Diana

“ Every evening, as soon as the Sun had finished his course, Diana mounted her moon car, and drove her milk-white steeds across the heavens, watched over and loved by the countless stars, which shone their brightest to cheer her on her way; and as she drove she often bent down to view the sleeping earth, so shadowy and dreamlike, and to breathe the intoxicating perfume of the distant flowers. It always seemed to her then as if Nature, so beautiful during the day, borrowed additional charms from the witching hours of the night. ”

“ Lady Diana spelled out her lover’s verses as best she could, tripping from door to door, and calling her young companions from their mirrors; sending a footman and a page to summon the gallants who were to accompany them in their expedition, and laughing heartily as she made out more from a footman than from Kennaston’s muse that he had betaken himself to town rather than longer incur her displeasure and her frowns. ”

“ Diana, the huntress, was now Diana, the moon, the queen of the darkness and shedding her light on the laurel tree that her brother, Apollo, the god of the sun, loved so much.
The frogs along the river bank croaked harshly and could not understand any of these wonders that had come to pass right beside them. They had missed a wonder when they were rustics, too. There are some people like that. They, too, would see only a ragged, weary stranger with her tired babies, not worth the trouble of helping, when those little ones might be an Apollo and a Diana, the gods of the day and the night. ”

“ Heights to right and to left, and between them, aloft, a sky the rosy wheelcourse of the chariot of morn, and below, among the knolls, choice of sheltered nooks where waters whispered of secresy to satisfy Diana herself. They have that whisper and waving of secresy in secret scenery; they beckon to the bath; and they conjure classic visions of the pudency of the Goddess irate or unsighted. The semi-mythological state of mind, built of old images and favouring haunts, was known to Dacier. The name of Diana, playing vaguely on his consciousness, helped to it. ”

“ It is the pale moon-beam that renders more interesting every virtue it softens, giving mild grandeur to the contracted horizon. Nothing can be more beautiful than the poetical fiction which makes Diana, with her silver crescent, the goddess of chastity. ”

“ It was Diana who did come to me,
All in the night in a dream, and said to me:
"If thou would'st keep all evil folk afar,
Then ever keep the vervain and the rue
Safely beside thee!"
Great Diana! thou
Who art the queen of heaven and of earth,
And of the infernal lands--yea, thou who art
Protectress of all men unfortunate,
Of thieves and murderers, and of women too
Who lead an evil life, and yet hast known
That their nature was not evil, thou, Diana,
Hast still conferred on them some joy in life. ”

“ The chaste Diana holds her nocturnal course through the blue expanse of ether, studded with countless gems, the brightest jewels in heaven's diadem, shedding her mild and mellow light over the sombre forests, and gilding the sparkling streamlets, which placidly repose beneath her beams. Earth, sea and air, encompassed by a heavenly serenity, seem to blend their beauties into one rich picture of loveliness, and offer up their united orisons to the sovereign Lord of all! ”

“ At eleven o’clock, when all the world is sunk in slumber, and no prying human eyes open to gaze upon her, Diana will quit her place in the skies above and descend to earth, to visit the gentle shepherd, Endymion—not upon Mount Latmus, but in the park—at the foot of the statue of silent love. The handsome shepherd must be sure to have fallen asleep ere Diana appears, so as not to shock the modesty of the immortal goddess—who will come without her cortege of nymphs, wrapped in a cloud and devoid of her silvery radiance. ”

“ Patty uttered a tiny cry—
“O, Diana! It’s the portrait!”
In a moment, all excitement, we stole in a-tiptoe. The place was very still and ghostly. Only on the dusty canvas itself lay a melancholy grid of light. Palpitating in our sense of guilt, we turned the frame round, let it drop softly back again; and there, before our eyes, bloomed a smiling, wistful face. The light, which had saddened it in reverse, was quickened now to an illuminating glory. It greeted and dimpled to us—the face of a dead woman risen. ”

“ Invocation to Diana. Diana, beautiful Diana!
Who art indeed as good as beautiful,
By all the worship I have given thee,
And all the joy of love which thou hast known,
I do implore thee aid me in my love! ”

