Various

“ The Viking, who accompanied Mark on his moves, was set in a dark oak niche that served for frame and threw him into strong relief.
Still, beneath all the beauty and friendliness of the room, there lurked the same unobtrusively ascetic note that had been more marked in the simpler studio at Inveraig.
So at least thought Maurice Lenox, who lounged smoking in an armchair, wondering, secretly, how Mark could bring himself to leave it all, patriotism or no. He, personally, had found it quite enough of a wrench to shut up his modest rooms in Chelsea—till when? God, or the devil, alone could tell. ”

“ When he reached the bottom everything was quiet except for the roar of Ewan Water and the hum of the approaching bicycle, but pieces of the broken gate lay about the road. Moir raised the lantern and saw a track deeply ploughed through the grass and stones, in front of which the hedge was smashed. Looking down through the gap, he distinguished something in the water. It looked like the wheel of an upset car, but he could not see it well, because the torrent foamed in an angry swirl across what lay below. If the men had not jumped before the plunge, it was too late for help. ”

“ Wynchcombe Friars was a singularly perfect relic of the Tudor period. It rambled, it blossomed into irrelevant gables, it took you to its heart. The lordly spaciousness of an eighteenth-century mansion seemed dull, featureless, by contrast with its individuality, its friendly charm. And of all its beautiful old rooms was none more individual than Mark’s studio, with its oak-panelled walls, deep window-seats and leaded casements that opened upon the sea of pinetops he had described to Bel. ”

“ And downstairs, alone in the drawing-room, Lady Forsyth was playing Grieg’s Temple dance with a fire and fury that brought Keith in from the terrace, startled concern in his eyes.
‘Bless my soul, Helen! Who are you wanting to murder now? The Crown Prince or one of our own super-Solomons?’
‘Neither,’ she answered, crashing out the last double chord. Then, swinging round on the stool she faced him with heightened colour, head in air. ‘It’s Mark’s future wife. And I’m in terror that he’ll want to marry before he goes out. Keith—it’s not only wicked prejudice. I distrust her more than ever. ”

“ One dark and snowy day last winter a distinguished company met in the Old Church at Chelsea to do honour to the memory of Henry James. Once more this January, under the same grey and gloomy skies, with the same war-cloud hanging like a pall over the land, another memorable gathering took place in the ancient riverside shrine, when the last rites were paid to another illustrious Chelsea resident, William De Morgan. ”

“ Mark laughed.
‘Confound your Uncle Michael! You run along and enlist and kill every German you can lay hands to and your composition will take care of itself. A wee bit stiffening’s all you want; and a wee bit taste of red-hot reality will put some backbone into your studio-bred art, that ennobles nothing and nobody and doesn’t even want to make itself understood. ”

“ I firmly believe that Jock is the true fairy-tale hero who marries the princess and lives happily ever afterwards, even as he deserves. But he will always suffer for the suffering of others. He confided to me with shame that certain books brought him inexplicable sensations rather like wanting to cry. ‘It’s a sort of soft spot in my wooden heart,’ he explained. All alone in the ward he would solace himself by singing Burns’s songs—with tears in his eyes. ”

“ I beat a hurried retreat, noticing as I did so the kit and beds of a whole company, neatly rolled up for the day, lying in the shadow of the low marble railing. But this was in May; since then there are fewer Royalist troops tucked away in the heart of Salonica.
The furthermost great church—my favourite among all those the minarets showed me—was the round fortresslike St. George, built in the third century. It stands near the Arch of Galerius—the Roman arch of triumph now resounding to the clang of the British army motor-lorries. ”

“ The growl of Ewan Water, brawling among the stones, rose from the valley and the wind whistled eeriely through the chinks in the dyke. For a time he heard nothing else, and then a faint throbbing began and grew louder. A big car, without lights, was travelling dangerously fast along the fellside, and as it came near Moir stood in the gateway holding up his lantern. He heard a warning shout and a rattle of stones as the locked wheels skidded, and the half-seen car stopped a few yards off. Moir turned the light upon the two men in it. ”

