Julia Domna

“ The assurance of a friendship so exclusive, so much in unison with her own ideas on the subject, and still more the tender and agitated tone in which words so kind were uttered, banished every thought of Lady Susan, and in one moment restored Julia to perfect happiness. For reply, she only lifted her eyes to his. Their expression seemed to him, at the moment, to justify him in pressing her hand to his lips, though afterwards he thought he had done very wrong. ”

“ Ovid. Who? Cytheris, Cornelius Gallus' love? Tib. Ay, he'll be there too, and my Plautia. Ovid. And why not your Delia? Tib. Yes, and your Corinna. Ovid. True; but, my sweet Tibullus, keep that secret I would not, for all Rome, it should be thought I veil bright Julia underneath that name: Julia, the gem and jewel of my soul, That takes her honours from the golden sky, As beauty doth all lustre from her eye. The air respires the pure Elysian sweets In which she breathes, and from her looks descend The glories of the summer. Heaven she is, Praised in herself above all praise ”

“ Come! trust me with your heart. Do you love him very much? Does your happiness depend on him?”
At this point-blank question Julia put her head over Mrs. Dodd's shoulder, not to be seen; and, clasping her tight, murmured scarce above a whisper, “I don't know how much I love him. When he came in at that party I felt his slave—his unfaithful adoring slave; if he had ordered me to sing Aileen Aroon, I should have obeyed; if he had commanded me to take his hand and leave the room, I think I should have obeyed. His face is always before me as plain as life ”

“ In short, Julia was already bringing her mind to contemplate, as a species of happiness, the idea of being even a consolation to Edmund. She determined that when she went to her room at night, she would ask Frances, who seemed to be in Lady Susan’s confidence, all the particulars about this business between her ladyship and Edmund. He had said that he had no hope, and therefore, at any rate, he was not going to be married to Lady Susan. Julia could, herself also, remain unmarried; and then they could, according to her original plan, love each other as friends all their lives. ”

“ Her eye was large and dark, her hair glossy, her brow smooth, her cheek “all purple with the beam of youth,” her husband 50, and his name Alfonso. Donna Julia loved a lad of 16, named Don Juan, “not wisely but too well,” for which she was confined in a convent.—Byron, Don Juan, i. 59-188 (1819) .
Tender and impassioned, but possessing neither information to occupy her mind, nor good principles to regulate her conduct, Donna Julia is an illustration of the women of Seville, “whose minds have but one idea, and whose life business is intrigue.” The slave of every impulse ... ”

“ Her face was twitching, her hands shaking, and a sudden tide of pity swelled up in the older woman's heart.
"I have always suspected," she said in a low voice, "that you are younger than you admit, Donna Julia. If that is so, then I'm old enough to be your mother, and you must allow me to give you a word of advice. You are so charming, so attractive—the Duke, who so seldom likes charming young ladies, has become quite fond of you—that surely you might make a happy, normal life for yourself? Young people live so dangerously nowadays—and oh, my dear, it is so foolish." ”

“ On just this casual, kindly advice Jim really did go home, prepared to be very dignified with Julia; and to make the separation definite and final, if not legal, or to bring her back, however formally, as his wife, exactly as he saw fit.
And then came the meeting in the Toland library, when in one stunning flash he saw her as she was: beautiful, dignified, and charming, a woman to whom all eyes turned naturally and admiringly, grave, sweet, and wise in a world full of pretence and ignorance, selfishness and shallowness. ”

“ Yet did the countenance possess a power over Julia like that of a spell, she could not withdraw her gaze from it. The hollow cheek, the large prominent eye, with hopelessness for its sole expression, the colourless lip, the perfectly white hair, the small and still delicate, while emaciated throat, formed a picture, which could not be contemplated without extreme pain.
Julia half raising herself, exclaimed, “Where am I? where am I? oh, where am I?” each time with increasing earnestness. ”

