Anstruthers

“ When later she was told that her sister had become engaged to Sir Nigel Anstruthers, a flame of colour flashed over her face, she stared silently a moment, then bit her lip and burst into tears.
“Well, Bett,” exclaimed Rosalie, “you are the queerest thing I ever saw.”
Bettina's tears were an outburst, not a flow. She swept them away passionately with her small handkerchief.
“He'll do something awful to you,” she said. “He'll nearly kill you. I know he will. I'd rather be dead myself.” ”

“ To sit by a window and watch the kaleidoscopic human tide passing by on its way to its pleasure, to reach its work, to spend its money in unending shops, to show itself and its equipage in the park, was a wonderful thing to Lady Anstruthers. It all seemed to be a part of the life and quality of Betty, little Betty, whom she had remembered only as a child, and who had come to her a tall, strong young beauty, who had—it was resplendently clear—never known a fear in her life, and whose mere personality had the effect of making fears seem unreal. ”

“ The vicar lifted his bowed head and began his service. Every man, woman and child before him responded aloud and with a curious fervour—not in decorous fear of seeming to thrust themselves before the throne, making too much of their petitions, in the presence of the gentry. Here and there sobs were to be heard. Lady Anstruthers followed the service timorously and with tears. But Betty, kneeling at her side, by the round table in the centre of the great square Stornham pew, which was like a room, bowed her head upon her folded arms, and prayed her own intense, insistent prayer. ”

“ Betty made a slight movement, and in her face there was a dawning of mingled amazement and incredulity. The thought which had come to her seemed—as Ughtred's locking of the door had seemed—too wild for modern days.
Lady Anstruthers saw her expression and understood it. She made a hopeless gesture with her small, bony hand.
“Yes,” she said, “it is just like that. No one would believe it. The worst cleverness of the things he does, is that when one tells of them, they sound like lies. I have a bewildered feeling that I should not believe them myself if I had not seen them. ”

“ Bettina sat upon the edge of the balustrade and touched the hair with light fingers, ruffling it a little becomingly.
“If you had worn it like this yesterday,” she said, “I should have known you.”
“Should you, Betty? I never look into a mirror if I can help it, but when I do I never know myself. The thing that stares back at me with its pale eyes is not Rosy. But, of course, everyone grows old.”
“Not now! People are just discovering how to grow young instead.”
Lady Anstruthers looked into the clear courage of her laughing eyes. ”

“ See how she can manage a man, when she chooses to take the trouble; see how little she cares for the fine speeches that would influence other women. See her dance, hear her sing, and you will begin to understand her. A fellow can never tire of her, for she is everything she has the whim to be, and she is everything equally well.”
“So she is, Heaven knows,” Hector Anstruthers muttered, bitterly, looking across the room at her, as she stood talking to Colonel Esmond. ”

“ Of all this Betty only knew the outward signs which, taken at their exterior significance, were detestable enough, and drove her hard as she mentally dwelt on them in connection with other things. How easy, if she stood alone, to defy his evil insolence to do its worst, and leaving the place at an hour's notice, to sail away to protection, or, if she chose to remain in England, to surround herself with a bodyguard of the people in whose eyes his disrepute relegated a man such as Nigel Anstruthers to powerless nonentity. ”

“ Lisbeth followed her with an amused wonder at her enthusiasm, mingled with discontent at her own indifference. It was she who ought to have been in raptures, and she was not in raptures at all. Had she no natural feeling whatever? Any other woman would have felt a sentimental tenderness for the place which had been her earliest home.
They had found a comfortable nook behind a cluster of sheltering rocks, and were sitting on the sand, when Lisbeth arrived at this stage of thought. The place was an old haunt of hers, and Hector Anstruthers had often followed her there in their boy and girl days ”

“ Anstruther. It was decided that she must spend the winter abroad.
Mr. Anstruther, when he went down to Westfield to make the necessary arrangements, not unnaturally told his story to the rector (an old gentleman) , who showed little surprise.
‘Really I had managed to piece out for myself very much what must have happened, partly from old people’s talk and partly from what I saw in your grounds. Of course we have suffered to some extent also. Yes, it was bad at first: like owls, as you say, and men talking sometimes. ”

“ And Miss Anstruther by no means confined herself to rejecting mere boys.
The moths that singed themselves at this flame were of every variety. They would have made a rare collection under glass, with pins through them; Miss Anstruther herself would have inspected them thus with the liveliest interest. Her detractors also could have enjoyed themselves at such an exhibition. But the more generous spirits among them—those who had been young and attractive too long ago to pretend to be either still—might have found there some slight excuse for Miss Anstruther. ”

“ I am pretty bad, and so are some of the others; but outside of hell itself there is no black-hearted scoundrel as bad as you."
The man's voice fairly vibrated with passion; but Anstruther lounged back in his chair with the air of a man who has just received a high compliment. He was a man who loved power. He liked to feel that he could pull the strings and move the actions of other men even when they fought desperately against his iron determination. ”

“ Anstruther,—Our new address is Galgenberg, Jena,—rather grim, but what's in a name? The thing itself is perfect. It is a tiny house, white, with green shutters, on the south slope of the hill among apple-trees. ”

“ I will go to a watering-place,—my beard does not grow out as it ought—that is also a sickness—and one must have a beard! Now you be wise and accept the offer; we shall travel as comrades!"
And so they travelled; the shadow was master, and the master was the shadow; they drove with each other, they rode and walked together, side by side, before and behind, just as the sun was; the shadow always took care to keep itself in the master's place. ”

