Dorine

“ No, it was better that Dorine should stop in her boarding-house. Mamma was still so active, saw to everything, knew about everything. Dorine would have been of no use to her at home.... Besides, Mamma herself wouldn't hear of it, and used to say, laughingly, but quite in earnest:
"Those who go away can stay away...."
And the Van Lowes' friends thought it odd, for the old lady was known for just that motherly quality of hers, for loving to keep all her children round her, in a close family-circle, at the Hague or in the immediate neighbourhood. ”

“ These three favoured objects were Dorine, Zamor, and Henriette. Following the order or disorder in which I have written thus far, I will first introduce my dear Dorine to your notice.
Sweet, beautiful Dorine! how amiably affectionate and attached to thy mistress wert thou! The poor animal still exists; for I would have you know that I am speaking of a most faithful little dog; now indeed grown old, asthmatic and snappish ”

“ Tell him you'll marry for yourself, not him;
Since you're the one for whom the thing is done,
You are the one, not he, the man must please;
If his Tartuffe has charmed him so, why let him
Just marry him himself—no one will hinder.
MARIANE
A father's rights are such, it seems to me,
That I could never dare to say a word.
DORINE
Came, talk it out. Valere has asked your hand:
Now do you love him, pray, or do you not?
MARIANE
Dorine! How can you wrong my love so much,
And ask me such a question? Have I not
A hundred times laid bare my heart to you? ”

“ Then I would put up with the extra trouble."
"No, Mamma, really, it wouldn't do. Whereas Dorine...."
"No, no, I don't want Dorine. I want you."
"Why?"
"I want you. I want Addie. I want youth around me. It's all so gloomy here. Dorine.... Dorine's gloomy too.... So will you come?"
"Mamma ... really...."
"You don't want to. I see you don't want to.... You are all of you selfish.... Children always are.... Oh, why need I go on living?"
"Dear Mamma, do be reasonable. You say you would find Dorine too much trouble ... ”

“ Every one always thought it only natural, that Dorine should run about for the family; and no one was ever really grateful.... Every one was selfish, Mamma included.... Well, she would try it herself one day, being selfish ... and sit all day long by her fire, as Karel always did ... and live only for herself, for her own pleasure ... and leave them all to their fate.... Just imagine, supposing, to-morrow, she were to say to Bertha and Adolphine, whose girls were soon to be married, that she had no time to go on everybody's errands.... It was always Dorine: Dorine could do it all ”

“ Dorine. For heaven's sake, control your displeasure.
Your father has merely mentioned this measure.
No one does everything he proposes.
How something opens may not be how it closes.
Damis. I need to stop this vulgar coxcomb's plot
And in two little words tell him what's what.
Dorine. Whoa now! Why don't you let your stepmother
Manage him just as she does your father.
Over Tartuffe she has her own little ways
Of making him welcome all that she says,
And perhaps she makes his heart go pitter-patter. ”

“ On his arrival at M. Dorine's house, the valet, under the supposition that Wentworth had been advised of Mile. Dorine's death, broke the intelligence with awkward cruelty, by showing him directly to the salon. Mile. Dorine's wealth, her beauty, the suddenness of her death, and the romance that had in some way attached itself to her love for the young American drew crowds to witness the funeral ceremonies, which took place in the church in the Rue d'Aguesseau. The body was to be laid in M. Dorine's tomb, in the cemetery of Montmartre. ”

“ Julie Dorine was dead.
When M. Dorine heard the sudden cry that rang through the silent house, he hurried from the library, and found Philip standing like a ghost in the middle of the chamber.
It was not until long afterwards that Wentworth learned the details of the calamity that had befallen him. On the previous night Mile. Dorine had retired to her room in seemingly perfect health, and had dismissed her maid with a request to be awakened early the next morning. At the appointed hour the girl entered the chamber. Mile. Dorine was sitting in an arm-chair, apparently asleep. ”

“ Dorine. No. They must be alone.
Damis. I won't even speak.
Dorine. You're kidding yourself. You're so quick to anger,
And that would surely put us all in danger.
Go.
Damis. No. I'm going to watch--without getting cross.
Dorine. How tiresome you are! Here they come. Get lost!
[Damis hides himself in a closet.]
SCENE II
Tartuffe, Laurent, Dorine
Tartuffe [observing Dorine] . Laurent, lock up my hair shirt and my scourge,
And pray for freedom from each carnal urge.
If anyone comes calling, say I have gone
To share my alms with the poor souls in prison.
Dorine [aside] . ”

