Dina

“ Perhaps you don’t often go for a walk in the morning?
Dina. Oh, yes; but only with Olaf.
Johan. Ah!—Should you like to go down the garden, or to stay here?
Dina. I would rather stay here.
Johan. And I too. Then it’s settled that we go for a walk together every morning?
Dina. No, Mr. Tönnesen, you mustn’t do that.
Johan. Why not? You know you promised.
Dina. Yes, but on thinking it over, I——You mustn’t go about with me.
Johan. Why on earth should I not?
Dina. Ah, you are a stranger here; you don’t understand; but I must tell you——
Johan. ”

“ Bernick: Mr. Rorlund, I have tried my hardest, but I cannot prevent him...
Rorlund: I shall prevent him, Mrs. Bernick. Dina, you are a thoughtless girl, but I do not blame you so greatly. You have too long lacked the necessary moral support that should have sustained you. I blame myself for not having afforded you that support.
Dina: You mustn't speak now!
Mrs. Bernick: What is it?
Rorlund: It is now that I must speak, Dina, although your conduct yesterday and today has made it ten times more difficult for me. But all other considerations must give way to the necessity for saving you. ”

“ A beautiful thing is something great and far away.
Dina is a young girl living under sad and painful conditions. It is psychologically accurate that she should condense all her longing for a new and happy existence in a word of emotional colouring, such as ‘beautiful.’ It is the same with the dialogue between Gregers and Hedwig in The Wild Duck (p. 53) :
Gregers. And she [the wild duck] has been down in the depths of the sea. ”

“ Gana is queen of the witches, and corresponds to the Diana of the Italians. Gana is probably only a variation of the word Diana. Among the Wallachians this goddess is in fact known as Dina and Sina. She, like the wilde Jäger, rushes in headlong hunt over the heavens or through the skies followed by a throng of witches and fairies. “People show the places where she has passed, and where the grass and leaves are dry” (Friedrich) . She is a powerful enchantress, and is strongest in her sorcery about Easter-tide. ”

“ But that poor child Dina Dorf! I am truly sorry for her.
Mrs. Rummel: Well, really it was a stroke of good luck for her. Think what it would have meant if she had been brought up by such parents! Of course we did our best for her, every one of us, and gave her all the good advice we could. Eventually Miss Bernick got her taken into this house.
Mrs. Holt: But she has always been a difficult child to deal with. It is only natural--with all the bad examples she had had before her. A girl of that sort is not like one of our own; one must be lenient with her. ”

“ If Martha, then, stands for the old ideal—the ideal of the older generation—and Dina for the ideal of the younger generation, Lona Hessel hovers between the two. At first sight she seems like an embodiment of the “strong-minded female,” the champion of xxiWoman’s Rights, and despiser of all feminine graces and foibles. But in the end it appears that her devotion to Bernick has been no less deep and enduring than Martha’s devotion to Johan. Her “old friendship does not rust” is a delightful speech; but it points back to the Ibsen of the past, not forward to the Ibsen of the future. ”

“ There was nameless terror in her heart.
"Oh, I can't, Eustace! I can't indeed!" she said, and now she was striving, striving impotently, for freedom. "I'm going up to town with Isabel."
"Isabel can wait," he said.
"No! No! I must go. You don't understand. There are no end of things to be done." Dinah was as one encircled by fire, searching wildly round for a means of escape. "I must go!" she said again. "I must go!"
"You can go the next day," he said with arrogance. "I want you to-morrow and I mean to have you. Look at me, Dinah!" ”

“ Don't you ever assert yourself?"
"Against her? No, never!" Dinah gave a little shudder. "Don't let's talk of it!" she said. "Isn't it time to go back? I believe I ought to be clearing away."
He detained her for a moment. "You're not going to work like a nigger when you are married to me," he said.
She smiled up at him, a merry, dimpling smile. "Oh no, I shall just enjoy myself then—like Rose de Vigne. I shall be much too grand to work. There! I really must go back. ”

