Esnesnon

“ It was true there had been males who, possessed of a boldness that was awful to contemplate, had attempted to gain some power and supplant woman, but the end of all such persons had been so indescribably terrible as to serve as a salutary warning to others who would attempt to follow in their footsteps; and if ever the day should come when males gained power in the land, it would be a sorry day indeed for Esnesnon. ”

“ I think my readers will unanimously be of my opinion, that if this was only "pleasant banter" a row in Esnesnon amongst the ladies would have been rather serious, and unpleasant for human and civilised beings. But as the judges smiled, and the two learned counsel smiled lovingly at each other, and the audience laughed, it is to be presumed that it was only "pleasant banter," and that the Esnesnonites relished such scenes with as much zest as Spaniards do a bull- fight. But alas! it is fearful to contemplate the tremendous amount of hypocrisy there must have been there to be sure. ”

“ We are desirous to set an example by which we hope other nations will profit. You will, therefore, consider yourself at perfect liberty to go where you like in Esnesnon, and if you are an observer you cannot fail to benefit by what you see, and I trust that, if you should return to the Upper World, you will do all in your power to reform your fellows, and instruct them in the arts and politeness of a highly civilised people, such as, I am proud to say, we are."
Flin bowed low. But he could scarcely repress a smile as he compared the great American nation with Esnesnon. ”

“ It will of course be perfectly understood that the two grand schemes which now occupied Flin Flon's attention were the result of the most humane and disinterested motives.
To take every means possible to return to the upper world was a duty he owed to science and his friends, while to attempt the liberation of the oppressed, un-sexed, and long- suffering men of Esnesnon was a duty demanded in the name of humanity. ”

“ The only motive she had for startling upon such a dangerous journey was her love for Flin, as she was not even supported, as was he, by any enthusiasm for scientific exploration. But she confessed herself willing to live or die with him. And so when everything was ready, and when the apparatus for breathing had been adjusted, and the electric lamps set in motion, he turned his back towards Esnesnon and set his face upward. ”

“ For the truth of the matter is, every woman in Esnesnon was burning with curiosity, though they were all lacking in courage, and those who had gone up had funked when they had reached the portals of the strange cavern, and had hurried back as fast as they could. Thus the members allowed their curiosity to overcome their discretion, and after a very great deal of talk they gave the necessary sanction for an expedition, and also acceded to another request Flin made, that he should be accompanied to the top of the mountain by males only. ”

“ Why, there are some of our young males in Esnesnon that, if I were to make love to them, they would very soon allow me to caress them. But I don't like such easy conquest. The greatest pleasure you know is in the pursuit of pleasure. Now, I dare be bound that in the course of about an hour I would undertake to kiss the very highest-born young male in our land, in the same way that I am now going to sip the nectar of those beautiful lips of yours."
She made a motion as if about to kiss him, but Flin put up his hands and drew quickly back, so that her design was frustrated. ”

“ But in Esnesnon, where according to our ideas every body seemed mad, nothing of this kind was attempted, and the poor creature was allowed to rave and put her ravings in print unchecked. Of course in our own country such a state of matters would never be tolerated for a single moment. We have no lunatics excepting those who are confined within the walls of an asylum.
When Flin's arrest came to be known to the King his Majesty was exceedingly annoyed, but he was afraid to say much, for he was well aware of the influence Mrs Ytidrusba possessed. ”

“ For there again they proved themselves to be prototypes of certain people in the upper world, who are chiefly remarkable for their small intellects and their self-importance, and who will see nothing beyond their own noses. Believing, as the Esnesnonites did, that Flin had really come from a locality where in their own stupid ignorance they placed the infernal regions, they looked upon him as immeasurably inferior to themselves. ”

“ For, if we did, our names would go down to posterity with execration, and other worlds would ring with shouts of horror at our barbarity; while generations yet unborn would weep tears of blood as they heard of the blot that rested on the escutcheon of the fair city of Esnesnon. This is a fearful thing to contemplate; it would be a thousand times more horrible if it were to become reality. But whether it shall, or shall not, is a matter which is entirely in your hands, my most noble judges. The balances trembles. ”

