Henry Harland

“ Women are a pack of samenesses; but, hang it all, one has got to make the best of a monotonous universe. And this particular woman, with her red hair and her eyes, strikes me as attractive. She has some fire in her composition, some fire and flavour. Anyhow, she attracts me; and — I think I shall try my luck."
"Oh, Nunky, Nunky," murmured Hilary, shaking his head, "I am shocked by your lack of principle. Have you forgotten that you are a married man?"
"That will be my safeguard. I can make love to her with a clear conscience. ”

“ And then, for three or four days, he did not see her, though he paid frequent enough visits to the feeding-place of the carp.
"I wish it would rain," he confessed to Hilary. "I hate the derisive cheerfulness of this weather. The birds sing, and the flowers smile, and every prospect breathes sodden satisfaction; and only man is bored."
"Yes, I own I find you dull company," Hilary responded, "and if I thought it would brisk you up, I’d pray with all my heart for rain. But what you need, as I’ve told you a thousand times, is a love-affair with a red-haired woman." ”

“ I don't know whether Ferdinand Augustus accomplished the rites that Hilary prescribed, but it is certain that she did appear on the morrow: not by the pool or the carp, but in quite another region of Bellefontaine, where Ferdinand Augustus was wandering at hazard, somewhat disconsolately. There was a wide green meadow, sprinkled with buttercups and daisies; and under a great tree, at this end of it, he suddenly espied her. She was seated on the moss, stroking with one finger-tip a cockchafer that was perched upon another, and regarding the little monster with intent, meditative eyes. ”

“ In short, I'm half inclined to follow your advice, and go in for a love-adventure with her."
"Oh, but love-adventures — I have it on high authority — are damnable iterations," objected Hilary.
"That is very true; they are," Ferdinand agreed. "But the life of man is woven of damnable iterations. Tell me of any single thing that isn't a damnable iteration, and I'll give you a quarter of my fortune. The day and the night, the seasons and the years, the fair weather and the foul, breakfast and luncheon and dinner — all are damnable iterations. ”

“ But Hilary's lips are sealed. He depends upon the King's protection for his fortune, and the palace-walls (I suppose he fears) have ears. But you can speak without danger. He is the scandal of Europe? There’s nothing I love like scandal. Tell me all about him."
"You have not come all this distance under a scorching sun, to stand here now and talk of another man," she reminded him.
"Oh, but kings are different," he argued. "Tell me about your King."
"I can tell you at once," said she, "that our King is the frankest egotist in two hemispheres. ”

“ If there’s any reality behind the doctrine of metempsychosis, death, too, is a damnable iteration. There's no escaping damnable iterations: there’s nothing new under the sun. But as long as one is alive, one must do something. It’s sure to be something in its essence identical with something one has done before; but one must do something. Why not, then, a love-adventure with a woman that attracts you?"
"Women are a pack of samenesses," said Hilary despondently. ”

“ But your impatience is not reasoned. A fortnight? You have not met her for a fortnight? My dear, to a plain man a fortnight’s nothing. It’s just an appetiser. Watch and wait, and you’ll meet her before you know it. And now, if you will excuse me, I have business in another quarter of the palace."
Ferdinand Augustus, left to himself, went down into the garden. It was a wonderful summer’s evening, made indeed (if I may steal a phrase from Hilary) of perfumed velvet. The sun had set an hour since, but the western sky was still splendid, like a dark tapestry, with sombre reds and purples ”

“ Thirty was plump and rosy and full-blown, with a laughing good-humoured face, and merry big blue eyes; eight and twenty, thin, tall, and listless-looking, his face pale and aquiline, his eyes dark, morose. They had finished their coffee, and now the plump man was nibbling sweetmeats, which he selected with much careful discrimination from an assortment in a porcelain dish. The thin man was drinking something green, possibly chartreuse.
"Women are a pack of samenesses," he grumbled, "and love-affairs are damnable iterations." ”

