Limberlost

“ At dawn, robins wake the echoes of each new day with the admonition, "Cheer up! Cheer up!" and a little later big black vultures go wheeling through cloudland or hang there, like frozen splashes, searching the Limberlost and the surrounding country for food. The boom of the bittern resounds all day, and above it the rasping scream of the blue heron, as he strikes terror to the hearts of frogdom; while the occasional cries of a lost loon, strayed from its flock in northern migration, fill the swamp with sounds of wailing. ”

“ She had promised him not to work in the Limberlost. “‘There were most excellent reasons why I should not go there. Much of it was impenetrable. Only a few trees had been taken out; oilmen were just invading it. In its physical aspect it was a treacherous swamp and quagmire filled with every plant, animal and human danger known in the worst of such locations in the Central States.’” Nevertheless lumbermen had brought word of the vulture’s nest. “‘I hastened to tell my husband the wonderful story of the big black bird, the downy white baby, the pale blue egg.’” So he said he would go with her. ”

“ Freckles never tired of studying the devotion of a fox mother to her babies. To him, whose early life had been so embittered by continual proof of neglect and cruelty in human parents toward their children, the love of these furred and feathered folk of the Limberlost was even more of a miracle than to the Bird Woman and the Angel. ”

“ Porter’s life interest seems to have been that great reservoir of natural wonders, viz., the Limberlost Swamp immediately south of Geneva. The swamp, where a man named Limber became lost and was never found, was said to serve as a refuge for evil persons. ”

“ You can be proud that you've never even once disappointed him or failed in what he believed you could do. You can be proud over the way everyone speaks of you with trust and honor, and about how brave of heart and strong of body you are I heard a big man say a few days ago that the Limberlost was full of disagreeable things—positive dangers, unhealthful as it could be, and that since the memory of the first settlers it has been a rendezvous for runaways, thieves, and murderers. This swamp is named for a man that was lost here and wandered around 'til he starved. ”

“ Because it is of the forest, the brightest light there is to attract it is the glare of the moon as it is reflected on the face of a murky pool, or on the breast of the stream rippling its way through impassable thickets. ”

“ The beeches and oaks so love to talk, they cling to their dead, dry leaves. In the winter the winds are stiffest and blow most, so these trees whisper, chatter, sob, laugh, and at times roar until the sound is deafening. ”

“ The great thing was for Limbert to bring out his next book, which was just what his delightful engagement with the Beacon would give him leisure and liberty to do. The kind of work, all human and elastic and suggestive, was capital experience: in picking up things for his bi-weekly letter he would pick up life as well, he would pick up literature. The new publications, the new pictures, the new people—there would be nothing too novel for us and nobody too sacred. ”

“ When the shadow of the bluff grew long across the meadows, Limberleg said:—
“Darkness will soon be upon us. Where are we going to sleep?”
“We won’t sleep in a cave anyway,” said Hawk-Eye, “even if we could find one. We might find the cave bear at home in it. In that case, we should probably spend the night in his stomach, and I am sure that would be too crowded to be comfortable.”
“We can’t spend the night on the ground surely,” said Limberleg. “Or we might wake up in the stomach of old Sabre-tooth instead.” ”

“ Limberleg had made herself a good needle out of bone and had sewed nice soft deer-skins into clothes for them, all ready for cold weather. She had even made beautiful necklaces of shells for Firefly and herself.
One summer evening, as they sat looking at the moon, Limberleg said: “You see I was right about the water gods. There haven’t been any more earthquakes, and we have everything we want to eat, and plenty of warm skins and a fine cave to live in. There is just one thing more I want. I don’t care much for society, but I should like more people to talk to.” ”

“ I take it that you remember and could identify the chap who called himself Archibald Enwright—the man who gave you that letter to the captain?”
“I surely could,” said I.
“Then, if you can spare me an hour, get your hat.”
And so it happens, lady of the Carlton, that I have just been to Limehouse. You do not know where Limehouse is and I trust you never will. It is picturesque; it is revolting; it is colorful and wicked. The weird odors of it still fill my nostrils; the sinister portrait of it is still before my eyes. It is the Chinatown of London—Limehouse. ”

