S. Weir Mitchell

“ When we come to consider those years of torture which cruel nature holds in store for some, no one blames the sight of the moral wreck it is apt to make of the sufferer. On the other hand, there is nothing I ever see in my profession so splendid as the way in which a few, a rare few, triumph over pain, which we know must often rise to the grade of anguish, and from which scarce a day is ever free.
I recall well one woman who for years, under my eyes, was the subject of what, with due sense of the force of the word, I call torture. ”

“ MR. KRIS KRINGLE.
It was Christmas Eve. The snow had clad the rolling hills in white, as if in preparation for the sacred morrow. The winds, boisterous all day long, at fall of night ceased to roar amidst the naked forest, and now, the silent industry of the falling flakes made of pine and spruce tall white tents. At last, as the darkness grew, a deepening stillness came on hill and valley, and all nature seemed to wait expectant of the coming of the Christmas time. ”

“ Did she love Jack? I little knew in those days how tender was this gentle heart, how it went out, tendril-like, seeking it knew not what, and was for this reason ever liable to say too much, and to give rise to misapprehension.
“O Darthea!” I cried. “Dost thou love my Jack? I shall be the last to come in his way. I have said I love thee myself, and I can never change. But how can it be? how can it be? And my cousin? O Darthea!”
“I love no one, sir. I love everybody. I—I think you are impertinent, Mr. Wynne. Is it your business whom I love? My God! there is blood on your hand! ”

“ Leila Grey had seen in the South much of an interesting society where love affairs were brief, lightly taken, easily ended, or hardly more than the mid-air flirtations of butterflies. No such perilous approaches to the most intimate relations of men and women were for this young woman, on whom the love and tactful friendship of the married life of Grey Pine had left a lasting impression. One must have known her well to become aware of the sense of duty to her ideals which lay behind her alert appearance of joyous gaiety and capacity to see the mirthful aspects of life. ”

“ When alone, Schmidt said to himself: "Some day he will lose his head, and then the tiger will leap. It was clear from what I saw, and who could sit quiet and give it up? Not I. A duel? If this man I have learned to love had Du Vallon's wrist of steel or mine, it would be easy to know what to do. Ah, if one could know that rascal's fence—or if I—no; the boy would never forgive me; and to cheat a man out of a just vengeance were as bad as to cheat him of a woman's love." ”

“ All between the two observers and the trees was a swift flow of hastening water, faintly fretted all over by the underlying brown and gray and white stones of the bottom,—a tremulous brown mirror.
“Oh, the beautiful things!” cried Rose. “Purple reflections,—deeper purple than the trees. How they wriggle!”
“Put me the two purples on paper.”
“There!” she said, “that is as I see them.”
“And I,” he returned,—“for me they should be a much deeper, purer tint. That is the difference between your color sense and mine.”
“Is it true, Pardy, that there may be colors no man has seen?” ”

“ Does it aid you to see clearly and to bear patiently? Does it truly nourish character, and tenderly but, firmly set you where you can gain a larger view of the uses of pain and distress? That is the truest sympathy. Does it leave you feebler with mere pity? Does it accentuate pain and grief by simply dwelling on it with barren words? I leave you to say what that is. We have a certain gentle disrespect among us for the doctor who is described as, oh! so sympathetic,—the man who goes about his work with a pocket-full of banal phrases calculated to soothe and comfort the cravings of the wretched. ”

“ I looked up where, under my dear Jack Warder’s face, which Stuart did for me, hangs Knyphausen’s long blade, and across it Jack’s sword. Below, my eye lights on the Hessian pistols, and the sword-knot the gallant marquis gave me.
I watch the crumbling fire and seem to see once more the fierce struggle in the market-place, the wild fight on the redoubt, and my cousin’s dark face. The years have gone by, and for me and mine there is peace and love, and naught a man in years may not think upon with joy. ”

