Maud Wilder Goodwin

“ He felt that he had appeared like a fool; and it must be a generous soul which can forgive one who has been both cause and witness of such humiliation. To conquer his irritation, Flint proceeded to take his injured rod to pieces, and repack it gloomily in its bag of green felt. When he looked up again, all petty annoyances faded out of his mind, for there ahead of him, behind the little patch of pines, lay the great cool, cobalt stretch of ocean, unfathomably deep, unutterably blue.
The young man felt a vague awe and exaltation tugging at his heart. ”

“ Peggy bridled, and Romney, still smiling, went on,—
"'Woman's a witch who plies her charm
As doth the wine to work man harm,
And when she sees his heart is sore,
She smiles and sparkles all the more.'"
Peggy dropped her lashes, leaned a bit more over the wheel till the curls shaded the round of her cheek as she took up the word,—
"'It is not woman is the wine,
But love, but love, oh, sweetheart mine!
Drink deep, and drinking thou shalt prove
How heart'ning is the draught of love.'
Is't not a silly verse?"
"Peggy! 'Tis a year last week since thou didst come to Romney." ”

“ It is the cause of liberty, and I make no doubt but your upright conduct this day will not only entitle you to the love and esteem of your fellow-citizens, but every man who prefers freedom to a life of slavery will bless and honour you, as men who have baffled the attempt of tyranny, and by an impartial and uncorrupt verdict have laid a noble foundation for securing to ourselves, our posterity, and our neighbors, that to which nature and the laws of our country have given us a right—the liberty both of exposing and opposing arbitrary power ... ”

“ Elinor fell upon her knees beside it and poured out the grief and struggles of her tumultuous soul.
"Bless me, Father, because I have sinned." The voice trembled at first so that the words could scarcely be heard, but grew firmer as she went on in the familiar words: "I confess to Almighty God, to blessed Mary ever Virgin, to Michael the archangel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the holy apostles Peter and Paul, to all the saints, and to you, Father, that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word, and deed, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault." ”

“ Flint paused a moment, as one who counted the cost of his words. Then he said slowly: "It shall be as you wish; but on your own head lie the risks. When a man has once said, 'I love you,' the woman to whom he says it sees it in his eyes and hears it in his voice forever after. I tell you," he went on, setting down the faun hard on the mantel, "love is like the spirit which the Arabian fisherman let out of the shell. It can never be shut up again—never—never—never!"
Winifred stirred a little, but did not lift her eyes. ”

“ The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the other. Our children see this and learn to imitate it, for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave, he is learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or his self-love for restraining the intemperance of passion toward his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present. ”

“ Real life had its tragedies, too. In the deep wainscoted hall of the Brandon Mansion hangs a portrait of lovely Evelyn Byrd. She sits on a green bank, with a handful of roses and a shepherd’s crook in her lap—her soft, dark eyes look out in pensive sadness as though they could, if they would, tell the story of a maiden’s heart and a life ended untimely by unhappy love. One story says she broke her heart for Parke Custis, who left her to wear the willow, and married afterward the Martha Dandridge, who in the whirligig of time became Lady Washington. ”

“ Here Flint paused, and began to walk the floor impatiently. "Oh, if you can ask that, I could not make you understand. It is useless to go on talking."
"No," said Winifred, now with fuller command of herself, "it is not useless; it is necessary. We must make each other understand. If we cannot do it now, how much less afterward! It always seems to me as if it were selfish folly in men and women to act as if their love were the only reality in the world, so that they forget everything that they owe to other people. ”

“ Oh, be a man, be a man, I pray thee, and give her back scorn for scorn!"
"She has shown me no scorn,—only a sad, half-sick listlessness, as though she too had got a death-wound at my hands. It is that which has cut me to the heart as no pride or wrath or disdain had had power to do."
Peggy shivered. Her brother noticed it. "What a brute I am," he murmured, "to keep thee standing here in the cold night air. 'Tis of a piece with my selfishness. Get thee in and know that thou hast brought something like comfort to the heart of a sorrow-stricken man. Good-night, and God bless thee!" ”

“ For myself, I confess to a peculiar sensitiveness in the matter of voices,—an unfortunate peculiarity for one condemned to spend her life in a sea-board town of the United States. Like Ulysses, I have endured greatly, have suffered greatly; but when this girl speaks, I am repaid. I often lose the sense of what she is saying, in the pure physical pleasure of listening to her speech. It has in it a suggestion of joy, and little delicate trills of hidden laughter which, after all, is not laughter, but rather the mingling of a reminiscence and an anticipation of mirth. ”