“ They stood breathless as it were, waiting for the supreme moment when the clarion note of freedom should sound throughout the long-oppressed land, and yet trembling in themselves lest all the plans should miscarry, and in the fancied moment of triumph the plot should be disclosed, when woman, waking suddenly to a sense of the danger in which she stood, would, in her blind, mad, passionate revengeful fury, exterminate man from the earth, and then as a consequence she would die, and Esnesnon would be a buried city of the dead. ”

“ But the feeling with which he kissed the hand of the maiden almost amounted to disgust. His own was small compared to it. Hers was a coarse and hairy hand. From the representations of Ytidrusba he had expected to see a young lady who might have justly laid claim to some beauty. But though Flin, with the gallantry and courtesy characteristic of him, does not say all he thought of the Princess, it is very clear that he was by no means very greatly impressed. In age she must have been close on sixty, though, as he had learnt, this was simply childhood in Esnesnon. ”

“ Then seeing that he had two "bloods" in one sentence, he crossed the second one out, substituted "the sword," and lit a fresh cigarette. "For years Essenland has writhed under the provocations of Ruritania, but has preserved a dignified silence; this last insult is more than flesh and blood can stand." Another "blood" had got in, but it was a new sentence and he thought it might be allowed to remain. "We shall not be accused of exaggeration if we say that Essenland would lose, and rightly lose, her prestige in the eyes of Europe if she let this affront pass unnoticed. ”

“ Not. My lord, I've sought you out with much impatience.
You've had an audience of the queen: what follow'd?
Bur. Soon as I told her, Essex had refused
To yield his dignities, and staff of office,
Against her high command, pronounced by me,
She seem'd deprived of reason for a moment;
Her working mind betray'd contending passions;
She paused, like thunder in some kindling cloud,
Then instant burst with dreadful fury forth:
"And has th' ungrateful wretch defy'd my mandate?
The proud, audacious traitor, scorn'd my power?
He dares not, sure?—He dies—the villain dies!" ”

“ Essex paused. “And what may it be?” he asked.
“I will tell thee more anon,” he said. [209] “Now, my Lord, I would simply counsel thee to beware of Sir Walter Raleigh.”
“And wherefore of him?” demanded Essex. “I know not that I have in aught offended him.”
“Oh, dost thou not?” returned the crafty courtier. “Art not his rival, then? Has he not in thee, and thy good parts, which men do so worthily admire, an obstacle to her Grace’s favour? Trust me, he hates thee, my good Lord!”
“I can well believe he bears me no good will,” answered the Earl. ”

“ But Margaret was obdurate. The Wests had always stood by their ships, she urged; had always brought their ships in to the ports intended or had gone down with their ships in the effort. The Elsinore had cleared from Baltimore for Seattle with the Wests in the high place. The Elsinore would re-equip with officers and men in Valparaiso, and the Elsinore would arrive in Seattle with a West still on board.
"But think, dear heart," I objected. "The voyage will require months. Remember what Henley has said: 'Every kiss we take or give leaves us less of life to live.'"
She pressed her lips to mine. ”

“ Ah, those parish worries! Robert caught the smoke of Mile End in the distance, curling above the twilight woods, and laid about him vigorously with his stick on the Squire’s shrubs, as he thought of those poisonous hovels, those ruined lives! But, after all, it might be mere ignorance, and that wretch Henslowe might have been merely trading on his master’s morbid love of solitude.
And then—all men have their natural conceits. Robert Elsmere would not have been the very human creature he was if, half-consciously, he had not counted a good deal on his own powers of influence. ”

