Major Barbara

“ UNDERSHAFT. Ought, ought, ought, ought, ought! Are you going to spend your life saying ought, like the rest of our moralists? Turn your oughts into shalls, man. Come and make explosives with me. Whatever can blow men up can blow society up. The history of the world is the history of those who had courage enough to embrace this truth. Have you the courage to embrace it, Barbara?
LADY BRITOMART. Barbara, I positively forbid you to listen to your father's abominable wickedness. And you, Adolphus, ought to know better than to go about saying that wrong things are true. ”

“ BARBARA. It's too melancholy. You get saved, Cholly; and you'll pass hence, my brother, without making such a fuss about it.
LADY BRITOMART. Really, Barbara, you go on as if religion were a pleasant subject. Do have some sense of propriety.
UNDERSHAFT. I do not find it an unpleasant subject, my dear. It is the only one that capable people really care for.
LADY BRITOMART [looking at her watch] Well, if you are determined to have it, I insist on having it in a proper and respectable way. Charles: ring for prayers. [General amazement. Stephen rises in dismay] .
LOMAX [rising] Oh I say! ”

“ So I must go to the drawingroom.
LADY BRITOMART [offended] Well, go. [He starts for the door] . And remember this, Adolphus [he turns to listen] : I have a very strong suspicion that you went to the Salvation Army to worship Barbara and nothing else. And I quite appreciate the very clever way in which you systematically humbug me. I have found you out. Take care Barbara doesn't. That's all.
CUSINS [with unruffled sweetness] Don't tell on me. [He goes out] .
LADY BRITOMART. Sarah: if you want to go, go. Anything's better than to sit there as if you wished you were a thousand miles away. ”

“ If I had a child, and you destroyed its body with your explosives—if you murdered Dolly with your horrible guns—I could forgive you if my forgiveness would open the gates of heaven to you. But to take a human soul from me, and turn it into the soul of a wolf! that is worse than any murder. ”

“ The Law that abides and changes not, ages long,
The Eternal and Nature-born: these things be strong.
What else is Wisdom? What of Man's endeavor,
Or God's high grace so lovely and so great?
To stand from fear set free? to breathe and wait? ”

“ Joyousness, a sacred gift long dethroned by the hellish laughter of derision and obscenity, rises like a flood miraculously out of the fetid dust and mud of the slums; rousing marches and impetuous dithyrambs rise to the heavens from people among whom the depressing noise called "sacred music" is a standing joke; a flag with Blood and Fire on it is unfurled, not in murderous rancor, but because fire is beautiful and blood a vital and splendid red ”

“ Now, Barbara had no money and a great deal of pride despite her love, so that John Gore, who knew how matters stood with her, had to resort to a lover’s stratagem to fill her purse. He told her a solemn tale of how the lord chancellor managed the affairs of the nation, and how she was her father’s heiress, though the estates were in the lawyers’ hands till the time came for her to step forward and prove herself a very comely young woman without a mad whim in her head, save that whim of loving a sailor. ”

“ Barbara was still lying like one asleep before the fire when he returned, for she had been so near to death that life seemed to steal back softly and slowly as though still afraid. John Gore had never looked thus at his love before, as a man might look at a sleeping child or at some fair valley under a golden dawn. He saw the faint flush upon her cheeks, the shadowy sweep of the long lashes, the little dark curls of hair falling with such a sheen of sweetness over her forehead, the line of the red mouth, the soft warmth of her skin. ”

“ But Barbara knew. Beneath the conventionalities of his class the girl felt the man a powerful character, with all the latent strength of his nation-building ancestors. She wanted him—as she put it to herself—to wake up. Would he? Would he learn the language of her Desert? She believed that he would, even as she believed in the reclamation of The King's Basin lands.
And she was glad—glad that the Seer and Abe and Tex and Pat and her father—the men who had brought her out of the Desert—were going now back into that land of death to save that land itself from itself. ”

