Donn Byrne

“ And you, Nathan the prophet, let me prophesy. You might have had one woman, Solomon, to love you all your life, but the day will come when you will seek my face among a thousand women, and never have me. You might have a temple that would have made the pyramids seem like outhouses, but one day your temple will be a little broken wall. And your people might have been the conquerors of Africa, but one day they will be helots in the Babylonian land. You have the wisdom of the shrewd and pious, Solomon, that can never meet the generous hand with the grateful heart. ”

“ The Lords of the Philistines gave you silver to entice me. I knew you, and the Lord departed from me."
"Samson, don't! Don't, Samson!"
"Away, harlot!" And he struck at her blindly. Only the tips of his fingers touched her shoulder, but the force of them sent her to the ground. Her household crouched to spring.
"For God's sake, no!" she almost screamed at them.
"The Philistines are upon me. They have put out my eyes!" he roared. He went stumbling piteously through the orchard, the trunks of the trees hurtling him, the branches striking his defenseless face. ”

“ She was like a woman in stone but for her strained voice, and for the fingers twisting, twisting, twisting under the red-gold cloak of hair. "Go now and tell them," she said. "Tell them, but don't let them come," she said, "for—for just a little while...."
And now night had come, and the little lamps of Gaza burned clear in the blue softness. The sun had gone down in the west, and the silver blade of the moon had all but followed. Delilah felt cold and stiff, and there were tears in her heart that would not come to her eyes for relief. ”

“ And let no man say: There is a dirty or mean fighter. And let no man say: There is a coward.
There were Irish names in the ring that made old men's hearts flutter and young men wish they had been born years before. Old John L. Sullivan (God rest the gallant battered bones!) and Tom Sharkey of Dundalk, who never knew when he was beaten, and old Peter Maher, who was somewhere in the house. And there was another name in the mist of past days, the name of a middle-weight champion who had been greatest and most gallant of them all, the elder Jack Dempsey, the Non-pareil. None like him, none! ”

“ At a little distance she seemed like a boy in clothes too big for him, and as one came nearer, one noticed, between the collar and the brim of the hat, the sweet narrow neck and the hair gathered up like some very little girl's. There was something heart-pulling in it, like a child's curled fingers. And then she turned, and her face showed, pointed like a cub fox's. The cheeks flushed with the cold, the lips with a merry smile, her eyes with a deeper smile—there were so many there who knew her, and to whom O'Conor was presented, including an Irish duchess, with a voice like a saw, who rasped ”

“ The big gray hunter caracoled under him, and with a vicious twitch of curb and snaffle Morgan brought him to stand. He smacked the croup and touched the gelding's fore thigh with the toe of his riding boot until the great hunter stood like a horse in an illustration. Then Morgan turned around.
About him was the cold gray of an Irish morning in November. Woolly, dull, frost on the roads and a touch of easting to the wind—a perfect day for hunting. Forward of him a hundred and fifty yards the hounds were circling around the copse, while the leaders were inside, raising the red fox. ”

“ And then would come a miracle in Donegan. Those harsh bulldog features would relax, the glinting eyes open, and over the hated face would play the smile of—oh, forty years ago—when he was just an innocent, likable Irish boy, and not a great jurist, whom communion with the sinister qualities of the law, and battles for life and liberty, and knowledge of strange strata in the minds of men, which is good for none to know, had transformed into a dark angel with a protective and flaming sword. ”

“ All around us now is the occult night of Egypt. Live sand and the little wind among the hillocks, and back of us the antique Nile. Here first was magic. And here first the half-gods were worshiped under the guise of beasts; of the cat and of the crocodile, and of others. And here is the monument of the half-god, the Sphinx, that is woman and animal, beauty and terror.
And as we listen, the beasts speak, and to our human mechanics the deep vibrations are translated into human sounds, and the voice of the lion is as the voice of some great one of our race speaking in anger. ”

“ Thought and emotion were with her in the red Afric dawn. Thought and emotion were with her like the flickering lightning and terrible thunder of the Abyssinian hills. Thought and emotion came with blue mountainy twilight. And there was none to share them. None to ask. None to satisfy. Being a queen, there was none she might consort with but kings and queens, and the kings of the states about her were shrewd political men, who could not understand what a young girl felt, and her young womanhood quivering like the jessamy bough.... Their eyes would be on the riches of Ethiopia ”

