Neith

“ I pointed out that Nietzsche was not a social theorist but a poet, a rebel and innovator. His aristocracy was neither of birth nor of purse; it was of the spirit. In that respect Nietzsche was an anarchist, and all true anarchists were aristocrats, I said. ”

“ His eyes were dreamy, especially after all those toasts to Laurence, and he smoked cigarette after cigarette in a rapt reverie, listening to the rhapsodies of Louis, watching the lights on the river. Youth and its quick blood, the heady charm of adventure, the eyes of a girl, the foreign city, freedom and glamour, beat in his pulses and dazzled him with visions. ”

“ Under the branches of the acacia the shadow sat still in deeper shadow; save that the rays of the moon fell upon two slim, naked feet, which the short grass could not cover. It had taken, then, the form of a woman, that the garden and its tradition might be doubly desecrated! Anselmo's indignation was not fierce enough to nerve his soul, weakened by mystic terrors. ”

“ I said you seem strange, and you do. It's as though you were a person that I must begin to know all over again. Don't you like that? Would you rather have me feel that I know you like a book, like an old hat? ”

“ The path to Corsena skirts the hill crowned by Lugliano, the picturesque jewel of the whole region; and then penetrates a long narrow valley, solitary and looking quite untouched, with its woods and little plats of turf and wild flowers among the rocks. Yet in reality the peasant thrift noted by Montaigne still uses every available bit of ground and water. ”

“ They were on the veranda, after a late breakfast, and Philip was stretched out in a wicker steamer-chair, smoking. Near him sat Hilda, with her back to an opening in the green bamboo blinds, so that beyond her he saw the deep blue of sea and sky, with white-tipped waves tumbling gloriously in and tiny clouds sailing before a strong breeze. That background of morning blue made a wonderful setting for Hilda. She was dressed in crisp, white duck, with a broad, light felt hat set carelessly on her black hair, and she looked as strong and full of physical life as the sea itself. ”

“ Under the shadow of the black hat her eyes looked back at her with a strange melancholy and uneasiness. After a moment her face looked to her like that of a stranger, some woman oppressed and sad, and this impression frightened her. She turned away abruptly, and began with a little tool to model the faun's thick neck and shaggy shoulder. He seemed a trivial creature, as she handled him; Basil's cartoon, reflected in the mirror, appeared to her meaningless and absurd. The air of the studio, of the building, of the whole city, seemed stale and oppressive. ”

“ The cold light gleamed on the trappings of many horses, reflected here from the gold mountingts of head-stall and reins, there from the silver lining of a red saddle whose snowy anquera descended half way to the ground. ”

“ She was as much of it as she wished to be. She regarded it—and so she did, at that time, life in general as a spectacle, which might roll turbulently about one and leave one amused and unmoved, with one's small activities and one's dreams. ”

“ Teresa looked at him, fascinated. He set a new world about her. The strange possibilities of life—the fact that all one's life—might have been different—might even be different—rushed upon her in a dizzying flood. Her world seemed suddenly to become unreal, pale—she lost her grasp upon it, in the feeling that another choice had been possible. And something deep in her answered to Crayven's emotion—a deep correspondence of temperament, some sort of inevitable affinity. ”

“ Griffith leaned across the table, and his pent-up feeling burst forth in a swift torrent of speech:
“Laurence, you are the most charming thing I ever saw! Your eyes are the color of the shallows of a brook, full of sunlight! Your hair is a mesh of copper, bronze, and gold, and my heart is caught in that net. Laurence, you are adorable! You are like a white rose, with a heart of rose color. ”

“ The foliage of the acacia trembled as though a bird had taken wing. The bench was vacant, flowers strewed the ground before it, the presence had vanished. Her white feet or a breath of air had borne her away. The diapason of the organ drowned the sound her flight might have made; and the trees bent as though to bury in shadow her possible path. Emanuel made a long step forward.
"Woman or spirit, she is gone!" he cried, and stooped to see what trace of her those scattered roses might show. Anselmo grasped his companion's sleeve. ”