“ There remained Esens, and it was thither I resolved to go to-night—a tedious journey, lasting till past eight in the evening; but there I should only be an hour from Norden by rail.
And at Esens?
All day long I strove for light on the central mystery, collecting from my diary, my memory, my imagination, from the map, the time-table, and Davies’s grubby jottings, every elusive atom of material. Sometimes I issued from a reverie with a start, to find a phlegmatic Dutch peasant staring strangely at me over his china pipe. I was more careful over the German border. ”

“ Essex surprised me by telling me, that you, who keep yourself so warm and so numerously clothed, do yet sometimes, if the sun shines, sit and write in your garden for hours at a time. It is more than I should readily do, whose habitudes are so very different from yours. Your complaints seem to demand perspiration—but I do not venture to advise. I understand no constitution but my own, and should kill Milo, if I managed him as I treat myself. ”

“ Ennis, tensing to spring toward Ruth, saw the two priests at the gray mechanism swiftly turn the knurled black knobs. Then Ennis, like all else in the vast cavern, was held frozen and spellbound by what followed.
The spherical web of wires pulsed up madly with shining force. And up at the center of the gleaming black oval facet on the wall, there appeared a spark of unearthly green light. It blossomed outward, expanded, an awful viridescent flower blooming quickly outward farther and farther. And as it expanded, Ennis saw that he could look through that green light! ”

“ Such was the lofty tone of self-justification assumed by Essex on this memorable occasion, when his pride was roused and his temper exasperated, by the open war of recrimination and reproaches into which he had so unadvisedly plunged with his personal enemies; and by the cruel and insolent invectives of the crown lawyers. But he was soon to undergo on this point a most remarkable and total change.
The mind of the earl of Essex was deeply imbued with sentiments of religion: from early youth he had conversed much with divines of the stricter class, whom he held in habitual reverence ”

“ A strange experience is this life on the Elsinore. I confess, while it seems that I have been here for long months, so familiar am I with every detail of the little round of living, that I cannot orient myself. My mind continually strays from things non-understandable to things incomprehensible--from our Samurai captain with the exquisite Gabriel voice that is heard only in the tumult and thunder of storm; on to the ill-treated and feeble-minded faun with the bright, liquid, pain-filled eyes; to the three gangsters who rule the forecastle and seduce the second mate ”

“ Enid slipped past him into the bushes and gave a faint click of her lips. Something moved and whined, and two dark objects bounded towards her. She caught them together by their collars and cuffed them soundly. Then she led the way back so as to get on Henson's tracks.
He was walking on ahead of her now, beating time softly to the music of the faintly distant song with his cigar. Enid could distinctly see the sweep of the red circle.
"Hold him, Dan," she whispered. "Watch, Prance; watch, boy."
There was a low growl as the hounds found the scent and dashed forward. ”

“ When at last we broke up, my Lord Essex again came with me to the door, and carried me first, for an instant into the little parlour.
"Mr. Mallock," he said, "we have had a pleasant evening, have we not? But I need not tell you that our talk had best not be repeated. We have said not a word that is disloyal to His Majesty: but even a little fault-finding is apt to be misrepresented in these days." ”

“ The squire's countenance was no longer convulsed. The great brow was calm; a more than common dignity and peace spoke from the long peaked face. Robert bent over him. The madman, the cynic, had passed away: the dying scholar and thinker lay before him.
'Will he rally?' he asked, under his breath.
Meyrick shook his head.
'I doubt it. It has exhausted all the strength he had left. The heart is failing rapidly. I think he will sleep away. And, Mr. Elsmere, you go—go and sleep. Benson and I'll watch. Oh, my scratch is nothing, sir. I'm used to a rough-and-tumble life. But you go. ”

“ Lord Essex, however, after waiting a day and burying his dead, drew off from the field, and we, remaining there, were able to claim the victory, which, however, my son, was one of a kind which was scarce worth winning. It was a sad sight to see so many men stretched stark and dead, and these killed, not in fighting with a foreign foe, but with other Englishmen. It made us all mightily sad, and if at that moment Lord Essex had had full power from the Parliament to treat, methinks that the quarrel could have been settled, all being mightily sick of such kind of fighting. ”