“ Once he had seen Diana walk down the platform with her chin in the air, as was her habit, approved by her uncle, who thought she walked as a woman should walk, and as few did, he was more cautious, and dodged behind mountains of luggage, but never losing sight of the figure in blue tweed. She wore her hat well pulled down over her eyes, and he was glad. Once his he would want the whole world to see her, but till then he would have all men blind to her beauty. ”

“ Enter Widow and Diana.
DIANA.
I am, my lord, a wretched Florentine,
Derived from the ancient Capilet;
My suit, as I do understand, you know,
And therefore know how far I may be pitied.
WIDOW.
I am her mother, sir, whose age and honour
Both suffer under this complaint we bring,
And both shall cease, without your remedy.
KING.
Come hither, count; do you know these women?
BERTRAM.
My lord, I neither can nor will deny
But that I know them. Do they charge me further?
DIANA.
Why do you look so strange upon your wife?
BERTRAM.
She’s none of mine, my lord. ”

“ The Duchess turns to Diana. With a tremble in her voice but steadfastly, she answered.
“Madam, I love him. Could I do other than this? Look how he has chose me—so all unworthy, for a love so great as I think never was its like. Indeed I can scarce believe it, though told in your gracious presence, did not my heart know it true. What my Lord Duke says I say also. Only less dear to me than he is your Grace and my kind Lady Fanny. Madam, in my short life I have seen so many bad women that my heart clings naturally to the good ones. ”

“ It was Diana and Bill returning from the husking. Hastily he concealed himself behind a clump of old lilac bushes till they emerged into the moonlight and passed into the house. Diana was in one of those paroxysms of young girl frolic which are the effervescence of young, healthy blood, as natural as the gyrations of a bobolink on a clover head. James was thinking of dark nights and stormy seas, years of exile, mother's sorrows, home perhaps never to be seen more, and the laugh jarred on him like a terrible discord. ”

“ With eyes that grew hot and dim in giddy perplexity, he read his own writing:
“How I love you, my own sweet little Diana! You are to me the most adorable girl in the world, and if ever I do an unkind thing to you or wrong you in any way, may God punish me for a treacherous brute! My one desire in life is to make you happy.” ”

“ She felt something like shame and remorse when she discovered that the sunrises behind the firs and the pale pink buds opening in the garden gave her the old inrush of gladness when she saw them—that Diana’s visits were pleasant to her and that Diana’s merry words and ways moved her to laughter and smiles—that, in brief, the beautiful world of blossom and love and friendship had lost none of its power to please her fancy and thrill her heart, that life still called to her with many insistent voices. ”

“ Diana! You will find a way!”
“If you are strong—yes. I have been alert and watchful, child, while you never knew it. But he did; and he means to separate us; to rid himself of the watch-dog, that he may seize the lamb. He has but this moment told me I must go—with what coarseness and insult I will not soil your ears by repeating. If you love your honour, as I love and have sacrificed myself to save it, you must come with me.”
“I will come”—she rose hurriedly to her feet. “How can I ever repay you, sister? The old, wicked man! At once—Diana! let us fly at once!” ”

“ There is a Diana flying in the air, but so excellent, so tender, so delicate, of so ingenuous an action, her hair so well coiffed and adorned with a crescent, her flesh so white, that she leads into temptation those who regard her too curiously. ”

“ Yet she smiled still, like one waking out of a frightful dream.
“Is it not strange, Diana, this end to all we have known and experienced together? Do you remember the sundial, and the old green garden, and the nuns in the sleepy village? We are Englishwomen, after all, Diana. I should like to rest in England.”
“It lies with yourself,” I answered, half choking. “You have but to speak—I tell you, it needs but a word from you, and all this false sacrifice is passed by and forgotten.” ”

“ Diana, the goddess, may have sighed and shed one bright immortal tear, as she looked into the fast-glazing eyes of the dying stag—may not Diana, the maiden, have felt a touch of human sympathy and pain as she listened to the deep note of her hounds baying on poor Actaeon’s track! No one is all bad, or all good. No woman is all earthly, nor any goddess all divine.
“I am sorry,” said Unorna. ”

