waste had haunted him. The deathlike face of Overton had appeared to him at nightfall and at daybreak. When Faunce, against his own better judgment, had undertaken the new command, he had merely yielded to the mysterious lure that draws a murderer back to the scene of his crime. He had felt as if unseen hands clutched at him and drew him; as if a shadowy presence, standing at his elbow, demanded this sacrifice, this hideous march back on the trail; as if Overton, dead or alive, held his very soul in thrall. ”

“ It was a dull day; the sky was heavy, and the Kremlin wore its most gloomy aspect; even the red pavement of the square was almost obscured by the mass of people, and the voices of the multitude were hushed as the deep notes of the great cathedral bells tolled solemnly, on every hand, the mournful dirge of Russia’s mightiest, laid in the dust to share at last the common fate of his humblest subject,—for how great a leveller is Death! ”

“ IN THE FOREST OF CHANTILLY IT was one o’clock when Péron rode through St. Denis, and a light spring rain was falling; through the mist he saw the blurred lights of the guardhouse and he heard the tolling of the abbey bell. It was dreary enough, and so were his meditations; at the very moment when he seemed to have succeeded, misfortune again assailed him. He had staked his honor and his life upon the mission to Brussels, and he had executed it only to lose all that he had gained by this last trick of fate. ”

“ She was then in her girlhood, growing every day in beauty of a strong and striking type, and carrying her head like a queen rather than a penniless maid living in dependence at her uncle’s house. Her form, though slender, gave the promise of a richer outline, and as she grew happier in her new home, a color came into her cheeks, a sparkle to her eyes that made her lovely in the sight of many who marvelled that so plain a child should grow so beautiful. ”

“ Najine parted from my wife with tears, for, after all, she had been sorely tried, and was young and estranged from her kindred, and about to go to a strange land to begin a new life far from family and friends; yet so great and so trusting is the love of woman that it will endure all things and believe all things for him who has won it. It touched both Zénaïde and me to observe M. de Lambert’s tender appreciation of her fears and her regrets, for he had that fine gentleness that belongs to the greatest courage,—the tenderness that is a part of a noble spirit. ”

“ The wages of sin is death.
She rose, rose with an effort of will for her knees shook under her, and drawing herself together, summoning all her strength and her pride to hide the agony which was devouring her heart, she drew down her veil and slipped out unnoticed, silent, like a shadow. Once at the door, beyond the ring of that terrible young voice, she paused and steadied herself by laying her hand on a pillar of the portico. ”

“ There were times when Diana’s absorption of mood, her frank inattention, affected her worldly mentor as sharply as a slap in the face, yet, the next moment, she fell easily under the spell of her personality. Mrs. Eaton always felt that no one could look at her youthful relative without feeling that her soul must be as beautiful as her body, though she herself had never been able to form any estimate of that soul. Diana hid it with a reserve and a mental strength which folded it away as carefully as the calyx of a cactus guards the delicate bloom with its thorns. ”

“ Then the hope that her cries might bring help began to rise in her heart, and she was on the point of screaming aloud, when a sound struck her ear that froze her blood in her veins. It was a laugh, but it sounded like a fiendish chuckle. It came from her right hand, and she turned her head quickly and looked into the face of Mère Tigrane. An exclamation of horror and fear burst from Rosaline’s heart, and she shrieked for help—help!—and the old fishwife laughed and rocked to and fro. ”

“ A DUEL WITH SWORDS THERE is nothing in the world more beautiful than the dawn—the birth of a new day—the resurrection of the light. Darkness rolling away like a vapour, lying low on the earth, dropping away into its valleys; above, the firmament is radiant, an arch of glory, of tender colour, of soft white clouds, transcendently lovely, and the very air is sweeter, fresher, full of musical sounds—life stirring gently out of silence and sleep.
As the Princess Daria and I rode from the hut by the wayside, such a dawn was breaking ”

“ He had known her nearly all his life and he had loved her long before Rachel had even dimly perceived it. But John was deliberate; not even a great love could reverse the fixed habits of a lifetime, and he waited for the full time to come before he opened his heart, not knowing that opportunity had come like a thief in the night and stolen away again, thwarted and lost forever. He continued to look ahead with steadfast, blue eyes and that habit—as strong as his deliberation—the habit of determination. All that he had ever won in his life he had won by a quiet, determined perseverance. ”

“ Both were young girls, but youth and the rosy comeliness of youth sat more lightly on the handmaid Alice, whose simple face and figure suggested nothing more subtle than the virtue and homely wisdom of a country girl. It was quite different with Lady Betty Clancarty, the daughter of the Earl of Sunderland and the maiden wife of an Irish peer. There was a slight pensiveness to her beauty, for beautiful she was; yet there were times when the gayety of a vivacious spirit broke through all restraints, and she was the light-hearted, witty girl that nature had intended her to be. ”