“ Often I said to myself in fear for him, ‘Whom the orderlies love die young’—for the orderlies adored Jock, but the adapted proverb did not come true, for he is walking about now and ‘enjoying life fine to make up for all the months in bed—not that I suffered so much at all, Nurse.’
This is a happy story, but we saw sad ones.
Death is just an incident in hospital life. Alas! one sometimes forgets that it is all-important to the dying. A household seems to hold its breath when somebody dies; a ward continues its automatic routine. ”

“ There was the glamour of night on the big city, mighty buildings silhouetted against a sky of dark luminous blue, towers that divided the stars, and far below in the street the ruby and topaz lights of the road-menders, with the glowing brazier of the night-watchman. And then dawn came with its chilling wind and its grey cheerless light that discovered, without love or pity, the sordid things of town—the dirty canal, the barges, the heaps of timber, the ugly money-making warehouses and factories. ”

“ It’s just on the cards that this war—when we’re through with it—may give us an altogether saner and more robust revival of art that will spring naturally from a more robust conception of life: an art that will genuinely reflect the spirit of the age, as Michael Angelo reflects the Renaissance. Our present age of machinery and money-getting has precious little spirit to reflect. ”

“ A wonderful mellow tone pervades the great interior, where the one spot of brilliant colour is the gold flag of the Double Empire, which holds the eagles of the East and West aloft.
Alas, that modern Greece should have St. Demetrius in its clutches! The Turks at least left the marbles much as they found them. The Greeks have written their recent triumph in huge black letters right across the apse; October 1912—there is no escaping that or the monstrous Austrian stove—another claimant for the double eagles, which stretches its ugly arms over the nave. ”

“ You can thank your stars you’re a man. It’s the women given that way who’ll have the devil’s own time of it. My mother’s one, worse luck; and it’ll come hard on her—when I’m gone.’
Maurice ventured no comment on a subject so poignantly intimate as Lady Forsyth’s anxiety for her one remaining son; nor did Mark seem to expect any. He took a few pulls at his pipe, then reverted to generalities.
‘Don’t write me down an unfeeling brute, Maurice,’ he said with his friendly smile. ‘War’s the roughest game on earth and we’ve got to be a bit rough with ourselves if we’re to play it to any purpose. ”

“ It was understood that if one was asked to tea anywhere the other must go too. With Jock Alfred was known to be ‘all right.’ So things went happily until the inevitable parting. Jock was sent to a Red Cross hospital almost at a moment’s notice. Alfred was inconsolable; he wandered, red-eyed, forlorn, piteously incoherent, from ward to ward, searching vaguely and vainly for his chum. He shed bitter childlike tears, while Jock, for his part, suffered for Alfred’s trouble and his own. Such is the pathos of hospital. Later, Alfred was sent to the Scottish hospital of which mention has been made. ”

“ The time is seven bells in the afternoon watch, and in the wardroom of one of His Majesty’s battle-cruisers a yawning marine servant with tousled hair and not too conspicuously clean a face is clattering cups and saucers at regular intervals round the two long tables which are the most obvious objects to be seen. Although it is a bright summer’s day on deck, the electric lights are lit, the wardroom skylights are battened down, and the heavy bomb-proof shutters pulled into position. ”

“ Very soon afterwards the orderlies came with a stretcher and the Union Jack for pall, and so the old man left us. His body went to the mortuary, and his soul—surely, ‘his soul goes marching on.’ And all the time the other men slept like weary children. Only Harman sat up, still awake and watchful in his terrible nervous tension.
Hospital is a world to itself, and those outside know little of it; so one often thought, when visitors expressed surprise that we all seemed cheerful. Of course we were not all cheerful or always cheerful. The cheerfulness of the Tommy is a composite thing. ”