“ Diane thus became so fashionable in France, that when the Cavalier court was there residing, the English caught the fashion, and thenceforth Lady Dye at times appeared among the Ladies Betty and Fanny of the court. In the lower classes, Diana seems to be at times confused with the Scriptural Dinah, though it may sometimes be adopted as a Bible name, since a peasant has been known to pronounce that he well knew who was “greatest ‘Diana of the Ephesians,’—a great lady of those parts, and very charitable to the poor.” ”

“ But from an outsider, the bare thought of a snub was unendurable, and the possibility that Dinah might by any means lay herself open to one was enough to bring down the vials of wrath upon her head. Dinah remembered still with shivering vividness the whipping she had received on one occasion for demeaning herself by running after the de Vignes's carriage to deliver a message. Her mother's whippings had always been very terrible, vindictively thorough. The indignity of them lashed her soul even more cruelly than the unsparing thong her body. ”

“ It is always you who come to lift me out of my inferno."
She left the letters forgotten on the window-sill. By the simple outpouring of her love, Dinah had drawn her out of her place of torment; and she led her now, leaning heavily upon her, through the passage to her own room.
Biddy crept after them like a wise old cat alert for danger. "She'll sleep now, Miss Dinah darlint," she murmured. "Ye won't be anxious at all, at all? It's meself that'll be within call."
"No, no! Go to your own room and sleep, Biddy!" Isabel said. "We are both going to do the same." ”

“ Dinah, glancing towards him, saw him exchange a swift look with the old nurse in the background, but his voice held neither surprise nor gratification. He took out a cigarette and began to smoke.
Isabel leaned back in her chair with abrupt weariness as if in reaction from the strain of a sudden unwonted exertion. "Let me see! Do I know your Christian name? Ah yes,—Dinah! What a pretty gipsy name! I think you are a little gipsy, are you not? You have the charm of the woods about you. Won't you sit in that chair, dear? You can't be comfortable on the floor." ”

“ Isn't she gone to the blessed saints in Paradise? And would I have her back? No, no! I'm not that selfish, Miss Dinah. I'm an old woman moreover, and be the same token me own time can't be so far off now."
But Dinah clung faster to her. "Please, Biddy, please—don't talk like that! I want you," she said.
"Ah, bless the dear lamb!" said Biddy, and tenderly kissed the upturned, pleading face. "Miss Isabel said ye would now. But when ye've got Master Scott to take care of ye, it's not old Biddy that ye'll be wanting any longer."
"I shall," Dinah vowed. "I shall. I shall always want my Biddy." ”

“ Dinah.
"Miss Dinah dear, no!" A hint of impatience born of her distress was perceptible in the old woman's tone; she turned to the door. "Well, well, it's no good talking. Don't ye fret yourself! What must be, will be."
"But I think Scott ought to know," said Dinah.
"No, no, Miss Dinah! We'll not tell him before we need. He's got his own troubles. But I wonder—I wonder—" Biddy paused with the door-handle in her bony old fingers—"how would it be now," she said slowly, "if ye was to get Miss Isabel to sleep with ye again? She forgot last night. ”

“ The only time she voluntarily broached the subject was when she entreated to be allowed to go down to the last dance that was to be held in the hotel. It chanced that this was fixed for the night before their own departure, and Isabel demurred somewhat; for though Dinah had shaken off most of her invalid habits, she was still far from robust.
"You will be so tired in the morning, darling," she protested gently, while Dinah knelt beside her, earnestly pleading. "You will get that tiresome side-ache, and you won't be fit to travel." ”

“ He is one whom the gods love."
Again her eyes roamed over Dinah, and again they passed her to scan the mist-wreathed mountains.
Dinah slipped a loving hand through her arm. "He is not here, dear," she said. "Come and sit down for a little! The sun won't be gone yet. We can watch it go."
She tried to draw her gently along the verandah, but Isabel resisted. "No—no! I am not going that way. I have to go up the mountains to meet him. Don't keep me! Don't keep me!"
Dinah threw an anxious look around. There was no one near them. Rose had moved away to join a group just returned from the rink. ”

