Robert W. Chambers

“ I said smilingly: "To quote the gentleman you think important enough to quote, Athalie, 'Tout est bien sortant des mains de l'Auteur des choses: tout dégénere entre les mains de l'homme.'"
Said the novelist simply: "Imagination alone makes facts important. 'Cette superbe puissance, ennemie de la raison!'"
"O Athalie," whispered Duane, "night-blooming, exquisite blossom of the arid municipal desert, recount for us these facts which you possess and which, in your delightful opinion, are stranger than fiction, and more important." ”

“ And the place swarmed with human beings from all over the United States, lured from inclement climes, into the land of the orange and the palm—wistfully seeking in the land of advertised perpetual sunshine what the restless world has never yet discovered anywhere—surcease from care, from longing, from the unkindliness of its fellow seekers.
Dowdiness filled the veranda rocking chairs; unlovely hands were folded; faded eyes gazed vacantly at the white road, at the oranges; enviously at the flashing wheels and fluttering lingerie from the great Hotel Verbena. ”

“ In the blue starlight people passed and re-passed like ghosts along the shell-road—the white summer gowns of young girls were constantly appearing in the dusk, taking vague shape, vanishing. On the lagoon, a guitar sounded very far away. The suave scent of oleander grew sweeter.
Spectral groups passed in clinging lingerie; here and there a ghost lingered to lean over the coquina wall, her lost gaze faintly accented by some level star. One of these, a slender young thing, paused near to Brown, resting gracefully against the wall. ”

“ These and other phenomena made her drop her paddle at intervals and clap her hands softly in an ecstasy beyond mere exclamation. How restfully green was the world; how limpid the water; how royally blue the heavens! Listening, she could hear the soft stirring of palmetto fronds in the forests; the celestial song of a little bird that sat on a sparkle-berry bush, its delicate long-curved bill tilted skyward. Then the deep note of splendour flashed across the scheme of sound and colour as a crimson cardinal alighted near her, crest erect. ”

“ Jones smiled; and she thought his expression very attractive.
"No," he said, "fame crowns the man who, celebrated only for his wealth, names hotels, tug-boats, and art galleries after himself. Thus are Immortals made."
She laughed, standing there gracefully as a boy, her hands resting on her narrow hips. She laughed again. A tug-boat, a hotel, and a cigar were named after her father.
"Fame is an extraordinary thing," she said. "But liberty is still more wonderful, isn't it?"
"Liberty is only comparative," he said, smiling. "There is really no such thing as absolute freedom." ”

“ She was so straight and slender and pretty in her white flannels and white outing hat—her attitude so confident, so charmingly determined, that she seemed to him even younger than she really was—a delightful, illogical, fresh and fearless school-girl, translated by some flash of magic from her school hither, and set down unruffled and unstartled upon her light, white-shod feet. ”

“ The smoke and turmoil of battle still confused Smith's brain; visualisation of wall and tower and crowns and ermines made the Lady Alene's fresh, wholesome beauty very unreal to him for a moment or two.
When his eyes found their focus and his mind returned to actuality, he climbed to his feet, hat in hand, and made his manners to her. Then, tumbling books and pads from the other camp-chair, he reseated himself with a half smiling, half shamed glance at her, and a "May I?" to which she responded, "Please! And might I talk to you for a few moments?" ”

“ And so the Orange Puppy sailed away into the viewless, formless, starry mystery of all romance.
After a silence the young novelist, who had been poking the goldfish, said slowly: "That's pretty poor fiction, Athalie, but, as a matter of simple fact and inartistic truth, recording sentimental celerity, it stands unequalled."
"Straight facts make poor fiction," remarked Duane.
"It all depends on who makes the fiction out of them," I ventured.
"Not always," said Athalie. "There are facts which when straightly told are far stranger than fiction. ”

“ She laughed, dropped her cigarette into a silver bowl, stretched her arms above her head, straightened her slender figure, turned her head and looked at us.
"No," she said, "I do not wish to know. Light is swift; Thought is swifter; but Love is the swiftest thing in Life, and if it is now travelling toward me, it will strike me soon enough to suit me."
Stafford leaned forward and arranged the cushions for her; she sank back among them, her dark eyes still on us.
"Hours are slow," she said; "years are slower, but the slowest thing in Life is Love. ”

“ Her dainty head a trifle on one side, she looked over his shoulder as he unfolded the map for her.
"Here," he said, plucking a dead grass stem and tracing the Causeway on the map, "here lie my lots—including, as you see, the spot marked by Valdez with a Maltese cross.... I'm sorry; but how in the world could you have made your mistake?"
He turned to glance at the girl and saw her amazement and misunderstood it.
"It's too bad," he added, feeling profoundly sorry for her.
"Do you know," she said in a voice quivering with emotion, "that a very terrible thing has happened to us?" ”

“ Listless, uninterested, Britishly enduring what she could not escape, the little Lady Alene had made not the slightest effort to mitigate the circumstances of her temporary fate. She was civilly incurious concerning the people she met; their social customs, amusements, pastimes, duties, various species of business or of leisure interested her not a whit. All the men looked alike to her; all the women were over-gowned, tiresomely pretty, and might learn one day how to behave themselves after they had found out how to make their voices behave. ”