“ In the morning I reflect on the crimes which I have to judge, and then I am grave. At noon I condemn some to die, and then ever I weep. But at night-fall I pardon the least guilty, and then always I am glad at heart. Be ye also merry to-night, and to-morrow wiser.'
"And thus saying, the King gave them a purse of gold and turned away."
"What a little story," cried the young spiders.
"Hush!" answered Mrs. Grabem. "Now I must mend this hole in our cobweb. But, bless me! run to the den. Here comes a big fly."
Quick as could be they all ran into the dark passage and Mrs. Grabem stayed at the door. ”

“ Far or near on the fertile meadows the ripened corn and grain showed in green squares between the masses of men and stirred in the morning breeze or lay trampled in ruin by the rude feet of war. It was an hour and a scene to excite the dullest mind, and Penhallow intensely interested sat fascinated by a spectacle at once splendid and fateful. The snake-like procession of infantry wagons and batteries moved across the bridge and was lost to view in the forest. ”

“ Even in this hour of mortification, and with the memory of Randolph's doubt in mind, René had some delightful sense of being taken in hand and disciplined. He had not said again that the tie which bound them together must be broken. He had tacitly accepted the joy of defeat, a little ashamed, perhaps.
Every minute of this talk had been a revelation to the man who had lived near Margaret for years. An older man could have told him that no length of life will reveal to the most observant love all the possibilities of thought or action in the woman who may for years have been his wife. ”

“ To-day I can bless the anger and the sense of duty to our children which drove me forth—too debased a thing to realize my loss. I have won again my self-control, thank God! am a man once more. You have, have always had, my love. You have to-day again a dozen times the fortune I meanly squandered. I shall never touch it; it is yours and your children's. And now, Alice, is all love dead for me? [48] And is it Yes or No? And shall I be always to my little ones Kris, and to-night a mysterious memory, or shall I be once more
Your Hugh? ”

“ I beg to insist that you apologise. For lighter things men kill one another. I await, madam, your excuses.”
It was a fine sight to see how this fiery little bit of a woman faced my tall, strong aunt, who towered above her, her large face red with wrath.
“Never!” she cried. “I have been—it is I who am insulted and put to shame, in my own house, by a chit of a miss.”
“Then good-by,” said Darthea, and was by me and out of the house before I could see what to do or know what to say.
“She is gone!” I cried. “Oh, Aunt Gainor, you have broken my heart!”
“What did I say, Hugh?” said my aunt. ”

“ Old tastes return and mild delights become luxuries, as if the new tissues in nerve and brain were not sated, like those of the older body in which they are taking their places.
When you are acutely ill, the doctor is business-like and gravely kind; you want him in a way, are even anxious to see him for the relief he may bring, or the reassurance. But when you begin to feel as if you were a creature reborn, when you are safe and keenly enjoying the return of health, then it is that the morning visit is so delightful. ”

“ Among its scraps of verse and memoranda he found the well-known apostrophe of El Din Attar to the pipe. He read it with a smile.
“‘O wife of the soul, thou art wiser than any who bide in the harem. A maker of peace thou art and a builder of prudence between temptation and the hour of decision. Can anger abide with the pipe, or a gnat in the smoke of the tent-fire? Lo, wine is but wine for the simple, and a pipe but a pipe for the foolish; and what is a song to the dumb, or a rose to the eye that is blind? ”

“ He had fallen in with a group of middle-class men, Federalists in name, clamorous for war with Jacobin France, and angry at their nominal leader, who stood like a rock against the double storm of opinion which was eager for him to side with our old ally France or to conciliate England. It was long before De Courval understood the strife of parties, felt most in the cities, or knew that back of the mischievous diversity of opinion in and out of the cabinet was our one safeguard—the belief of the people in a single man and in his absolute good sense and integrity. ”

“ I know the South, its increasing belief in the despotic power of cotton and tobacco, its splendid courage, and the sense of mastery given by the ownership of man. Why do I talk my despair out to a young life like yours? I suppose confession to be a relief—the tears of the soul. I suppose it is easier to talk to a woman." "Then why not to Aunt Ann?" thought Leila, as he went on to say, "I have often asked myself why confession is such a relief." He smiled as he added, "I wonder if St. Francis ever confessed to Monica." ”