Various

“ Whatever be said of Meredith’s faults, a serious reading of his verse cannot but persuade one that he is a poet who is distinctly virile and worth while. Though much that he has written may have the mark of mortality, there is much also that wears the amaranthine wreath of eternal life, either for beauty of phrase or for profundity of philosophic truth.
[128]
THOMAS HARDY.
Genius proves itself as much by the tenacity of its taste for one handicraft as by anything else; it evidences itself not so much in versatility as in volume. ”

“ Those who met the little procession, saw first of all Estrella, whose timidity kept her eyes fixed on the ground, and, impressed with the sentimentality and sublimity of her blushing innocence, they looked up to see Doña Luz, full of artlessness and enviable tranquility, showing her face like one who had nothing to fear from malice; and finally, willing or unwilling, were compelled to meet the running fire which darted from the eyes of Doña Sol—eyes that in the street did not look upon you face to face, but slyly as if they did not wish to see. ”

“ Some of her ill-natured detractors had even said that there was reason to doubt the sex of Doña Elena, as she might as easily be a beardless man in disguise as a bearded woman.
Now that we have described the widow, if not as she really was, at least as she was known to the world, we will speak of her daughters. They did not resemble the widow in the least. They were young, nineteen, eighteen, and seventeen, and were all prodigies of beauty. They were called Sol, Luz, and Estrella, and with the dark clouds of Doña Elena’s ugliness, formed a heaven on earth. ”

“ The night was clear and cool, the breeze soft and even, it was cosy under the awning and it was very pleasant and very novel to have a [30] woman so interested in himself. He was silent a moment, his elbows on his knees, leaning forward on the camp-stool on which he sat. The tiny ripples swished under the counter as the yacht swung on her cable. A banjo twanged on a vessel somewhere near, a military band was playing a native air in one of the plazas by the water-front, the lights danced on the surface of the bay, and the kitten purred. ”

“ Grusha replied without enthusiasm.
Anna Evauovna looked at the girl’s stolid face, and laughed aloud.
“But you have lost one thing that you can not get back, Grusha. You can never again wonder if Ivan is going to be faithful. An unsatisfied wish is a fine thing to have, my child.”
She walked off still laughing, leaving Grusha puzzled and vexed. At the corner the old woman met the bridegroom and gave him greeting also.
“What a man you are, Ivan, to keep a girl faithful to you in all those months. Were you not surprised at finding Grusha unmarried?” ”

“ Come, child, Grusha will marry whom God wills, and meantime, let her have rope. All is for the best. Did Grusha know Ivan faithful to her, she would not have this curiosity which makes her wish to wait and see how he will act when he finds her waiting. Meantime, Alioscha is the best singer and dancer in the village. And what could the village have to talk of but for her behavior? For your part, eat, drink, sleep on the top of the stove at night, and work by day. Let each hold up his share of the burden, and all will go well.”
Masha listened, sighed, and assented. ”

“ And they would ask themselves if such a horrible looking monster could really have given birth to such beautiful daughters.
In spite of all that was said about them, the influence of their charms brought many daring wooers to the street inhabited by Doña Elena, and the sounds of the guitar, and voices filled with deep emotion chanting their sweet love songs, could frequently be heard there, yet no one of these nocturnal troubadours could pride himself upon having noticed the smallest opening of a window or balcony in the dwelling of these bewitching women. ”

“ Anna Evauovna, peering through the leaves, could see it all. Alioscha, as eager in his welcome to the wanderer as Grusha herself, was now dancing merrily also, and Masha was his happy partner. Her kerchief had fallen back, leaving her good-natured, round face unframed, and exposing the line of white forehead which had been protected from the sun. She was a pretty picture.
The dance grew wilder, the voices louder, the stamping and clapping more vehement. The musician on the table shouted [12] more lustily as he danced himself, now on one foot, now on the other, all over the table-top. ”