“ Your brain is as good as his, and you have all the courage of all your ancestors. In more ways than one you are like him who prompted the old bishop to cry, ‘Sit fast, Lord God, or Rudolf will occupy thy throne!’ Times are times, but I don’t believe that all your talents were given to you for no purpose. ”

“ It ought not, therefore, to be without a respectful admiration that we find the masters of the fourteenth century dwelling on moments of the most subdued and tender feeling, and leaving the spectator to trace the under-currents of thought which link them with future events of mightier interest, and fill with a prophetic power and mystery scenes in themselves so simple as the meeting of a master with his herdsmen among the hills, or the return of a betrothed virgin to her house. ”

“ And, after all, how many who have considered themselves to be antagonists must, during a moment of solemn reflection, become convinced that, when toiling in the great workshop of the world, they have been engaged, in unconscious fraternity, in building up the same fabric! ”

“ Thou errest, thou errest, my son, if it is another life that thou lookest for. Shall the disciple be above his master, and the servant greater than his Lord? Since, then, I have suffered in the flesh, arm thyself too with the same thought, and rather he glad than sorry if thou art deemed worthy to suffer reproach for my Name. ”

“ There is no end in talking with you ; you outdo me in words, but I do not think victory consists in them. If you have a mind to it, let us each of us try what we can do. Do you make verses with me. Come, do not stand shivering and shaking, nor shilly-shally ; I am ready for you ; then it will appear whether of us gets the better. Th. I like it very well. Come on, let us try. But, Mistress Poetess, do you begin first. Ba. These are verses that I have often repeated in the presence of very learned men, and not without the great admiration of all of them. ”

“ The stumbling-block at the outset that turned the unfaithful servant aside was his conception of the Lord as a hard master: it is the experience of the master’s love that impels the servant forward in the path of duty. ”

“ ACT IV. SCENE I—A Chamber in Lady Allworth's House. Lovell and Allworth discovered.
Lov. 'Tis well. I now discharge you
From farther service. Mind your own affairs;
I hope they will prove successful.
Allw. What is blest
With your good wish, my lord, cannot but prosper.
Let after-times report, and to your honour,
How much I stand engag'd; for I want language
To speak my debt: yet if a tear or two
Of joy, for your much goodness, can supply
My tongue's defects, I could——
Lov. ”

“ The streams that course over continents, and the tides that swell upon their shores, must render the same service every day; but these sons of God are not held to labour by a bridle so short and rigid. They are endowed with reason and will; they are set at liberty, and permitted to expatiate over a wider field. Their master goes out of sight, and trusts to a renewed, loving heart for the diligent outlay and faithful return of all the talents. ”

“ The orators, the poets, the commanders encroach on us only as fair women do, by our allowance and homage. Slight them by preoccupation of mind, slight them, as you can well afford to do, by high and universal aims, and they instantly feel that you have right, and that it is in lower places that they must shine. They also feel your right; for they with you are open to the influx of the all-knowing Spirit, which annihilates before its broad noon the little shades and gradations of intelligence in the compositions we call wiser and wisest. ”

“ Above the wild din of their clamor speaks a soft, tender voice, saying, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." But their ears are not turned to catch sounds from above; they hear only the siren song of an enchanting goddess—the world. ”

“ Examine yourself, and your upright nature will compel you to acknowledge that I do not deserve your distrust. And now, as regards the last and weightiest consideration,--my relation to my ward,--ask any one whom you may please to interrogate here, whether I have not always been Ernestine's advocate and protector. Every servant in the house--the child herself--will tell you that it has been so. ”

“ You follow, our opponents say, profane religious systems, and you practise rites unheard of throughout the entire world. What do you, O men, endowed with reason, dare to assert? What do you dare to prate of? ”

“ Can the blind lead the blind? do they not both fall into the ditch? The disciple is not above his master: but every one shall be perfect, if he be as his master. And why seest thou the mote in thy brother’s eye: but the beam that is in thy own eye thou considerest not? Or how canst thou say to thy brother: Brother, let me pull the mote out of thy eye, when thou thyself seest not the beam in thy own eye? ”

“ Now, Anstruther, I am going to speak to you as a friend. When you are a little older, you will know that men of the world—gentlemen—are not in the habit of bringing the names of ladies into a discussion. If they differ in opinion on some subject of this kind, they contrive to quarrel ostensibly about something else.”
“And you would have me let Major North say the vile things he was doing about Miss Keeling for all the hotel to hear, and yet pretend to take no notice?” ”

“ Such knowledge of the workings of the human mind as L'Estrange had gained by means of keen observation and long study of his fellows is perhaps the strongest element of all. For L'Estrange knew how to take men, what chord to strike in their natures, often strange and complex, to make them answer to his hand—how to render them actually desirous of doing his will. ”

“ Thou hast humiliated a daughter of Cæsar, a humiliation which she is not like to forget."
"I crave thy pardon if I have transgressed beyond the limits of my duty."
"Thy duty? Nay, Taurus Antinor, a man's duties are as varied as a woman's moods, and he is wisest who knows how to adapt the one to the other. 'Tis not good, remember, to run counter to Dea Flavia's will. 'Tis much that thou must have forgotten, O praefect, ere thou didst set thy so-called duty above the fulfilment of my wish." ”

“ THE STORY OF SIR ARNULPH.
[Matt. xxii. 37-39.—"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."]
An earnest man, in long-forgotten years,
Relieved the maladies and stanched the tears
Of pining multitudes, who sought his aid
When death their homesteads threatened to invade. ”

“ But this Erasmus, far more learned than the other, and with a courage which far exceeds the other's, and with an impatience of nature, an irritability of mind, which the other seldom knew, is nevertheless patient of change. ”