Ardea

“ We understand ourselves so little, and we know so little about our own singularities of character, that each one was surprised at finding the other so calm. Ardea could not comprehend that Madame Steno should not be at least uneasy about Gorka’s return and the consequences which might result therefrom. She, on the other hand, admired the strange youth who, in his misfortune, could find such joviality at his command. ”

“ And perhaps, in the dim and distant future, Ardea herself would look back to the night when her word and her kiss had fashioned a man after her own heart, and be—not sorry (true love was still stronger than prideful Phariseeism here) , but a little regretful, it might be, that her love could not have gone where it was sent.
And now.... With Alecto's maddening finger pressed on the soul-hurt, no man is responsible. After the furious storm of upbubbling curses had spent itself there was a little calm, not of surcease but of vacuity, since even the cursing vocabulary has its limitations. ”

“ Ardea, formerly Ardua, a town of Latium, built by Danae, or, according to some, by a son of Ulysses and Circe. It was the capital of the Rutuli. Some soldiers set it on fire, and the inhabitants publicly reported that their city had been changed into a bird, called by the Latins Ardea. It was rebuilt, and it became a rich and magnificent city, whose enmity to Rome rendered it famous. Tarquin the Proud was pressing it with a siege, when his son ravished Lucretia. A road called Ardeatina branched from the Appian road to Ardea. Cornelius Nepos, Atticus, ch. 14.—Livy, bk. ”

“ She said no, and adhered to it, partly because she knew her grandfather was pining for Paradise, and partly on her own account. Ardea at twenty was a young woman who might have made King Solomon [Pg 228] pause with suspended pen when he was writing that saying about his inability to find one woman among a thousand. She was not beautiful beyond compare, as the Southern young woman is so likely to be under the pencil of her loyal limners. She had the Dabney nose, which was not quite classical, and the Courtenay mouth, well-lined and expressive, rather than too suggestive, of feminine softness. ”

“ The common heron of Europe, Ardea cinerea of Linnaeus, is universally allowed to be the type of the family, and it may also be regarded as that of Professor Schlegel’s first section. The species inhabits suitable localities throughout the whole of Europe, Africa and Asia, reaching Japan, many of the islands of the Indian Archipelago and even Australia. ”

“ It was scarcely a moment for sentimental passages, and under the most favoring conditions, Vincent Farley was something less than sentimental. Yet he found time to declare himself in conventional fashion, modestly asking only for the right to hope.
Ardea was not ready to give an answer, even to the tentative question; yet she did it—was, in a manner, surprised into doing it. For the young woman who has not loved, it is easy to doubt the existence of the seventh Heaven, or at least to reckon without its possibilities. ”

“ There is a Mother of Sorrows in every womanly heart, to whom the appeal of the stricken is never made in vain. Ardea saw only a boy-brother crying out in his pain, and she dropped on her knees and put her arms [Pg 138] around his neck and wept over him in a pure transport of sisterly sympathy.
"Indeed and indeed I will help, Tom! And you mustn't let it drive you out into the dark. You poor boy! I know just how it hurts, and I'm so sorry for you!" ”

“ Nevertheless, the Naples invitation is dying hard. Eva seems to have set her heart on having us for the winter."
Ardea's figure of speech was no figure. The palazzo-sharing invitation did die hard; and when Miss Farley's letters failed, Mr. Vincent Farley made a journey to Paris for the express purpose of persuading the Dabneys to reconsider. Miss Euphrasia was neutral. The Major was homesick for a sight of his native Southland, but for Ardea's sake he generously concealed the symptoms—or thought he did. So the decision was finally left to Ardea. ”

“ The brave letters imposed on the Major, as they were meant to do; and Ardea, the loyal, happening on one of them in her first Deer Trace summer, read it through with childish sobs and never thereafter opened her lips on the story of those distressful Paris days. Later she understood her father's motive better: how he would not be a charge on an old man rich in nothing but ruin ”