“ Barbara could not "place" it about; she had neither optimism nor a sense of humour sufficient. But she wanted it—wanted it terribly. If she were not to be allowed to indulge her imagination, then must she, all the more, love some one with fervour: the two things were interdependent. She surveyed her world with an eye to this possible loving. There was her governess, who had been with her for a year now, tearful, bony, using Barbara as a means and never as an end. Barbara did not love her—how could she? ”

“ And now, to the ever-growing amazement of Mistress Mehitable, Doctor Jim took up the patting, while Doctor John, seating himself at the harpsichord, began a strange staccato picking of the keys. Then Barbara stopped singing, and gave herself up wholly to the dance. She danced with arms and hands and head and feet, and every slender curve of her young body. She moved like flames. Her eyes and lips and teeth were a radiance through the live, streaming darknesses of her hair. Light, swift, unerring, ecstatic, it was like the most impassioned of bird-songs translated into terms of pure motion. ”

“ So Barbara for a while bade farewell to those who loved her, bade farewell to Anthony, her heart’s heart. Once more—alone, utterly alone—she laid her on the couch in the great chamber with the translucent dome and was whirled back through nothingness to the hell of earth, there to be born again as the child of the evil woman—that she might save a soul alive. ”

“ There is nothing in it that I take pleasure in telling, and to write its history would be to accuse either Barbara or myself. For two days we travelled together, she in her coach, I on horseback. Come to London, we were told that my lord was at Hatchstead; having despatched our borrowed equipage and servant to their mistress, and with them the amount of my debt and a most grateful message, we proceeded on our road, Barbara in a chaise, I again riding. All the way Barbara shunned me as though I had the plague, and I on my side showed no desire to be with a companion so averse from my society. ”

“ The cuckoo turns out the young sparrows or tit-larks, and takes their places, and Miss Clare has robbed you of yours."
"Not of my home, Barbara. I am more likely to stay in the old nest than ever. She cannot help being so fair and stealing all hearts. Besides, I love her."
"She might help being false, though, and having her secrets and her meetings with people, and getting letters unknown to you or my mistress. She has always been close and had her secrets."
Margery thought Barbara alluded to meetings with Captain Anstruther, but the nurse undeceived her. ”

“ Barbara turned even paler than she had been as she listened to his words. "What is it you have done?" she asked.
"Oh, I've not killed anyone. Better for me if I had! One may shoot a man, but to take a horse is a hanging matter here." ”

“ For God’s sake, stop!” said Anthony, “I am a brute to have spoken like that, and I’m helpless; that’s the worst of it. Oh! my darling, don’t you understand? Don’t you understand?”
“No,” answered Barbara, shaking her head and beginning to cry.
“That I love you, that I have always loved you, and that I always shall love you until—until—the moon ceases to shine,” and he pointed to that orb which had appeared above the sea.
“They say it is dead already, and no doubt will come to an end in due course like everything else,” remarked Barbara, seeking to gain time. ”

“ He laid Barbara on the wet grass that grew in the old hall, and, kneeling at her head, took her two arms at the wrists and began to move them gently from the shoulders, spreading them wide, and then crossing them with slight pressure upon her bosom. Nor did man ever thank God more than did John Gore when she began to breathe feebly of her own sweet self, and the rise and fall of her bosom showed that the tide of life had turned. ”

“ The two were now sitting on the bench under the elm, and twittering together like little love-birds. The Eyesore came nearer.
"Barbara," said Marjolaine, with meaning, "suppose Mr. Basil's cheek is being fed on, too?"
"Dearest, that is impossible," said Barbara.
Marjolaine sat nearer and spoke more confidentially. "Suppose I know it is?"
Barbara pushed her away and looked at her. "You wonderful child!" Then she added, shortly, "Then why does n't he speak?"
"Suppose he 's too shy?"
Barbara appealed to the universe. "Oh! are n't men silly?"—She luxuriated in her sense of tragedy. ”