“ It was something to have even that secret between himself and Milly.
After gun-fire no boat is allowed to move about Rio harbor or bay without a formal signed, sealed and stamped permit from the authorities. All night the half dozen fussy little steam-launches of the water-police are shooting about on the dark water, cutting flashing ripples through the trails of light which the shore lights shed over the bay and probing the pitchy shadows with stiletto flashes of their search-lights. ”

“ But the next day, Anna Evauovna was able, or willing, to relieve Masha’s anxiety.
“She takes Ivan, and they are to be married in a week. Both get what they want and have waited long for. Now we shall see what we shall see,” said Anna Evauovna grimly.
Ten days later, as Anna Evauovna walked through the village, she stopped at the door of the isba belonging to Ivan’s parents. There in the doorway sat Grusha, the bride, peeling potatoes for the evening meal, as unmoved and uninterested as if she had been peeling potatoes in Ivan’s doorway for years. ”

“ Under the transparent veil of the drooping branches of the weeping willow, no breath could reach it. The St. Jacques had the air of a little potentate in repose, under a canopy of verdure. If papa had not forbidden me to get in the little boat, it would have been delightful to read my ‘Swiss Family Robinson’ out upon the water. Sitting in the bow, leaning against the mast, one might imagine one’s self on an island. But then, that which is forbidden one can not prevent from being forbidden.”
“I tried at first to think of nothing but frogs. ”

“ One regrets the publication of “Wessex Poems,” for it reveals the character of a great writer in an unfortunate and belittling light; to reconstruct one’s impression of his power and personality one feels the need of reopening one of his most delightful books, such as “The Woodlanders,” to breathe its good smells of Mother Earth, and under its domination as an exquisite pastoral production find there, and not in “Wessex Poems,” Thomas Hardy, the poet. ”

“ Njania is not to be fooled by a Grusha. Ah, but she is a girl of wits, is Grusha, and so smooth to see. In still waters, devils thrive, remember that, Masha.”
[8]
Masha’s lip quivered.
“But if she does not love Ivan, Njania, she may marry Alioscha.”
“Perhaps, who knows! It takes a wise man to tell the future, and a wiser yet to tell a girl’s mind.”
“And she will surely marry Alioscha if Ivan has forgotten her by the time he comes back,” added Masha more piteously. ”

“ Grusha thinks Ivan will marry her when he comes back from the war.”
“Then why does she keep Alioscha waiting and sticking to her like a wet leaf?” cried Masha passionately. “It is wicked, Njania, if she loves Ivan.”
“Who said she loved Ivan!” answered Anna Evauovna drily. “Do all girls love some one?” ”

“ As he could do nothing more, he had to resign himself to fate, trusting that an accident might bring about better luck. He went to church the next day, but without meeting her. Thus he passed four days, always preoccupied, sleeping very little, and eating still less, when one morning, returning from mass, and passing down Las Infantas street, he heard a woman’s voice, and raising his eyes, could not restrain an exclamation of surprise and joy, for there on the balcony was the bewitching brunette, leaning out to call after a man who was just leaving the house. ”

“ The dinner—a truly marvelous production at the price—was eaten with avidity by the younger men, who were not used to such luxury every day, and with a good-natured tolerance by Monsieur Rousseau, the Master, and those few of the guests who had been born with silver spoons in their mouths, or whose feet were, by their own creditable endeavors, firmly planted on the highroad which leads to fame and fortune. ”

“ One sees men and women then. A man does not care so much to live in one place after he sees the world. But we shall get on nicely, I suppose.”
Anna Evauovna walked on, her wrinkled old face all puckered with laughter.
“That is what comes of what one waits and wearies for,” she said to herself.
[14]
As she passed the hedge, behind which she had watched Ivan’s home-coming, she heard two voices on the other side, and paused to listen. A man and a woman were talking earnestly together.
“But you know it was you I always loved, Masha,” said the deeper tones. It was Alioscha speaking. ”