“ And you know it, Williams!"
"I think it depends on the individual man," said Williams timidly.
"How?"
"If there's any romance in a man himself, he's apt to find the world rather full of it."
"Do you mean to say there isn't any romance in me?" demanded George Z. Green hotly.
"I don't know, George. Is there?"
"Plenty. Pl-en-ty! I'm always looking for romance. I look for it when I go down town to business; I look for it when I go home. Do I find it? No! Nothing ever happens to me. Nothing beautiful and wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice ever tries to pick me up. ”

“ Your devotion to the details of your art, your endless patience, your almost austere absorption in truth and realism, have not only astounded me but have entirely convinced me. The greatest thing in the world is Truth. Now I realise it!"
She made a pretty gesture of enthusiasm:
"What a wonderful nation of young men is [88] yours, Mr. Smith! What qualities! What fearlessness—initiative—idealism—daring—! What invention, what recklessness, what romance——"
Her voice failed her; she sat with lips parted, a soft glow in her cheeks, gazing upon Smith with fascinated eyes. ”

“ Here was liberty at last! No pursuit need now be feared, for the entrance to this paradise [29] which she had forced by a chance impulse could never be suspected by parent or fiancé.
A little breeze blew her hair and loosened it; silently her paddle dipped, swept astern in a swirl of bubbles, flashed dripping, and dipped again.
Ahead of her a snake-bird slipped from a dead branch into the water; a cormorant perched on the whitened skeleton of a mango, made hideous efforts to swallow a mullet before her approach disorganized his manœuvres. ”

“ The Lady Alene turned her head where it lay lazily pillowed on her left arm, and glanced indifferently at the multi-coloured battlement of books. The majority of the covers were embellished with the heads of young women, all endowed with vaudeville-like beauty—it having been discovered by intelligent publishers that a girl's head on any book sells it. ”

“ His ear-tips still burned.
"No doubt," said the girl, "many of the astonishing things you Americans write about are really done. Many astounding episodes in fiction are of not uncommon occurrence in real life."
"What kind of episodes?" asked Smith gravely.
"Why, any of them you write about. They all are astonishing enough. For example, your young men do not seem to know what fear is."
"No," said Smith, "they don't."
"And when they love," said the girl, "nothing can stop them." ”

“ With the aid of his toy shovel, his little red pail, and several assorted shells, he had constructed out of sand a walled city. Houses, streets, squares, market place, covered ways, curtain, keep, tower, turret, crenelated battlement, all were there. A driftwood drawbridge bridged the moat, guarded by lead soldiers in Boznovian uniform.
And lead soldiers were everywhere in the miniature city; the keep bristled with their bayonets; squads of them marched through street and square; they sat at dinner in the market place; their cannon winked and blinked in the westering sun on every battlement. ”

“ For a while the baggage master fussed about the car, sorting out packages for Ormond; then, courteously inquiring whether he could do anything for them, and learning that he could not, he went forward into his own den, leaving Marie Wiltz and George Z. Green alone in a baggage car dimly illumined by a small and smoky lamp.
Being well-bred young people, they broke the tension of the situation gracefully and naturally, pretending to find it amusing to travel in a milk train to a fashionable southern resort. ”

“ When the tip of her cigarette glowed rosy in the pearl-tinted gloom, the shadowy circle at her feet drew a little nearer.
"This is the story of Valdez," she said. "Listen attentively, you who hunger!"
On the first day it rained torrents; the light was very dull in the galleries; fashion kept away. Only a few monomaniacs braved the weather, left dripping mackintoshes and umbrellas in the coat room, and spent the dull March morning in mousing about among the priceless treasures on view to those who had cards of admission. ”

“ Little by little the young man became intensely interested, then absorbed. And after a while the colour came into his face; he glanced nervously around him; suppressed excitement made his hands unsteady as he unfolded the enclosed map.
From time to time he referred to the map as he read; the rain roared on the glass roof; the light grew dimmer and dimmer.
At five o'clock the galleries closed for the day. And that evening, sitting in his hall-bedroom, White made up his mind that he must buy "The Journal of Valdez" if it took every penny that remained to him. ”

“ And so, before it entirely realised the honour in store for it, the United States was buttoning its collar, tying its white tie, and rushing down stairs to open its front door to the Duke of Pillchester, the Duchess of Pillchester, and the Lady Alene Innesly, their youthful and ornamental daughter.
For a number of months after its arrival, the Ducal party inspected the Yankee continent through a lens made for purposes of scientific investigation only. The massed wealth of the nation met their Graces in solid divisions of social worth. ”

“ From where she stood she could see a cove—merely a tiny crescent of sand edged by a thin blade of cobalt water, and curtained by the palmetto forest. And on this little crescent beach, in the shade of the palms, a young man lay at full length, very intent upon his occupation, which was, apparently, to dig holes in the sand with a child's toy shovel.
He was clad in white flannels; beside him she noticed a red tin pail, such as children use for gathering shells. Near this stood two camp-chairs, one of which was piled with pads of yellow paper and a few books. She thought his legs very eloquent. ”

“ And everywhere in the sunshine stretched the flat-woods, magnificently green—endless miles of pine and oak and palmetto, set with brilliant glades of vast, flat fields of wild phlox over which butterflies hovered.
At Verbena Station he disembarked with his luggage, which consisted of a complete tropical camping outfit, tinned food, shot-gun, rifle, rods, spade, shovel, pick, crow. In his hand he carried an innocent looking satchel, gingerly. It contained dynamite in sticks, and the means to explode it safely.
To a hackman he said: "I'm not going to any hotel. ”