“ If Limbert had a weakness he rather broke down in his reading. It was fortunately not till after the appearance of The Hidden Heart that he broke down in everything else. He had had rheumatic fever in the spring, when the book was but half finished, and this ordeal in addition to interrupting his work had enfeebled his powers of resistance and greatly reduced his vitality. He recovered from the fever and was able to take up the book again, but the organ of life was pronounced ominously weak and it was enjoined upon him with some sharpness that he should lend himself to no worries. ”

“ Limberleg looked just as she would have looked if he had said, “There’s a pack of hyenas living in those woods.” There was reason for it in those days. The different groups of people in the forests had nothing to do with one another, and when they met, they were much more likely to fight than to be friendly.
“Can’t we go up the river-bank and not go into the woods at all?” asked Limberleg. For answer Hawk-Eye pointed down the river. Far away in the green meadow they saw two mammoths feeding. ”

“ They stepped into the corridor, and each one of the doomed seven knew. Limbo Lane is a world on the outside of the world; but it had learned, when deprived of one or more of the five senses, to make another sense supply the deficiency. Each one knew that it was nearly eight, and that Murray was to go to the chair at eight. There is also in the many Limbo Lanes an aristocracy of crime. The man who kills in the open, who beats his enemy or pursuer down, flushed by the primitive emotions and the ardor of combat, holds in contempt the human rat, the spider, and the snake. ”

“ I pleasur'd my doxies with fifty rare things,
⁠for which I am got into Limbo.
But as I lay sleeping one day in the straw,
⁠bewailing my woful condition,
Being ready with hunger my fingers to gnaw,
⁠I sigh'd and brought forth this expression:
If I could but get the young whores to my hand,
To argue the case very long I'd not stand,
But grind the young bitches as small as the sand,
⁠I'd teach them to leave me in Limbo. ”

“ Liliom crying out to the distant carousel the glad news that he is to be a father; the two thieves gambling for the spoils of their prospective robbery; Marie and Wolf posing for their portrait while the broken-hearted Julie stands looking after the vanishing Liliom, the thieves’ song ringing in her ears; the two policemen grousing about pay and pensions while Liliom lies bleeding to death; Liliom furtively proffering his daughter the star he has stolen for her in heaven. . . . The temptation to count the whole scintillating string is difficult to resist. ”

“ There would be Limp, who lived in a nearby hut, who always rose before me, and prepared the food, as was right, for was it not I who brought in all save the fish, for the broken and shortened leg of Limp made him of little use in the hunt? He could fish well, and do many other things better than the rest of us. I have heard that it has been always the way with men, that those who were crippled have been deepest of thought and discovered most of the new things that have been good for us. The old men tell us so. And in almost every clan there are cripples ”

“ The first gray halftones of dawn were creeping into the sky, so that the outlines of Limehouse loomed like dim silhouettes about us. There was abundant evidence in the form of noises, strange and discordant, that many workers were busy on dock and riverside, but the streets through which our course lay were almost empty. Sometimes a furtive shadow would move out of some black gully and fade into a dimly seen doorway in a manner peculiarly unpleasant and Asiatic. ”

“ In this settling obscurity the sound of human woe went on increasing, enlivened now and again by cries of rage. The crowd, cumbered by its wedding raiment, was fighting confusedly for priority of place; the terminus was being rushed, empty excursion trains boarded. A faint-hearted exodus from the New Jerusalem [312] had already begun: the world was not coming to an end in the peaceful way that had been foretold.
A ring-up on Mr. Trimblerigg’s telephone gave him the news. ”

“ But, if no thunderbolt falls on Lord Lilburne's head—if he is fated still to eat, and drink, and to die on his bed, he may yet taste the ashes of the Dead Sea fruit which his hands have culled. He is grown old. ”