“ The feet relatively to the head are extremely short, and from this I conclude that we know no species of Heron which can be compared to that of Rodriguez. Nevertheless, the tarso-metatarsus presents all the characters {112}of Ardea, and is far removed from that of Botaurus. The tibia is big and short; it surpasses in length the tarso-metatarsus by about a third, as is usual in the Herons; but the femur on the contrary is strongly developed, being quite as large as in the Ardea cinerea ”

“ Ardea laughed, and for all his misery he could not help remarking how much sweeter the low voice was growing, and how much clearer the blue of her eyes was under the forced light of the gas-globes. He had seen her only two or three times since that blush-kindling noon at Crestcliffe Inn. Their Paradise goings and comings had not coincided very evenly.
"You are just the same rude boy, aren't you?" she said leniently. "Are there no girls in Beersheba to teach you how to be nice?"
"I didn't mean it that way," he hastened to say. "I'm [Pg 120] always saying the wrong thing to you. ”

“ He was the most moderate of lovers, as such a man must needs be, but his anxiety to second the wishes of his father and sister was not to be misunderstood by the clear-eyed inner Ardea, whose intuition served her as a sixth sense. ”

“ The voice, the leanness, the paleness, and every thing that befits a captured city, and the very name of the city, remain in that bird; and Ardea itself is bewailed by the beating of its wings.
And now the merit of Æneas had obliged all the Deities, and Juno herself, to put an end to their former resentment; when, the power of the rising Iülus being now well established, the hero, the son of Cytherea, was ripe for heaven, Venus, too, had solicited the Gods above ”

“ For a single instant Vincent Farley's chance of marrying the Deer Trace coal lands trembled in the balance. Ardea forgot him, forgot Nan, thought of nothing but the passionate yearning that was drawing her like gripping hands toward the man who had bared his inmost heart to her. Again she leaned on him with a touch so light that he scarcely felt it, and her lips brushed his forehead.
"It is not too late for you to be a man, noble, upright, honorable. Let the world find that for which it [Pg 278] is looking, my friend—my brother: the strong man armed who can stand where others faint and fall. ”

“ And even lust finds a cold hearth in such hearts, though on occasion it will rake the embers together and make shift to blow them into some brief, fierce [Pg 230] flame. At times, Farley's thought of Ardea was libertine; but oftener she figured as the woman who would grace the home of affluence, giving it charm and tone. Also, he had an affection for the Dabney manorial acres, and especially for that portion of them overlying the coal measures. ”

“ Hereupon the Romans put a stop to this occupation [piracy] . Between these two cities is Lavinium, which contains a temple of Venus common to all the Latini, the care of which is intrusted to the priests of [Pg 346]
[CAS. 232] Ardea. After this is Laurentum;1820 and above these lies Ardea, a colony of the Rutuli, 70 stadia from the sea; near to it is another temple of Venus, where all the Latini hold a public festival. These regions have been ravaged by the Samnitæ, and only the traces of the cities left ”

“ I believe they like us because we're Ardens. Or is it because Edred's a lord?"
"We must find the treasure," said Edred, looking as he always did when he was very much in earnest, so like his father that Aunt Edith could hardly bear it—"so as to be able to look after our people properly."
"And to kick out the Tallow King," said Elfrida.
"But you won't be discontented if you don't find it," said Aunt Edith. "It's only a sort of game really. No one I ever knew ever found a treasure. And think what we've found already! Arden Castle instead of Sea View Terrace—and the lodgers. Good-night, chicks." ”

“ Lord Arden led Edred and Elfrida away, one in each hand, and as he went he was very severe on disobedient children who went straying after wicked witches, and they could not defend themselves without blaming the cook, which, of course, they would not do. ”

“ What's the real poetry like?"
"'The mole, the mole,
He lives in a hole.
The mole is blind;
I don't mind,'"
said Edred sulkily. "Auntie told me it the day you went to her with Mrs. Harrison."
"I'm sure you ought to make it up all your self. You see, the mole doesn't come."
"There isn't any mole," said Edred.
"Let's both think hard. I'm sure I could make poetry—if I knew how to begin."
"If any one's got to make it, it's me," said Edred. "You're not Lord Arden."
"You're very unkind," said Elfrida, and Edred knew she was right. ”

