Warwick Deeping

“ Uther leant forward in his chair, and looked earnestly into the other's face.
"I too am a proud man in my trouble," he said, "buck-ling up unutterable things from the baseness of the world, jealous of my inward miseries. Yet when I see a strong man and a friend chained with the iron of a silent woe, I cannot keep my sympathy in leash, so tell him to unburden to a man whose pride feels for the pride of others."
The words seemed to stir Gorlois from his lethargy of reserve and silence. ”

“ A great stairway ran to the river from the southern terrace that blazed in summer with flower-filled urns and stacks of roses that overspread the balustrade with crimson flame. It was a place of dawns and sunsets; of lights rising amber in the east over purple hills and amethystine waters; of quiet glows at evening in the West, with cypresses and yews carven in ebony against primrose skies; while in the burgeoning of the year birds made the thickets deep with melody ”

“ I could hew down a horse, and thrust my spear through a pine trunk. A man's face is a fallacy."
Uther saw the scars, the harsh smile, and caught the twinge in the seemingly careless voice. He could comprehend some humiliation in the marring of personal comeliness but not the humiliation that seemed to lurk deep beneath Gorlois's pride. ”

“ There had been a council of state in the King's hall, a great assembling of the noble folk and prelatry, to consider the need of Britain, the cry of the martyred and the homeless from Kentlands and the east. Anderida, that great city of the southern shores, had fallen in a tempest of fire and sword; no single soul had escaped from its smoking walls ”