“ Such beautiful girls, in their jewels and laces and brocades and high-heeled slippers! Such magnificent men, with rainbow colors in sashes and velvet coats, with ruffles of costly embroideries and buckles reflecting the light of the candles! Most gorgeous of all, Sir William Berkeley!
It quite took Peggy's breath away when this elegant courtier bowed before her and begged her hand for the pavan. Yet there he was, sweeping the floor before her with the white plumes of his hat and craving the honor of the dance. ”

“ Yet, with all his faults, he will surely prove well worth our serious consideration, and however wide we open our eyes to his defects, however we seek to brush away the illusions with which tinsel hero-worship has surrounded him, we shall still find him, judged as he has a right to be, at his best, closely approaching Lowell’s definition of a gentleman: “A man of culture, a man of intellectual resources, a man of public spirit, a man of refinement, with that good taste which is the conscience of the mind, and that conscience which is the good taste of the soul.” ”

“ Oh, little Peggy! women do not own the only minds superior to evidence. From across the hall a young man is watching every expression of your face, feeling sure that your brother is innocent because you think him so—confident that Governor Brent is a cold, hard man, eager to believe evil of a friend, and vowing that as for him, Romney Huntoon, his sword, his honor, his life itself are at the service of Christopher Neville, with whom he has scarcely spoken, and of Christopher's sister Peggy whom he has known for a matter of ten days. ”

“ You cannot go on as you are. You must either give up hanging about Nora Costello, or you must make up your mind to marry her."
"And why not, pray, if I could induce her to accept me?"
"Great Heavens!" cried Flint; "has it gone so far as that?"
"Yes, it has," answered Brady, as defiantly as though Flint had represented his whole family circle; "and if she will marry me I shall be a proud and happy man."
"And your relatives,—the Bradfords and Standishes and all?"
"Plymouth Rock may fall on them for all I care," exclaimed Brady. ”

“ The question, the vital pressing question in her case, was how she would use this freedom. Should it slip into the hardness of the new woman, on the one hand, or, on the other, allow itself to be fettered to the dulness of every-day decorum, her opportunity would be lost; but if she could hold the delicate equilibrium where she stood,—self-poised, and yet swaying to the influences which must work on every soul for its highest development, plastic yet firm,—then he believed, firmly believed, that there might lie in her a power for which the world would be the better and the richer. ”

“ To love cautiously is not to love at all. For thee, thy punishment—the hardest, I believe, for a just man—shall be to see too late the wrong thou hast done; the friendship lightest held where it should have been strongest, the faith withheld where the hand should have been outstretched in aid, the life sacrificed that should have been a bulwark to the state,—all this will be laid at thy door—"
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Then,—with a sudden break,—"God forgive me! What a hypocrite I am! My sin is heavier than thine. I knew him, I loved him, and I failed him. Death holds no bitterness like this." ”

“ Ralph Ingle turned as they passed him. "I must watch that man," he thought. "He who takes a child by the hand takes the mother by the heart."
"Wait," said Cecil at the door. "I must doff my finery, for who knows when I may need it to receive another tenant?"
"Prudent lad! I will do the same, lest I catch the fever and then thou must needs seek a new tenant. But, Cecil, promise me one thing."
"Ay, a dozen if you wish."
"Promise me that, whatever tenants thou mayst have hereafter, thou wilt like me best." ”

“ On the little boat came, now dipping almost out of sight in the hollow of the big green waves, now rising like a cork upon their crest.
"Hurrah!" cried Brady, "they're almost in."
"Hm!" said Michael, "not yet, by a long sight! The danger comes when they git into the breakers."
Flint was enough of a sailor to know that the fisherman spoke truth. A little later, he saw the white, combing foam break over the boat. He drew his breath quicker, and caught his under-lip between his teeth.
"There's four men in her," said Marsden, making a telescope of his closed hands. ”

“ Little did Elinor Calvert know or care about the effect of fighting on national character as she stood at the door of her cottage in the little hamlet of St. Mary's, holding her boy by the hand. Her heart had room for only one thought,—terror,—not so much for herself as for her child. "But surely," she thought, "none could be so cruel as to harm him!" and she looked down on his yellow curls and drew him closer, and folded her cloak about him as though that feeble shelter could avail anything against men with hearts of steel and arms of iron. ”