“ Dinah hesitated momentarily—"my mother was a dancer before she married."
"And she taught you?" asked Sir Eustace.
"No, no! She never taught me anything except useful things—like cooking and sewing and house-work. And I detest them all," said Dinah frankly. "I like sweeping the garden and digging the potatoes far better."
"She keeps you busy then," commented Sir Eustace, with semi-humorous interest.
"Busy isn't the word for it," declared Dinah. "I'm going from morning till night. We do the washing at home too. I get up at five and go to bed at nine. I make nearly all my own clothes too. ”

“ With loving words she soothed her, calming her as though she had been a child in nightmare terror, and gradually a certain peace began to still the horror in Dinah's soul. An unmistakable drowsiness was stealing over her, a merciful lethargy lulling the sensibilities that had been so acutely tried. Her weakness was merging into a sense of almost blissful repose. She was no longer conscious of the anguish of the cold. Neither did the darkness trouble her. ”

“ Isabel looked beyond her. "You know, Dinah," she said, her voice very low, "Scott is a man with an almost infinite greatness of soul. I don't know if you realize it. I have thought sometimes that you did. But there are very few—very few—who do."
"I know he is great," whispered Dinah. "I told him so almost—almost the first time I saw him."
Isabel's smile was very tender. She stooped and gathered Dinah to her bosom. "Oh, my dear," she murmured, "never prefer the tinsel to the true gold! He is far, far the greatest man I know. And you—you will never meet a greater." ”

“ She was as one caught in the meshes of a great enchantment. He opened the door, and she passed through on to the verandah.
The music throbbed into silence behind them. Before them lay a fairy-world of dazzling silver and deepest, darkest sapphire. The mountains stood in solemn grandeur, domes of white mystery. The great vault of the sky was alight with stars, and a wonderful moon hung like a silver shield almost in the zenith.
"How—beautiful!" breathed Dinah.
The air was crystal clear, cold but not piercing. The absolute stillness held her spell-bound. ”

“ Isabel did not love Eustace—the handsome, debonair brother who had once been all the world to her.
A little, sick feeling of doubt went through Dinah! Had she—by any evil chance—had she made a mistake?
And then the man's overwhelming personality swung suddenly through her consciousness, filling all her being, possessing her, dominating her. She flung the doubt from her, as one flings away a poisonous insect. He was her own—her very own; her lover, the first, the best,—Apollo the Magnificent!
In Isabel's room old Biddy Maloney stood, gazing down at her mistress with eyes of burning devotion. ”

“ and it made a strange contrast to see that sparkling self-engrossed loveliness looked at by Dinah's calm pitying face, with its open glance which told that her heart lived in no cherished secrets of its own, but in feelings which it longed to share with all the world. ”

“ And Dinah went, slave-like in her submission, but hating herself the more for every step she took.
They went to the ballroom, and presently they danced. But the old subtle charm was absent. Her feet moved to the rhythm of the music, her body swayed and pulsed to the behest of his; but her spirit stood apart, bruised and downcast and very much alone. Her gilded palace had fallen all about her in ruins. The deliverance to which she had looked forward so eagerly was but another bondage that would prove more cruel and more enslaving than the first. ”

“ There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began talking to herself. "Dinah'll miss me very much to-night, I should think!" (Dinah was the cat.) "I hope they'll remember her saucer of milk at tea-time. ”

“ Diana, staring down from her box at that exquisite, breathing incarnation of grace on the stage below, felt that she hated Adrienne. She had never hated any one before, and the intensity of her feeling frightened her. Since a few months ago, strange, deep emotions had stirred within her—a passion of love and a passion of hatred such as in the days of her simple girlhood she would not have believed to be possible to any ordinary well-brought-up young Englishwoman. That Max was capable of a fierce heat of passion, she knew. ”

“ DIANA (sullenly) . However, I don't want any more o' your grammar; I gets along well enough without it—
MYSELF (interrupting) . But then I want you to do much more than just get along, Diana.
DIANA. How much more?
MYSELF. Well, I want you to live to the utmost of your capacity, to make the very best of yourself and your life, to become the wonderful woman you may be if only you will. And this you can never do without a knowledge of grammar and deportment.
DIANA. And why d'ye want me to do—to be all this?
MYSELF. Because it is a duty you owe to the world and your own womanhood. ”