“ Really, I admire the cool way in which she went on tossing bread-crumbs to the King's carp under my very beard!“ exclaimed Hilary, working himself into a fine state of indignation.
"Very likely she didn’t know who you were," his friend reasoned. "anyhow, your zeal is mighty sudden. You appear to have been letting things go at loose ends for I don't know how long; and all at once you take fire like tinder because a poor woman amuses herself by throwing bread to the carp. It's simply spite: you re disappointed in the colour of her hair. ”

“ Away in the park somewhere, innumerable frogs were croaking, croaking; subdued by distance, the sound gained a quality that was plaintive and unearthly. The long façade of the palace lay obscure in shadow; only at the far end, in the Queen’s apartments, were the windows alight. But, quite close at hand, the moon caught a corner of the terrace; and here, presently, Ferdinand Augustus became aware of a human figure. A woman was standing alone by the balustrade, gazing out into the wondrous night. Ferdinand Augustus s heart began to pound ”

“ Women, and men too, are a pack of samenesses. We’re all struck with the same die, of the same metal, at the same mint. Our resemblance is intrinsic, fundamental; our differences are accidental and skin-deep. We have the same features, organs, dimensions, with but a hair's-breadth variation; the same needs, instincts, propensities; the same hopes, fears, ideas. One man's meat is another man's meat; one man's poison is another man's poison. We are as like to one another as the leaves on the same tree. ”

“ I should call it rare bad luck to be born a king. Either you’ve got to shirk your kingship, and then fair ladies dub you the scandal of Europe; or else you’ve got to accept it, and then you re as happy as a man in a strait-waistcoat. ”

“ V
"You are singularly animated to-night," said Hilary, contemplating him across the dinner-table; "yet, at the same time, singularly abstracted. You have the air of a man who is rolling something pleasant under his tongue, something sweet and secret; it might be a hope, it might be a recollection. Where have you passed the afternoon? You’ve been about some mischief, I’ll warrant. By Jove, you set me thinking. I’ll wager a penny you’ve been having a bit of rational conversation with that brown-haired woman."
"Her hair is red," Ferdinand Augustus rejoined, with firmness. ”

“ See how the big ones elbow the little ones aside; see how fierce they all are in the scramble for your bounty. You wake their most evil passions. But the spectacle is instructive. It’s a miniature presentment of civilisation. Oh, carp are simply brimful of human nature. You mentioned yesterday that they have no human feelings. You put your finger on the chief point of resemblance. It’s the absence of human feeling that makes them so hideously human."
She looked at him with eyes that were interested, amused, yet not altogether without a shade of raillery in their depths. ”

“ How do I know — the modern woman is capable of anything — how do I know that you may not yourself be a smoker? But if you are, it will give you pain to see me enjoying my cigarette, while you are without one. ”

“ People who shut themselves up in an artificial park are fugitives from life. Life begins at the park gates with the natural countryside, and the squalid peasantry, and the sordid farmers, and the Jew money-lenders, and the uncertain crops. ”

“ He is a King Do-Nothing, a Roi Fainéant, who shirks and evades all the duties and responsibilities of his position; who builds extravagant châteaux in remote parts of the country, and hides in them, alone with a few obscure companions; who will never visit his capital, never show his face to his subjects; who takes no sort of interest in public business or the welfare of his kingdom, and leaves the entire government to his ministers; who will not even hold a court, or give balls or banquets ”

“ You said it was a weary one."
"People have sympathies,” she explained;“ and besides, that is a watchword." And she scattered a handful of crumbs, thereby exciting a new commotion among the carp.
Her explanation no doubt struck Ferdinand Augustus as obscure; but perhaps he felt that he scarcely knew her well enough to press for enlightenment. "Let us hope that the fine weather will last," he said, with a polite salutation, and resumed his walk. ”

“ If he travels from one place to another, it is always in the strictest incognito, and those who then chance to meet him never have any reason to suspect that he is not a private person. His very effigy on the coin of the realm is reputed to be false, resembling him in no wise. ”

“ And anyhow, you cannot deny to the situation the merit of being highly ridiculous. A husband and wife who are not personally acquainted! It is a delicious commentary upon the whole system of marriages by proxy. ”