“ The beauty of youth is an ivorytype; the beauty of age is an etching, bitten out by the burin and acid of thought, experience, and sorrow.
The prevailing mood with James Anstice was one of gentle weariness. He felt that his life was ended, and that the years were going on in a sort of monotonous anti-climax. Yet, in spite of this undertone of depression, his manner was responsive, genial, even gay at times, and he lived much in the reflected light of Winifred's youth and energy. ”

“ Never in his life had Flint so raved against his own lack of readiness as now, when he felt the passing moments slipping by, and could find no words to set himself right in the eyes of the woman he loved,—the woman whose little gloved hand rested on his arm. Judge then of his feeling when, smiling up into his eyes with perfect friendliness, Winifred said under her breath, "Why do we go there—you and I? They really aren't our kind at all." ”

“ Whoever the guilty one is, we must leave him to God, and I believe in my heart his suffering is greater than mine, or than any that ever Christopher Neville knew."
"Think you all souls are as sensitive as thine?" asked Ingle, gazing with reverence into the face so near and yet so infinitely far away.
"I know not; but I can conceive no nature so base that it would not writhe to see its just censure borne by another; and to be so sunk in sin as to feel nothing,—why, that would be most pitiable of all." ”

“ But sometimes storms clear the air better than sunshine; and when we met at the gate of death, as it seemed, in the massacre at Flower da Hundred yonder, I knew that in life or death he was mine and I his."
"Master Huntoon," cried Peggy, turning to Romney with a merry eye but a trembling lip, "thinkst, then, thou couldst get up a massacre? 'Tis evident nothing less will show a woman what manner of thing love is! Yet that would not serve either, for in such like times 'tis only the great things of life that we heed. ”

“ Ben Bradford sat on a chair tipped back against the wall, with his thumbs thrust through the armholes of his corduroy vest. Winifred lounged upon the haircloth sofa with one foot surreptitiously tucked under her. Every one's attitude suggested a degree of comfort rare in society. A wonderful sense of intimacy is imparted by perils undergone together, or profound experiences shared. They seem to sweep away, as with a whirlwind breath, that thick veil of convention and commonplace which shroud many acquaintances from beginning to end. ”

“ So amazed was the invader that he made no attempt to stir, but stood looking at the woman before him with ashen face and dropped jaw.
"Dick Ingle," said Margaret, still with pistol levelled, "you have pursued me for years, first with your unwelcome love and then with malignant hate; you have lied about me to Thomas White; you have tried to ruin my life. Now you say you have killed my brother. Is there any reason why I should not kill you? Nay, do not move so much as a hair, or you are a dead man. I know how to shoot, and I have no hesitation in taking life. ”

“ Winifred saw that I was justly indignant; and though she can be as peppery as anybody over her own quarrels, she is always bent on smoothing down other people; so she called out:—
"Well, fortunately, Mr. Flint, you are not too late for 'the feast of reason and the flow of soul;' and I am sure you did not get that all alone there at the inn." I wondered if he appreciated that rather neat little stab. Winifred does those things well, with a demure manner which leaves people in doubt whether her remarks are vicious or simply blundering. ”

“ In her dreams it seemed to Peggy that she was standing on a ladder in an English orchard. Romney was shaking the tree and for every apple that fell claiming a kiss, while she from her vantage ground of the ladder pelted him with the red apples instead.
The dream brought a smile to the pale young lips.
"It is well," said Mistress Huntoon to herself, watching her; "she sleeps and she smiles. Youth will do the rest." After bending an instant over the sleeper she left her and slipped down the staircase into the hall. Romney was walking up and down. ”

“ Brady was an indifferent companion, subject to fits of absence of mind,—more unsocial than absence of body.
There was only one resource left; the young men betook themselves to the White-House. Life there could not be wholly dull, while a perpetual sparring match was going on between Miss Standish and Dr. Cricket, while Professor Anstice smoked his pipe serenely on the corner of the piazza, and Ben Bradford openly adored Winifred, heedless of outside observation or amusement. ”

“ Still in the distance hovered the two phantom ships gray against the universal grayness, yet dimly discernible, the smaller boat settling lower and lower like some despairing animal feeling death near at hand yet struggling to the last.
"It is the end," said Ralph Ingle. "The man is drowned, and his boat is sunk. Whatever he has done, he has made the fullest atonement man can make."
"Yes," said Brent, uncovering his head. "I think that we have seen the end of this unhappy business. A life has been given for a life. The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." ”