“ Suddenly the youth, an expression of mingled astonishment, horror, and fear upon his changing face, fell upon his knees and crossed himself with [70] a fervor begotten of the miracle upon which his straining eyes now gazed.
Beside the out-stretched figure of Doña Julia stood two angelic beings, taller than the run of men, who faced the sun and raised their arms straight upward toward the evening sky. They wore white robes, and from the distant dune to which the startled Juan crawled it seemed as if golden halos glorified the heads of these marvellous messengers from Paradise. ”

“ Julia Gordon was a high-minded, artless, innocent woman, if ever such an one breathed the breath of life; but still she was a woman. She perceived at once that she had struck and fascinated the wild Partisan at first sight, and though she would not for the universe have intentionally caused him a single pang, she did unconsciously encourage him, and lead him on to wilder and more wandering fancies than he had ever entertained before. ”

“ For Julia knew now that life to her must be a battle; whatever the years to come might hold for her, they could not hold more than an occasional heavenly interval of peace. Peace for Jim, peace for her mother, peace for her children and for all those whom she loved; but for herself there must be times of an increasing burden, an increasing weariness, and the gnawing of an undying fight with utter discouragement. Her secret must never be anything but a secret; and yet, to Julia, it sometimes seemed that her only happiness in life would be to shout it to the whole world. ”

“ They descended still, and gradually, the mingled din increased both in loudness and distinctness, till the clanking of chains and strokes of hammers could be distinguished, through shrieks, yells, and coarse wild laughter.
Still they descended, and now, in his usual voice of thunder, Julia’s companion uttered [214] a strange halloo, which bellowed fearfully in the narrow void to which its echoes were confined. It seemed to be a summons to hitherto invisible beings, for immediately, a glare of unnatural light appeared below, and, moving through it, fiend-like forms as black as ebony. ”

“ To possess the power of giving happiness in a manner so easy and so innocent, to one for whom she did not deny that she had, all her life, had a very tender sisterly affection; to possess such a power and not to use it was [29] not in the affectionate nature of Julia. She did exert it every day, every hour, and when she saw Edmund’s countenance light up with a beam caught from her smile, she felt a degree of pleasure that sometimes startled her ”

“ By laying whate'er sum in mulct they please on
The lover, who must pay a handsome price,
Because it is a marketable vice.
LXV
Alfonso was the name of Julia's lord,
A man well looking for his years, and who
Was neither much beloved nor yet abhorr'd:
They lived together, as most people do,
Suffering each other's foibles by accord,
And not exactly either one or two;
Yet he was jealous, though he did not show it,
For jealousy dislikes the world to know it.
LXVI
Julia was—yet I never could see why—
With Donna Inez quite a favourite friend ”

“ Dunn!" said she. "Anything for me this morning?"
"Yes, ma'am," answered Dunn, with a very low bow; and casting a furtive glance around to make sure that no one saw him, he drew from his pocket a letter, on which Julia instantly recognized Dr. Lacey's handwriting. She took it and placed it in the pocket of her dress.
On her way home, conscience clamored loudly in behalf of Fanny's rights. It said, "Beware what you do! Give Fanny her letter. It is a crime to withhold it." ”

“ I'd seen yer all eatin' an' drinkin' 'bout 'alf a hour before, an' it dudn't make me feel no better, I kin tell yer!"
Dundas reflected. It was just possible the boy was speaking truth. He remembered how Barton had shut himself up in the library while he and the other men had had their smoke in the dining-room. It was quite possible that Julia should have dropped into the room just as he had described. But what could there be in the will to cause her to purloin it?—a revocation of the clause relating to her income? Surely not. He continued to question Shorty. ”

“ Even lovers like Kennedy and her husband had their times of being wholly out of sympathy with each other, she knew, and she and Jim were not angels; they must only try to be patient and forbearing until the dark hour went by.
With a sense of unbearable weight at her heart she resigned herself to the hard task of endurance. Sometimes with a bitter rush would come the memory of how they had loved each other, and then Julia surrendered herself to long paroxysms of tears; it was so hard, so bewildering, to have Jim cold and quiet, to live in this painful alternation of hope and fear. ”