“ They rowed past the ends of the long piers, all black with shouting men in long lines, each with a sack of coffee on his head, or hurrying back for another. Then they bumped through a pack of boats of all kinds and Henderson stepped out upon the worn and mortarless stones. Joao nodded and was off without any exchange of money. The morning was a very beautiful one and this was the landing most frequented always. At the top of the steps John paused in a whirl of feelings. Before him stood Millicent Wareham in a very pretty yachting suit, and she was accompanied only by her maid. ”

“ DOÑA ELENA, DOÑA LUZ, DOÑA ESTRELLA.
Never, either in the times when the Spaniards were ruled by a King who was the best of cavaliers and worst of poets—yet still a poet—a King who paid too much attention to pretty women, and none whatever to affairs of state,—nor yet up to the present time, has any one known or hoped to know the history of the famous Elena and her three daughters who have acquired a fame scarcely inferior to her own. ”

“ Look for yourself, Masha. The queen of spades, emblem of all that is bad, lies across him, and thus it is easy to see that he is worrying about the dark [7] woman, your rival. Once more I will lay the cards. Now see; the king of diamonds is thinking of a journey and of home. The dark woman is restless, she thinks of the king of diamonds, and then of the king of clubs. ”

“ Milly and Jack regarded the place as their own special domain. The house belonged to Milly’s father and they were left to enjoy the garden unwatched and undisturbed. Because their fathers were partners in business they had made up their minds to marry when they grew up and they announced their intention with the preternatural seriousness of a boy of five and a girl of three. As they were really fond of each other they never wearied of being together and as a part of their precocious program they cared nothing for other playmates. ”

“ But while this is true of passages and poems, it is not true of all his poems. There is much in his volumes of verse that state distinctly his philosophical principles. The ground-work of Mr. Meredith’s philosophy is the worth of nature as distinct from the artificial institutions of man. In nature pure exists the true temple of wisdom; it is the tribunal whereat all knowledge and sentiment must finally receive its endorsement or its condemnation. In nature we open the real book of life. ”

“ After all, what we want is feeling; the thousand intricacies of form we do not need or desire; give us the general effects and our spirit transfigures them. Give us figures, incidents and scenes in vague and poetic mass, and the most delightful and thrilling emotions are aroused. ”

“ To the man or woman of acute sight, who sees everything far or near without the necessity of optical aids, and to whom all surroundings are definite and clear, and who recalls the fellow-being who must either wear glasses or grope and stumble and be uncertain of environment, it would appear nonsense to say that there is a happiness in being nearsighted. And yet in a certain form of nearsightedness there are sources of delight which even the man of perfect sight never knows. ”

“ The world likes a criticism in little, a nut-shell verdict, something of intellectual color that can readily be memorized for dinner-table parlance, the vague generalization that conceals the specific ignorance. Macaulay’s “rough pistolling ways and stamping emphasis,” Scott’s “bastard epic style,” and the conception of Shelley as “a beautiful and ineffectual angel beating in the void his luminous wings in vain” have thus come to be solemn verities with many who care more to talk literature than to read it. ”

“ Our Jacques is brave in many ways, as you well know; he has really only one fear,—that of contact with cold water. Well, that will pass in time, as he grows older.’
“‘Time! time!’ returned my father, ‘time passes, but not our defects, when, instead of correcting them, we leave them alone, or envelop them in cotton. Sister Marie, do not change my boy into a little girl.’
“‘Your son,’ responded aunt Marie, ‘is as yet neither a boy nor a girl: he is an angel, and you ought to be glad of it.’
“‘Glad!’ replied my father. ”

“ But curiosity is never hindered by obstacles and is perhaps more tenacious than love itself, and so sometimes the lovers and sometimes inquisitive outsiders attempted to bribe the servants of the widow, but succeeded only in learning that there are some servants who are incorruptible. Yet their attempts did not stop there, for the slyest of all found some means of entering into relationship with the only three persons who visited the widow, that is, the Dominican friar, the Knight of Santiago, and the lame, one-eyed captain. ”