“ So Diana must reflect that the time might come when this situation would gall the Duke and she be the cause of it. The rude familiarities, the railleries provoked, he could deal with with his sword, but there are pangs subtle as air that cannot be so warded. He was not plagued himself with such considerations for, as men are used in love, he saw only the present deliverance from loneliness, the comfort he expected in her sweet society and all the delights of her beauties of mind and person.
’Tis to be owned that the brunt falls always on the woman. ”

“ But can you not divine them?"
"You wished to put my affection to the test, Diana," said the Earl. "Yes—I must forgive you—for you are beautiful—you are adorable—and I love you!"
"And if the sincerest and most devoted attachment on my part can reward you for all your past goodness, and for the honours which you now propose to shower upon me, then shall I not fail to testify my gratitude," exclaimed Diana. ”

“ When Diana’s chair set her down at Queensbury House, the Duchess, the Duke, and Bolton were assembled in the library, and Pompey summoned her to an audience. The excitement of the night had passed off and her lovely brow was sweetly serene as she entered. She was much more at her ease with the imperious Kitty now, having received much kindness from her and understanding her moods perhaps better than did any other creature. For others made her Grace a goddess and when that is done a goddess the lady will be. ”

“ I admire those long lithe limbs, and that column of a throat. The Diana is a woman's ideal of beauty; its elegance, its spirit, its graceful, peremptory air, are what we like in our own sex: the Venus is for men. ”

“ Now Eos and the trapped spirit of Diana conversed together, and at the subtle words of Eos and the overmastering attraction, Diana swirled out of the body of Baena and settled engrossed about the glowing glory that was Eos. Inward she was drawn, and mated there in mysterious communion with the Goddess.
"If you but had a strong male body, Diana, we could live here forever in love and ecstasy. Why not return one of the stone men of the past into flesh again, become a man instead of half-woman as in the past—and so learn anew to live and love differently and gloriously...." ”

“ Diana, with her whimsical, artistic temperament, was fully alive to the fascination and uniqueness of her surroundings, but being a little tired with the drive, she felt for the moment somewhat impatient with ruins generally, and just a shade depressed with a certain air of dead forlornness that hovered all around. Then into the midst of this dream of antiquity strode a stern, fierce-looking, very up-to-date sportsman, who sat, for no conceivable reason, on a broken wall and stared at the ground. ”

“ A vision rose up before Diana of what life would be denuded of the glamour and excitement, the perpetual triumphs, the thrilling sense of power her singing gave her—the dull, flat monotony of it, and she caught her breath sharply in instinctive recoil. ”

“ Was that the long-expected cousin? Poor Diana! A common-looking, vulgar young woman--with a most unpleasant voice and accent. An unpleasant manner, too, to the servants--half arrogant, half familiar. What a hat!--and what a fringe!--worthy of some young "lidy" in the Old Kent Road! The thought of Diana sitting at table with such a person on equal terms pricked him with annoyance; for he had all his mother's fastidiousness, though it showed itself in different forms. He blamed Mrs. Colwood--Diana ought to have been more cautiously guided. ”

“ Here was Diana barely eighteen and I a widower turned forty and with two small children. It is true that she was devoted to the kiddies, and they to her, while I was a youthful man for my age, like all of my race; younger, I really believe, than most men of thirty. But still that extra ten years was always there to my debit, and Diana was possessed of such uncommon richness of soul and heart and body and estate, too, for that matter, that she was entitled to the very best life had to offer. ”

“ Diana had risen with the sun itself in the brightest of humours without any forebodings of evil or danger resulting from the trial to which she was ready to be subjected, and when Madame Dimitrius came up to spend the afternoon with her as usual, she was gayer and more conversational than she had been for many a day. It was Madame who seemed depressed and anxious, and Diana, looking quite charming in her simple gown of white batiste with a bunch of heliotrope at her bosom, rather rallied her on her low spirits. ”