“ There the men of the daily journals, more aloof, more judicial than the judge. There the press of morbid spectators, leaning forward like runners on the mark. There the policemen, court attendants, whatnot, relaxed of body, concentrated of eye, jealous of the dignity of the court as a house-dog of its master's home. Through the windows of the court could be seen the bulk of the Tombs, heavy, hopeless, horrible as the things whence it takes its chilly name.
The case of the people versus Anna Janssen for the murder of Alastair de Vries droned on. ”

“ The Italian had dropped into his usual unorthodox pose. His open right glove fiddling gently at the air, his left arm crooked, the glove resting against his left thigh. He moved around the ring gently, like a good woman dancer. About him was an immense economy of movement. He seemed wide open—a mark for any boxer's left hand. But Irish knew better. The Latin would sway back from the punch and counter like lightning. The old champion was wise to lie low and not to fight this man until he was compelled to. ”

“ The lion, who pads around a little, and in whose eyes there is anger. The great black and amber tiger, who is still but for the significant movement of the immense tail, and the elephant, that seems like some gigantic carven thing. And the crocodile lies in the sand, like some black sea-beaten log. And the polar bear is there with black dots for eyes. And the horse is still as in a stall. And next to the elephant the dog sits.
And they are all there, gathered for some occult reason, in the night of Egypt, under the thin twilight of the clouded moon. ”

“ They will exceed their pyramids. For you I will conquer Egypt, Solomon.
"O Balkis, you are beautiful as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem. But you are terrible, Balkis, terrible as an army with banners."
"That is nothing, Solomon. That is the smallest gage of love. O Solomon, I have found something in my heart. I have found love. Many waters cannot quench it, neither can the floods drown love; if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.
"Come with me, Solomon. Make haste, my beloved. Be like to a roe or a young hart on the mountains of spices. ”

“ The district attorney sat down, with a gesture of his hand toward Howard Donegan, the prisoner's counsel. With his massive body, with his massive head, with his cruel jurist's face, Howard Donegan was as much a part of the attraction for the public as was the prisoner, the notoriety of the ten-year-old case, the romantic capture of Annette Janssen. The great Irish-American was the foremost criminal lawyer of his day, all but invincible when defending a man or a woman with the slightest chance of escape, and right on his side. ”

“ He had imagined himself telling them of the wonders of New York,—tales as marvelous as any of the thousand and one told in Oriental bazaars,—of the buildings that tower as high as the Irish mountains; of the river of light that is Broadway; of the shop windows on Fifth Avenue, each of which holds a king's ransom; of the motley throngs in New York, greater in number than all Ireland holds; of the struggle and competition in which he, their son and brother, had won a sound business worth ten thousand dollars. ”

“ As we see the Angel of the Lord, one of the illusions of our childhood vanishes. He is not a shining figure armed with terror and majesty. True, he has wings and a sword and a white robe, and is of stature above mortal. But, on the other hand, he has a great red beard, and his fingers are gnarled. There is something shy in his appearance, and kindly. And about him there is something of disappointment. One gets the impression that once he was a very great angel indeed, but in latter centuries he has drifted into a sort of back-water. ”

“ And now Dreghorn, Li Sin mused, wanted to marry. He wanted to marry this fair little American girl, pure and delicate as the petal of a primrose, light and shimmering and gay as iridescence on water—to make a home with her, to have her bear children.
He called for Hong Kop.
"What is the profit of crime, Hong Kop?" he asked.
The Cantonese thought for a moment.
"The profit of crime is death," he answered.
"Death is a sweet and gentle thing, Hong Kop," his master mused. "It comes to the old like a gentle and sweet-scented sleep. It comes to the suffering like a grateful anodyne. ”

“ All these are dead now, and the moon shines over dead cities, dead heroes, and great empires that are dead, and buried under shifting silver sands. But the land we are in is not dead; eternal Africa, eternal Egypt.
And where we are now, it is old, the events of history being like the trivialities of a summer day. We sense that Egypt is older than Mohammed, whose revelation is law there now, and older than the Little Lord who fled hither from Palestine with Joseph and Mary, older than the painted kings who sleep in pyramids; older than the pyramids themselves ”

