Anthony Hope

“ That though the ramparts protect the citadel, the citadel may often betray the ramparts.
And this for Everybody: That he who devotes a good intelligence to enlightening others is like unto a man who cooks his neighbor's dinner without being invited to table. For when once the citadel was carried, the ramparts passed, and the lovers happy, neither King nor Countess nor anybody else gave another thought to poor Friar Nicholas! ”

“ Again the ladies tittered and the knights smiled. But the stranger was unmoved.
"Then," he went on in a smooth equable voice whose rich tones struck pleasantly on their ears and made the ladies sorry for their mocking, "came the day, fatal to me, when your Highness was pleased to send his Majesty a message. For when the King asked me the meaning of your riddle—asked how a man could carry the citadel before he passed the ramparts—I told him to take no heed of it, for it was an idle vaunt. And he believed me and assaulted the ramparts three times in vain. And in vain brave men died. ”

“ But, as often happens with meaner men, he took nothing by it, except a pain in the head and a temper much the worse. So that he ordered three more assaults on the ramparts of the City of Or, which ended as the first three had; and then sent another summons to Countess Runa, to which she returned the same answer. And for the life of him the King could see in it no meaning save that never in all his life should he pass the ramparts. "Only an army of birds could do what she says!" ”

“ Chapter One HAVING reduced the rest of his kingdom to obedience in three arduous campaigns, King Stanislas sat himself down with a great army before the strong place of Or, which was held against him by Runa, daughter of Count Theobald the Fierce. For Countess Runa said that since her father had paid neither obedience nor tribute to the King's father for fifty years, neither would she pay obedience or tribute to the King, nor would she open the city gates to him save at her own time and by her own will. ”

“ That what their fathers did for fifty years, it may be wise for them to cease from doing immediately—especially if they wish to make good marriages.
This for Men: That though it be impossible that a woman should mean what she says, yet she means something by what she says—at any rate, if she says it three times. ”