“ I understand,’ Mark rejoined, setting his teeth on the stem of his pipe.
But he did not seem disposed to enlarge on his understanding of his private feelings; and Maurice, whose mixed emotions were clamouring for expression, went on: ‘Mere funk would at least give one something to tackle and overcome. It’s this cursed inferno going on inside one’s head that does the damage. And the beastly thing seems quite independent of one’s thoughts or attention. Just keeps on automatically at the back of my brain. Even when I’m reading or talking, I can hear those infernal guns and shells. ”

“ And I don’t think,’ she made bold to add, ‘that Mark would be quite pleased if he heard you.’
‘He would probably bite my head off,’ Lady Forsyth answered, taking the wind out of her sails. ‘And if you want to make him angry with me, you can tell him what I have said. I should say just the same if he were present. Mark and I are in complete accord, however much we squabble. He knows my bark is worse than my bite: and you’ll soon know it too, Bel. So don’t let’s write in brass what is meant to be writ in water. We shall gain nothing by making Mark our apple of discord. ”

“ During the night, that best test of the morale of a fleet, a destroyer attack, was carried out by the British with marked success; but there was no retaliation on the part of the Germans. They had had enough and more than enough.
At 10.30 P.M. a group of stiff and wearied officers left the top and made for the wardroom to get some food. The forsaken afternoon tea was still standing as it had been left on the table, and, lying about on chairs, sofas and settees, were men too wearied even to desire to eat. ”

“ THE ROMANCE OF THE BARBER.
‘We’re much too early, John. I said we should be. There’s not a sign of a bass.’ I lifted the sail and peered across the shining water.
‘Nought’s lost by bein’ in time, sir,’ said the old boatman. ‘They’ll sport with the flood. And there be another boat over there. Mr. Harris and his little boy.’
‘He never misses these early tides,’ I said. ‘I suppose they just suit him. He can have his sport before he has to open his shop. He’s pretty venturesome to come out here by himself. ”

“ There is a want of the proper spirit; if a nation would flourish (politically speaking) there must be a desire in the breast of each man of something more than merely to live—he must desire to live well; and if men cannot live well at home they will go and live well elsewhere. The condition upon which a country circumstanced as ours is exists, is that it should become the Mother of Empires, and this Mr. W. Horton feels, but his plans are not extensive or universal enough. I had a conversation with him, but could not make him enter into my views. ”

“ F. Is it not moreover true, Sir, that we should show ourselves really a Mother and not a Stepmother to those Empires which we found? We should with a nursing hand lead them through the dangers of infancy; but why keep them in leading strings when they are able to act for themselves? We should relax our hold by slow degrees as they are able to bear it, and nurture them to be free and manly states, and not the slaves of any, still less of their own Mother. What Mother ever complains of the ingratitude of her Son because he does not follow at her apron-strings all the days of his life? ”

“ If she were right, if Bel were really suffering, the door of hope might still be ajar. Meantime there was his speech; for which he had made comprehensive notes; there were convictions and appeals that he must drive home to the hearts of his hearers; and while he sat smoking in silence beside Keith—who drove the car—words full of vigour and fire came crowding into his brain—
When at length he stood on the platform waiting for his clamorous welcome to subside, the flame of his own conviction burnt away all nervousness, all dread of failure ”

“ Why then do we complain of America, who with greater justice might complain of us that we have been far from remembering one great duty, namely that a Mother if need be should even sacrifice herself for her child? ”

“ Mark, divided between sympathy and amusement, had watched her holding herself in, till the assertive voice of Mrs. Melrose created a diversion and dubious murmurs were drowned in a flood of propositions for the local housing of Belgians and the conversion of Wendover Court into a luxurious hospital for officers.
‘You, Lady Forsyth, with this heavenly place, ought to specialise on convalescents or nerve-cases’—Mrs. Melrose dearly loved making other people’s plans—‘If we all take a distinctive line, there’ll be no muddle or overlapping. ”