“ The end of the six months’ training at Woolwich being completed, I was appointed to a Garrison company, with its headquarters at Limerick—good old Limerick—which was then known as the paradise of hard-up subalterns. Limerick is a quaint town. There is Old Limerick and Modern Limerick. The old town is situated round the 64 castle, which is on the banks of the Shannon, and where—across the river—stands the old Treaty Stone. It is difficult to describe Old Limerick. One must really see it and live in it to appreciate its dirty houses, poor tenements, its smells and other unhealthy attributes. ”

“ And when the baker had rubbed his feet over, he ran to the miller and said, “Strew some white meal over my feet for me.” The miller thought to himself, “The Wolf wants to deceive some one,” and refused. But the Wolf said, “If you will not do it, I will devour you.” Then the miller was afraid, and made his paws white for him. Yes! so are men!
Now, the wretch went for the third time to the house-door, knocked at it, and said, “Open the door for me, Children! Your dear little mother has come home, and has brought every one of you something from the forest with her.” ”

“ Ralph Limbert is killed by worry because he could not stop producing masterpieces when it was the damned marketable asset that was required to pay the wages of his wife's maid; the lion dies in a cold country house, with no fire in his bedroom, while his hostess gets paragraphed for her charity to the wild literary, and his last manuscript goes astray downstairs somewhere between Lord Dorimont's man and Lady Augusta's maid. ”

“ Limerick is a city which, by very reason of her great past and her matter-of-fact and decidedly ordinary present, presents great and disappointing contrasts. One may read the statistics in the guide-books and learn that 350,000 pigs are killed every year in the town, and of a great many other mundane things which happen here and have no interest whatsoever for him. ”

“ When the mamma saw me looking long looks at those eggs, she gave to me a shoulder-shake and told me to get a hurry on me and take those eggs straight to Mrs. Limberger yonder. That Mrs. Limberger is the quite plump wife of that quite big man that lives in a quite big house that is nice but is n't as nice as his lane. I thought I'd go straight to Mrs. Limberger's in along that lane from out along the field; but first I did go by to get Felix Mendelssohn. ”

“ Some say they have seen a serpent as large as the trunk of a tree.”
“We can go up the river until we find a shallower place to cross,” said Hawk-Eye. “I have killed a tiger and a rhinoceros and a cave bear in my time. We can take care of ourselves.”
When Limberleg heard him say “We” she knew that she was going, and she was glad. She was as brave as Hawk-Eye and almost as good a hunter. ”

“ About fifteen miles from Limoges the landscape, losing the graceful flow of the Vienne through the undulating meadows of the Limousin, which in certain places remind one of Switzerland, especially about Saint-Leonard, takes on a harsh and melancholy aspect. Here we come upon vast tracts of uncultivated land, sandy plains without herbage, hemmed in on the horizon by the summits of the Correze. These mountains have neither the abrupt rise of the Alpine ranges nor their splendid ridges; neither the warm gorges and desolate peaks of the Appenines, nor the picturesque grandeur of the Pyrenees. ”

“ For you, Lord Lilburne, I will believe you: it is too horrible to doubt even your intentions. If wrong had chanced to her, I would have rent you where you stand, limb from limb. And thank her”,— (for Lilburne recovered at this language the daring of his youth, before calculation, indolence, and excess had dulled the edge of his nerves; and, unawed by the height, and manhood, and strength of his menacer, stalked haughtily up to him) —“and thank your relationship to her,” said Philip, sinking his voice into a whisper, “that I do not brand you as a pilferer and a cheat! ”

“ Whenever tolerably well, Lord Lilburne was careless of his health; the moment he was ill, Lord Lilburne paid himself the greatest possible attention. Though a man of firm nerves, in youth of remarkable daring, and still, though no longer rash, of sufficient personal courage, he was by no means fond of the thought of death—that is, of his own death. ”

“ Must they fall as booty into the hands of the enemy? There stood his barn. Must it go up in flames? There was his strongly built house. Must he and she be buried beneath its fragments?
Thus, in deep, oppressive anxiety, Lambert stood at the edge of the forest, looking over the valley that contained his home, glittering in the bright sunlight. There was no noise in the wide circuit except the buzz of insects over the soft bending grass and flowers of the prairie, and an occasional bird-note from the branches of the dark-green pines which, motionless, drank in the heat of the sun. ”