“ Lord Henry laughed. "If a man treats life artistically, his brain is his heart," he answered, sinking into an arm-chair.
Dorian Gray shook his head, and struck some soft chords on the piano. "'Like the painting of a sorrow,'" he repeated, "'a face without a heart.'"
The elder man lay back and looked at him with half-closed eyes. "By the way, Dorian," he said, after a pause, "'what does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose'—how does the quotation run?—'his own soul'?"
The music jarred and Dorian Gray started, and stared at his friend. "Why do you ask me that, Harry?" ”

“ Nowadays all the married men live like bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men."
"Fin de siècle," murmured Lord Henry.
"Fin du globe," answered his hostess.
"I wish it were fin du globe," said Dorian with a sigh. "Life is a great disappointment."
"Ah, my dear," cried Lady Narborough, putting on her gloves, "don't tell me that you have exhausted life. When a man says that one knows that life has exhausted him. Lord Henry is very wicked, and I sometimes wish that I had been; but you are made to be good – you look so good. I must find you a nice wife. ”

“ Dorrance sank down on a wooden settle that stood in the kitchen, and clasping her hands, exclaimed, "It's too much, girls, it's too big; we never can do anything with it."
"Now you mustn't look at it that way, granny, dear," said Dorothy, brightly; "this is our home; and you know, be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. And if a home and all its fixings are too big, instead of too little, why, you'll have to manage it somehow just the same. ”

“ You have lots of perseverance in your nature, Dorothy."
"It's nice of you to call it by that name," said Dorothy; "but I think it's just stubbornness. I've always been stubborn."
"We all are," said Leicester; "it's a Dorrance trait. Grandmother hasn't much of it, but Grandfather Dorrance was a most determined old gentleman."
"There's only one thing that's bothering me, about our good times," said Dorothy. "And that is, that grandma can't enjoy them as much as we do. She doesn't care about going in the boats, and she can't take the long walks that we can." ”

“ What would be the music of the spheres to one bereft of hearing? What gain would come to a man with a heart of stone to be in an environment of perfect and eternal love!"
Dorian finished the reading and laid the paper on the desk. For some time he sat very still, thinking of these beautiful words from his dear friend to him. Surely, Uncle Zed was very much alive in any environment which his beautiful life had placed him. Would that he, Dorian, could live so that he might always be alive to the good and be dead to sin. ”

“ Daniel was mending fence, for it was May,
And early rains had painted the drear pastures.
He walked, testing the wire, and wished again
For his old pipe. He missed it, and grew moody.
Berrien would never notice it on the shelf;
Berrien would never bring it. A good wife,
But scornful of the comforts. A good woman,
Who never guessed the outrage he had done her.
New Year’s Eve, and Dora. ”

“ Daniel saw him there, gesticulating,
With his feet spread, as if he meant to spring,
To throttle someone. And Darius blinked.
But music and the distance drowned their words.
And now the tall nurse, bending over Dora,
Whispered to her and Bruce; and the boy, rising,
Reached for a small hand. The singer had said
To take it, and he took it, and pulled up
The girl who still was trying to be free,
To save him.
And the music never stopped.
“Kiss her if you dare!” cried old man Glendy.
And many a dancer did. But neither Bruce
Nor Dora, arm in arm, had present ears. ”

“ They sit silently and watch her. They weep and laugh as she wills them to do. She makes them as responsive as a violin. She spiritualises them, and one feels that they are of the same flesh and blood as one's self."
"The same flesh and blood as one's self! Oh, I hope not!" exclaimed Lord Henry, who was scanning the occupants of the gallery through his opera-glass.
"Don't pay any attention to him, Dorian," said the painter. "I understand what you mean, and I believe in this girl. Anyone you love must be marvellous, and any girl that has the effect you describe must be fine and noble. ”