“ There was very little time in which to get even with any one, and, of course, getting even with people is not really at all a proper thing to do. Yet Edred did it.
Edred had got Elfrida out of the Tower just as Lady Nithsdale got her lord out, and now he and she and Cousin Richard were at Arden House, in Soho, and the old nurse, who was also, astonishingly, the old witch, had said that there was no time to be lost. ”

“ The smell of youthful meadows rises from either bank, the great trees sign to the skiff as it passes, and, descending from the trees and rising from the flowering hedges, the birds follow through the gold and rosy streaks (of sky and water) , mingling joyful loves. Between rich meadows the Adda flows on to lose itself in the Eridano; the untiring sun sinks to its setting.
“O sun, O flowing Adda!” exclaims the poet, “the soul floats through an elysium behind thee; where will it and mutual love lose themselves, O Lydia? ”

“ Lord Arden stared angrily at her, and then he chuckled. “It’s a bold girl, so it is,” he said. “I own I remember well seeing a witch ducked no further off than Newchurch, and playing truant from my tutor to see it, too.”
“There now, you see,” said Elfrida coaxingly, “we don’t mean to be naughty; we’re just like what you were. You won’t make it bread and water, will you? Especially if bread’s so dear.” ”

“ Lord Arden laughed.
"And I give you a sign—three signs," said the woman faintly; for it is tiring work seeing into the future, even when you are enlightened with a kiss from some one who has been there. "You shall see the white Mouldiwarp, that is the badge of Arden, on your threshold as you enter." ”

“ Prince Orca raised his bow, but lowered it again, for something within stayed his hand, and he said: "Let the poor blackamoor live. I have been too near death myself to feel like harming it."
"If you do not care for yourself," said Lady Ildea, "others do. It might bring you harm again." And with unerring aim she sent an arrow flying through the air. The raven fell, uttering a last mournful cry. But Lady Ildea was not satisfied. Hastily dismounting, she ran through the grass to where the bird lay, and found the body of the maiden Sipelie, pierced to the heart, and covered with blood. ”

“ You love me, Aratea.
Ara. Fare you well.
Aris. [Against the curtains] First say thou lovest me!
Dost thou not hear
A voice at night when calm Eirene leads
Sleep to all eyes but thine?
Ara. Have mercy, sir!
Aris. What leap of soul or dream of sense hast thou
That is not sweeter for you hold me dear?
When Theia's daughter, priestess gray, unhoods
Her morning face, and all her clouds of rose
With flying petals light the waking world,
Does not your ecstasy swim on the flood
Of my remembered eyes, and their delight
Re-jewel beauty's diadem?
Ara. I beg——
Aris. ”

“ When Erda, the First Mother of life, rises from her sleeping-place in the heart of the earth, and warns him to yield the ring, he obeys her; the ring is added to the heap of gold; and all sense of Freia is cut off from the giants.
But now what Law is left to these two poor stupid laborers whereby one shall yield to the other any of the treasure for which they have each paid the whole price in surrendering Freia? They look by mere habit to the god to judge for them; but he, with his heart stirring towards higher forces than himself, turns with disgust from these lower forces. ”

“ If success, as we are told, consists not in omitting to make mistakes, but in omitting to make the same one twice, Ardelia’s treatment of the milk question was eminently successful.
After a while Miss Forsythe went away, and at her urgent suggestion Ardelia came out and sat on the porch under the shade of a black umbrella. She sat motionless, staring into the grass, lost in the rapture of content that follows such a crisis as her recent misery, forgetful of all her earthly woes in the blessed certainty of her present calm. ”

“ I serve a vengeful God who armeth men
For his own wars!
Ber. Heaven, draw thy clouds about thee!
[Charilus dies in Ardia's arms]
Osw. He's dead! The air of earth is sweet again.
I have no enemy!
Ber. [Looking up from the body] You have no son.
[Curtain]
ACT III Scene: On Kidmir Pass. Moonlight paling to dawn. Ardia alone, struggling up the Pass.
Ard. [Looking back] They do not follow. I am safe from that. [Sits on a rock]
Why should I climb? There is no rest up there. ”