Ambrose Bierce

Name: Beyond the Wall
Author: Ambrose Bierce

Beyond the Wall

Summary

“Beyond the Wall”, is a work by Ambrose Bierce. It explores elements such as Dampier, many spooks and tapping.

Quotes from Beyond the Wall (Ambrose Bierce)

Ambrose Bierce, Beyond the Wall

“ Suddenly, in a pause of the storm, when the dead silence was almost startling by contrast with the previous uproar, I heard a gentle tapping, which appeared to come from the wall behind my chair. The sound was such as might have been made by a human hand, not as upon a door by one asking admittance, but rather, I thought, as an agreed signal, an assurance of someone’s presence in an adjoining room; most of us, I fancy, have had more experience of such communications than we should care to relate. I glanced at Dampier. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Ambrose Bierce, Beyond the Wall

“ Worn out with emotion, irresolution and despondency, I had retired early and fallen into such sleep as was still possible to me. In the middle of the night something - some malign power bent upon the wrecking of my peace forever - caused me to open my eyes and sit up, wide awake and listening intently for I knew not what. Then I thought I heard a faint tapping on the wall - the mere ghost of the familiar signal. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Ambrose Bierce, Beyond the Wall

“ I know only that I passed days and days trying to meet her, and all in vain; she was invisible as well as inaudible. I haunted the streets where we had met, but she did not come. From my window I watched the garden in front of her house, but she passed neither in nor out. I fell into the deepest dejection, believing that she had gone away, yet took no steps to resolve my doubt by inquiry of my landlady, to whom, indeed, I had taken an unconquerable aversion from her having once spoken of the girl with less of reverence than I thought befitting. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Ambrose Bierce, Beyond the Wall

“ I remembered Dampier as a handsome, strong young fellow of scholarly tastes, with an aversion to work and a marked indifference to many of the things that the world cares for, including wealth, of which, however, he had inherited enough to put him beyond the reach of want. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Ambrose Bierce, Beyond the Wall

“ Are there masses that can be said for the repose of souls that are abroad such nights as this - spirits ‘blown about by the viewless winds’ - coming in the storm and darkness with signs and portents, hints of memory and presages of doom? ”

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Source: Wikisource

Ambrose Bierce, Beyond the Wall

“ And there the poor passing soul had exerted its failing will to restore a broken connection - a golden thread of sentiment between its innocence and a monstrous baseness owning a blind, brutal allegiance to the Law of Self. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Ambrose Bierce, Beyond the Wall

“ I was rich and could afford to revisit my own country to renew my friendship with such of the companions of my youth as still lived and remembered me with the old affection. Chief of these, I hoped, was Mohun Dampier, an old schoolmate with whom I had held a desultory correspondence which had long ceased, as is the way of correspondence between men. You may have observed that the indisposition to write a merely social letter is in the ratio of the square of the distance between you and your correspondent. It is a law. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Ambrose Bierce, Beyond the Wall

“ No woman, I argued, is what this lovely creature seems. Love is a delicious dream; why should I bring about my own awakening?
“The course dictated by all this sense and sentiment was obvious. Honor, pride, prudence, preservation of my ideals - all commanded me to go away, but for that I was too weak. The utmost that I could do by a mighty effort of will was to cease meeting the girl, and that I did. I even avoided the chance encounters of the garden, leaving my lodging only when I knew that she had gone to her music lessons, and returning after nightfall. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Ambrose Bierce, Beyond the Wall

“ I am not disposed to question your right to harbor as many spooks as you find agreeable to your taste and consistent with your notions of companionship; that is no business of mine. But being just a plain man of affairs, mostly of this world, I find spooks needless to my peace and comfort. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Ambrose Bierce, Beyond the Wall

“ He brightened again. “No,” he said, “being a dead language, it grows in appropriateness. But please have the patience to wait: where I am going there is perhaps a better tongue. Will you care to have a message in it?” ”

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Source: Wikisource

Ambrose Bierce, Beyond the Wall

“ “I was what some foolish persons are pleased to call, and others, more foolish, are pleased to be called - an aristocrat; ”

Ambrose Bierce

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Quotes from Beyond the Wall (Ambrose Bierce)

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