“ A power greater than life itself had laid hold upon him, an invisible force was crushing him down, and his soul, like the proverbial candle in the wind, only leaped and flickered at the mercy of the gale.
A driving snow-storm swept across the open country, and the trees creaked and swayed in the tempest; but he walked on. The very tumult of it seemed to submerge the still more cruel tumult in his soul, and he breasted the rising storm with something akin to joy that there was endurance enough left in him to face it. For the time the need of physical exertion relieved his mental tension. ”

“ POLOTSKY. For a few moments I stood regarding the wretch in silence. He was a picture of abject and villainous misery; knowing that he was in the hands of his most determined enemies, he fancied a fate as hideous as his own crimes. A man who has been hard and brutal to others is, in his hour of reckoning, the most abject coward on earth. Pierrot had fastened him securely in his chair, and he lay there writhing in his bonds, his face livid, and the cold sweat standing in beads on his brow. ”

“ In the center of the place stood Queen Anne; she had dropped her mantle and mask, and was revealed in her splendid dress of white and silver; her long hair had escaped its bonds [183] and hung wildly about her deathlike face. She looked more like a corpse than one alive, save for her eyes, which were dilated with the terror of a mad woman. Before her, calm and unruffled, stood the strange figure of the wizard, looking at her in mild surprise.
“Treason!” she cried again, as her attendants burst into the room; “he is a traitor! Seize him, gentlemen, bind him, in the king’s name!” ”

“ A long, sad vista opened before Père Antoine’s mental vision; the questions of love, duty, necessity, beset him. He was a wise man as well as a good one, but sometimes a child may confound a sage. He loved Péron too, with the tenderness of a woman, and he felt that with him lay the chief responsibility, since he was the most intelligent as well as the most deeply concerned of his guardians. After an instant’s pause, a pause so slight that the eager interrogator scarcely noted it, the priest answered him in his usual calm tone. ”

“ The great black storm-cloud rolled up, covering the heavens and the earth with the blackness of the pit, and the wind, rising steadily, swept over those wide plains with furious power. The few trees that stood about us bent and creaked, feeble as reeds, and the rain came down in torrents, and all through the fury of the tempest Maluta shouted a weird song, kneeling sometimes, while the water swirled around his little figure, and again lifting his arms over his head and dancing to and fro, swaying back and forth, and calling for protection on Koshchei and his legion of evil spirits. ”

“ At the dinner Margaret was the most conspicuous and observed figure at the table; she was strikingly dressed in white satin, her lace bodice fastened on the shoulders with jewels, her long, slender throat wound with pearls, and the black lace scarf—which she wore in deference to her hostess who was dining a cardinal—only accentuated the peculiar pallor of her face and the whiteness of her bare arms. ”

“ Love touches the heart and all the world is different—ah, mon Dieu, ’tis thy gift to us! See, François,” she added, “is not the world more beautiful, the sky more tender? Do not the birds sing more sweetly to-day? And is it because we love?”
“It must be so, my Rosaline,” he answered gently; “the Garden of Eden must have blossomed so to welcome Eve—and love makes the world more beautiful each day.”
“And it shall make me better,” she rejoined; “’tis said that sorrow refines the heart, but it is joy that fills it with kindness. ”

“ The simple, homely things of nature, the things of the Creator which comforted one sister, passed unseen by the other. Eva only observed that there was no one in the cedar grove and she entered by the little turnstile that led her to the rear of the house. She felt almost like some trespasser skulking along behind the rhododendrons, but she could not make up her mind to face the ordeal of Rachel and Belhaven together. She stopped once or twice, her graceful figure concealed by the clustering foliage, and peeped through some vista in the greenwood. ”

“ Tenderness was born in her at last, a tenderness new and beautiful—as the beginnings of life in the springtime, the budding of flowers, and the song of the bird to its mate. Alone on her knees in the twilight, Diane lifted her soul to that distant star, the thought of Overton passed away from her, the struggle ceased, even her father and his anger were forgotten, she remembered only her husband, and the eternal purposes of the Creator who had made them man and woman in the Garden of Eden. ”

“ The talk rose and fell; some woman laughed, the shallow cackling laugh that comes from the empty heart and the empty head; the crackling of thorns under a pot.
An usher bowed before Lady Russell and she held out her hand to Betty. The duke smiled again reassuringly; and the two women walked slowly through the throng, passed in at a low doorway, and in a moment there was stillness. ”

“ They stood looking at each other, the width of the woodland path between them, and that indefinable, impalpable thing which is neither sympathy nor antagonism but which, existing once between two souls, can, never be forgotten,—a white flame that burns at once through all barriers of misunderstanding, the divine spark of a love that is as far beyond commonplace passion as the soul is above the body that it must leave forever. ”