“ IN PRAISE OF LADY MARGERY KYTELER I
All those things I dreamed about, and I thousands of miles away, are there still: the house, half farm-house and half castle, at one end an ancient military tower, at the other a thatched cottage; all the trees—the ash, the elms, the chestnut with the dark-green foliage and the prickly bulb containing the polished mahogany fruit, the rowan-trees with the gallant red berries, bitter as death, the copper beech with the foliage of lace and the fuzzy brown nuts, the apple- and pear-trees, and the trees of cherries that the birds do be ever after. ”

“ Instead of the son who would crown his gray hairs with honor, who would justify him, he was father to a common prize-fighter, a man who was not looked on with respect by any. The idol, perhaps, of the New York Irish, but of the ignorant Irish. True, he was a good boy; he didn't drink. But neither did his father except in reason. He was generous with his money, but, after all, what was money? Always smiling, always laughing. "Sonny" they called him and "Irish"; that was no way to attain dignity. Even the Italian coal-ice-and-wood man called him "Irish." ”

“ Delilah drew him aside.
"The early days in the desert.... He is going blind."
"Is there no hope, no cure?"
"None."
A little laugh of agony came from her. Great Samson blind! The little lover blind!... Oh, God!...
"Shall we tell him?"
"No, no!" she burst out. Maybe there was some mistake! "No. We sha'n't tell him."
A few days later came a great bellow from the garden!
"The sun has gone out of the sky," she heard him exalt. "The day of wrath is on us. The God of the Hebrews will judge the just and the unjust. O Philistines, your day has come. The sun has gone out of the sky." ”

“ Like a silver flame in the dusk she appeared to him. There was so much spirit to her that nothing else really mattered. The strain of Highland mysticism in him gave him an uncanny power of seeing people as they were, not as they seemed to the outward eye. He could look at a certain man and say to himself with certainty, "At death that man dies," or at some sweet-faced woman, repressed, waiting, and know, "At death this woman's life begins." He saw Cecily Stanford and said: "This woman endures forever. She lives now and she will live always." ”

“ Clothed in glistening green, and jeweled with humming-birds and the sheen of parrots, she was like some barbaric princess of ancient days, such as Balkis, Queen of Sheba, must have been when she went forth from Arabia Felix to view the magnificence of Solomon the king.
There was mystery at night and there was majesty in the daytime, and that all of nature, and then a little path of the mountainside, a little turn, a pace a big man could make, and there arose suddenly concentration and genius, the bridge. ”

“ And some who knew the bitter tooth of want would dream of their children as powerful merchants, with great cars and yachts. Such rosy stories do women think in their heads.
But all Berenice could imagine was the little daughter of fair tresses in her small bed at the close of day, when the short Occidental twilight hovered like a bird, and night came trudging westward with dun feet. Below in their drawing-room people would be assembled for dinner or for the playing of cards, laughter and candle-light, and the glow of an open hearth, and tobacco sending up bluish-gray smoke from little tubes. ”

“ There from Mount Kyteler one can see it all—the soft dreaming mountains, the sad weeping city. And here where was once the laughter of young women, the barking of dogs, the neighing of horses, the shouting of lads—here is silence, but for the husky note of the wood-pigeon, the little thunder of his wings, and the droning of the seeking bees. All, all are dead, but here is no desolation. There is the sweet gentleness of remembered twilights, and the copper beech rustles, and the rowan nods, and the apple-trees murmur with their antique boughs: "Is it yourself is in it, Ronnie? ”

“ But I never could, Balkis, for while still a boy Nathan made of me a man, an old wise man. Woe to thee, O land, he prophesied, when thy king is a child, and thy princes eat in the morning! So I 've always been a man, Balkis, a wise old man."
"Dear, poor Solomon! Never were young."
"Never, dear Balkis, never. I must never be young, never do a wild boyish thing. Dead flies cause the ointment of an apothecary to send forth a stinking savor; so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honor. O Balkis, the long wise days!" ”

“ Of course you are wise, Solomon."
"It is easy, Balkis, very easy, that sort of wisdom, for Nathan, as far back as I can remember, has been dinning precepts and examples into my ears. And at times, when things are difficult, comes a little inspiration, like a little unpremeditated bar on a musician's psaltery. And the tricks of reading a riddle are no more than the mason's tricks of arranging stones. If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth: and if the tree fall toward the south or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be. ”