“ Barbara was thinking over the events of the day. What Mr. Carlyle was thinking of was best known to himself; his eyes, covered with their drooping eyelids, were cast upon Barbara. There was a long silence, at length Barbara seemed to feel that his gaze was upon her, and she looked up at him.
“Will you marry me, Barbara?”
The words were spoken in the quietest, most matter-of-fact tone, just as if he had said, “Shall I give you a chair, Barbara?” But, oh! The change that passed over her countenance! The sudden light of joy! The scarlet flush of emotion and happiness. ”

“ It was still early when John Gore brought the horses to the gate after breakfast and lifted Barbara into her saddle. She wore a plain black riding-habit that morning, a black beaver with a black plume curled round the brim, and a collar of white lace about her throat. The life at Furze Farm had tinted her skin with a brown, pearly haze. She was never a girl for much color, but her lips were red and generous, and her figure more rich in womanliness than of yore. ”

“ Dante and Petrarch were in a few years to think and write. The time had come for a new art."
"I do see the difference between this and those Academy pictures," said Bettina, "even though it is so queer, and painted in such colors."
"And I," "And I," quickly added Barbara and Margery.
"I think those angels' faces are interesting," continued Barbara. "They are not all just alike, but look as if each had some thought of his own. They seem proud of their burden as they hold up the Madonna and Child."
"Oh, nonsense, Barbara! you are putting too much imagination in there," exclaimed Malcom. ”

“ Barbara hated to feel limited by her appearance. Not that she didn’t love pretty things, but because she felt them beyond her reach. She was obliged to build up some other real interest, and that had come to her as she naturally developed an aptitude for helping her father.
Bugs, germs, cultures, and the other symbols of bacteriology meant more to Barbara than frocks, hats, and articles of dainty apparel, dear to the heart of every normal girl. ”

“ To sit on his knee, twining her small fingers in the black curls which fell unshorn upon his shoulders—to look in his great dark eyes as they gleamed with the enthusiasm of that half-poetic nature which is the inheritance of a high-hearted mountaineer—to feel herself nestling like a dove on his broad breast, and clinging to him half in terror, half in delight, as his strong words brought all those fearful shapes vividly before her eyes—these had been Barbara’s pleasures when a little child. ”

“ Had I had the guiding of that young man’s sword, I should have pricked that wind-bag for good and all.”
He continued to talk, as though addressing no one in particular, but only enumerating his own thoughts.
“But then—of course—it would be deucedly inconvenient. It is much wiser to let fashionable fools alone; if you kill them, there will be trouble; if you wing them only, there will still be trouble. It is probable that we shall hear within a month or so that my Lord Gore’s son has been bludgeoned some dark night.”
Barbara glanced at him with a sharp challenge in her eyes. ”

“ THE HEART OF BARBARA The Ambassador, standing by the mantel, looked thoughtfully at his wife. She sat in a big wicker chair, in a soft dressing-gown, her hands clasped over one knee in a pose very pretty and girlish.
"Come!" he said good-humoredly. "You women are always imagining romances and broken hearts. Why, Barbara and Daunt haven't known each other long enough to fall in love." ”

“ Never before, it seemed, did the vanguards of the song-sparrows and thrushes so crowd the blowing thickets with melody; never before the bright hordes of the dandelions so suddenly and so goldenly over-flood the meadows. But to Barbara the iridescent glory was somehow more sad than gloom. The fact that her cause was everywhere prospering, that success had fallen to the Continental arms beyond anything that she had dared to hope, brought her no elation. She felt the sorrow that had come into Doctor John's life in spite of the big, whimsical gaiety with which he kept it covered up. ”

“ But Barbara in her father's home and without fortune was not the Barbara I saw on the threshold of the little cottage she called her own. She heard my story; looked in the face of my wife and turned her back. She had no place for idle folk in her little house; if we would work she would feed us; but we must earn our supper or go hungry to bed. I felt the trembling of my wife's frame where she leaned against my arm, and kissing her again, led her on to Salmon's. Luke, Hector, Janet, have you heard him tell of that vision at his gateway, twenty-five years ago? He is not amongst you. ”