“ Below stairs the world that never slept hummed like a beehive; squads of men were washing floors, laying tables; the kitchen was as hot and busy as at midday; the engine rooms were filled with silhouetted forms briskly coming and going. Up on one of the dark decks, with the soft mist blowing in his face, Jim spent the long night, his folded arms resting on the rail, his sombre eyes following the silent rush of waters, and in her cabin Julia lay wide awake and battling with despair. ”

“ He lets the days, and the weeks, and the years go by, forgetting me and everything that concerns me as much as he can, and getting into a slow, dull rage whenever he remembers that fate hit him, of all men in the world, such a blow!"
"And the baby?" said Richie. "Don't you suppose she counts? Oh, Lord, to have a kid of one's own," he added slowly, with the half-smiling sigh Julia knew so well.
"I imagine she would count if he had seen her lately," Julia suggested. "But she was such a tiny scrap! And Jim, as men go, isn't a lover of children."
"You wouldn't divorce him, Julie?" ”

“ When Julia heard Frances approaching, she was, for the first time in her life, guilty of artifice; she snatched up a book, and appeared to be busily engaged reading. Frances rang the bell, then went towards a looking glass, and began to take pins out of her dress.
“Do you know, Julia,” she said, “I think that Edmund and Lady Susan will be married after all!” Julia pretended not to hear, and in [105] reality did not see, (correctly at least) for the words on the open page before her seemed quitting their ranks, and mingling in one disorderly maze. ”

“ Julia, partly from alarm, and partly from the previous exertion of her spirits in saying so much, was a good deal overcome, and even shed tears. The sight of these threw Edmund off his guard. “Would to heaven, Julia!” he exclaimed, “that I were indeed your brother! entitled to the happy privilege of guarding one more precious than life from every danger! of sheltering one dearer than happiness itself—from every sorrow!”
Thunderstruck at his own rashness, he ceased. A smile through her tears was Julia’s reply ”

“ And if I perish, ’tis for Mother Church! But listen, Julia! I am [61] old and worn. A few years more or less are little worth. But you are young. You must not die, my child! If I had lured you to an ocean grave, I’m sure my soul would find no peace in Paradise.”
Doña Julia had seated herself upon the edge of her uneasy hammock, and was looking down at her father, who had attempted to maintain an upright posture upon the treacherous surface of a sea-chest fastened by clamps to the cabin floor. Suddenly the old Spaniard arose and stumbled to the hatchway. ”

“ He could not be blind to the pleasure with which Julia received every little mark of silent attention from him, and the blissful sensation which glowed within his breast at such moments was not to be foregone at the faint [27] instigations of a judgment bewildered by the influence of an absorbing passion. Yet he certainly fancied, that it was only his own futurity he was sacrificing for a dream of present felicity. Whatever he sometimes felt Julia’s feelings to be, he undoubtedly always thought them the generous friendship she had promised him should ever be his ”

“ She was sorry that he should be giving, and not Lena or she herself.
Julia is so self-denying that some years she goes without a greatcoat even for the coldest winter weather. All her money goes to other people. But she is not at all proud of her good works. She is just simple and cheerful, a quiet though impulsive woman. You never hear her laugh loudly, but there is always a sort of kind warmth and cheerfulness in her face. She will give up a book, her time, her means of making a living, her pleasure, to whatever appeals to her; and the whole house in which she lives is founded on altruism. ”

“ Julia will make you an excellent wife."
"I am sure of that," he said, simply, "yet it makes me nervous a little at times to think I may be standing in your light. I never thought what it was coming to when I tried to comfort Julia about you, or I would have left Johanna to do it all. It is very difficult to console a person without seeming very fond of them; and then there's the danger of them growing fond of you. I love Julia now with all my heart: but I did not begin comforting her with that view, and I am sure you exonerate me, Martin?" ”

“ Anderson, and, between the two, Jonas had to go away without leaving his message. And Julia had to keep her breaking heart in suspense a while longer.
Why did she not elope long ago and get rid of her mother? Because she was Julia, and being Julia, conscientious, true, and filial in spite of her unhappy life, her own character built a wall against such a disobedience. Nearly all limitations are inside. You could do almost anything if you could give yourself up to it. To go in the teeth of one's family is the one thing that a person of Julia's character and habits finds next to impossible. ”