“ Already, in mid June, high long days
Hovered the world, and change, like ripening fruit,
Hung ever, ever plainer. Yet no man,
No god distinguished more in this green time
Than purposes that crossed; and ever tighter.
In Daniel’s house the woman who was resting—
Daily, in scorn, Berrien spoke the word—
Still did not spare the beautiful dream body
She sent to him by dark, when Dora too
Lived by his side and loved him: standing there
In the shed radiance of one who smiled
And smiled, and burned his reticence away. ”

“ Reed strength and a restfulness that he had not known for years. Unconscious of the shadow still hanging over the home, Dorry, prettier, brighter, and sweeter every day, was the delight of the household; her very faults to their partial eyes added to her charm; for, according to Lydia, "they were uncommon innocent and funny, Miss Dorry's ways were." In fact, the young lady, who had a strong will of her own, would have been spoiled to a certainty but for her scorn of affectation, her love of truth, and genuine faithfulness to whatever she believed to be right. ”

“ If ever a woman wasn’t meant for the tropics—” His voice trailed off for a little, then boomed out again, softly resonant, like a ship’s gong going intermittently somewhere beyond in the offing. “I admired her more than a little. But I saw that Dorrien had no show. Women are apt to shout with the majority. How is a husband going to be a majority, if he takes a line of his own? Oh, Dorrien was down and out from the start. ”

“ And only Berrien’s boarder, the gold woman
Who stood so close by Daniel—only that one
Kindled. Then she blazed, and Daniel, blushing,
Knew she had found his thought.
So I have lost her—
This was his thought—have lost her. Then my love
Must die, and no man know it. He was true, [35]
That singer. It is not my life she carries—
Dora, who was mine for that cold minute;
Dora, whom I never can forget.
The eyes of the theater woman burned so fiercely,
Punishing his own, that Daniel shook. ”

“ Dorrance, "my grandchildren have been cooped up in small city rooms for so long, that they are glad to have plenty of space to roam around in."
"'Tisn't good for children to be left so free. It makes 'em regular hobbledehoys. Children need lots of training. Now that Dorothy,—my husband tells me she's head of the house. How ridiculous!"
"Perhaps it is ridiculous, Mrs. Hickox," said Dorothy, dimpling and smiling; "but I'm over sixteen, and that's quite a big girl, you know."
"Oh, you're big enough for your age, but there's no sense of your keeping house in a great big hotel like this." ”

“ Doris swayed and enchanted her old preceptor. Mattie, quietly studying French, drawing, and English literature, was left far behind by her foster-sister, who was speedily learning all that the tutor could teach.
"You should have been born a princess, ma belle!" the old man would say, delighted with some flash of wit, some piquant performance. "What will you do with all your beauty here on a farm?"
"Am I very beautiful?" demanded Doris.
"More beautiful than Helen, for whom thousands died; than Cleopatra, who had the world's conquerors at her feet! What will you do with so much beauty?" ”

“ Dorrance, smiling; "in a hotel you will probably have room enough. But what do you mean by saying you can do the housework? In the first place you're not strong enough, and secondly, you don't know how."
"I'll do the work," said Fairy. "I don't care if I am only twelve, I can cook; 'cause when I went to Gladys Miller's one day, she had a little stove and she showed me how. I'll do all the cooking, and you other girls can do the domesticker work. Leicester can do all the man's work, and grannymother can be a Princess of high degree, and just sit and look on. ”

“ She has entirely altered. Last night she was a great artist. To-night she is merely a commonplace, mediocre actress."
"Don't talk like that about any one you love, Dorian. Love is a more wonderful thing than art."
"They are both simply forms of imitation," murmured Lord Henry. "But do let us go. Dorian, you must not stay here any longer. It is not good for one's morals to see bad acting. Besides, I don't suppose you will want your wife to act. So what does it matter if she plays Juliet like a wooden doll? ”

“ Doris, my golden-haired love, whom I have been loving, believing her to be some helpless waif or stray. Doris, belonging to the Studleighs and the proud Duke of Downsbury—what will she say? Great heavens! what will she say when she learns this?"
Then the task before him might well have dismayed a braver man. He had to find her. The whole world lay before him, and he had to search all over it. Was she in Italy, Spain, or France? or had she even gone further away? He thought of the proud lady's words—"love has keen instincts; you will find her because you love her." ”