“ Basil's tired face, showing deep lines of nervous and physical strain, changed, too, as he looked at the picture of Teresa and the baby—her profile, with the long braid across the cheek, her ivory-white gleaming shoulders and breast, her dark lashes drooping as she gazed at the child with a quizzical smile in which emotion stirred—physical pleasure and perhaps a spiritual tenderness.
"You don't know how beautiful you are," said Basil, in a low, rapt tone. ”

“ Why shouldn't we have the amusement of contemplating the world and people as they really are? It's the most instructive spectacle possible. I can never be thankful enough that I married a man who isn't afraid of reality, for me any more than for himself. You would shut your wife up in a toy paradise, with everything upholstered in rose-colour."
"There are a whole lot of things I know that my wife would never know, you may depend on that," Fairfax responded with emphasis. "What nonsense, imagining that a man's view of life and a woman's can ever be the same!" ”

“ You don't really like people as much as you pretend to!"
"I like some people as much as I pretend to," said Basil amiably. "And I like people really more than work, if that's what you mean. I enjoy talking to you, for example, much more than painting your portrait—only, you see, you wanted the portrait painted."
"Oh, I know. I tell you, I never saw you so much alive—the mental part of you so completely awake—as in that last half hour, when you'd forgotten all about me! Your talk with me is only play, by comparison—it's like a cigarette or a cup of tea." ”

“ The chorus of birds in the orange orchards, in the magnolia trees, in the blanches of the swaying eucalypti, became louder and more joyous; the horses lifted their heads and moved restlessly; the air grew softer, more divinely clear. ”

“ For if any wandering spirit, coveting, yet not daring to enter the garden, had strayed near to the confining wall, it must have heard the solemn chant of the Church's exorcism directed against all powers unholy; it must have beheld a slow procession of monks make the circuit of the shell-strewn paths, sprinkling the ground with holy-water to purify it from the contaminating touch of a woman's foot. And if, spirit or woman, it were still undeterred, there was Angelo's music at evening—like another flaming sword at the gate of this Eveless Eden! ”

“ They ascended the long flight of steps leading to one of the avenues of the park, and at the top paused to look back.
“How amusing it is—all that!” cried the girl, sweeping with a light gesture the brilliant square, the bright-blue river, the compact darker masses of the town climbing up the hill.
Her face was lit with pleasure. The very spirit of careless youth, of radiant ease, she looked, and with a keen allurement, a poignant, troubling grace. Louis looked upon her with admiration as light and gay as her own mood. Griffith gazed at her, touched and thrilled. ”

“ The garden was large and old, with high stone walls overgrown with ivy, tall box hedges, winding paths, and many trees, damp nook and corners, snails on the rocks, flowers everywhere. Women with bright dresses were scattered about in it, and a few men. The sculptor greeted them in excellent English, and took them to his wife, who was pouring weak tea—a tall, slender, soberly dressed lady with the sweetest of manners. ”

“ You let a feeling of a few weeks, that may be gone tomorrow, come between us and crush me. For a woman you scarcely know, who doesn't love you, you do this to me. I won't let you—I won't let you be so weak, so cowardly—I won't let you spoil your life. If she doesn't love you, you can't be happy; and she can't love you as I do. No one can, no one. ”

“ All night the thunder had crashed and volleyed and reverberated through the valley—mere cleft as it was, high up on the mountainside. Fierce bursts of rain had swept through the pine-tops, and the wind in them was a continuous deep roar. Lying in bed Hilda could see from her windows the great trunks of the trees blotted against the glare of the lightning, so incessant that there seemed to be merely flashes of darkness between. The crests of the pines, spreading loftily far above the roof of the inn, were in wild motion; and she got up now and then to look at their writhing blackness. ”

“ One is a blue-gray day, with a little shivering wind and tender mists. On one it rains delightfully out of low gray clouds, and the wind sobs, and one is especially gay—a delicious day, intimate, full of promise. And on the last, in the full glory of the sun, flowers bloom riotous, the earth breathes out fragrance, the grass is a rich, warm carpet, the sky a burning blue, drunken with light—and Laurence has a new dress. ”

“ If you, being what you are, should have a lover, you'd have to pay for that—pay in injury to your pride, in a thousand ways. A woman that gives herself to a man who doesn't deeply love her—a woman who has anything to lose—is a fool. The reaction takes him away from her, as sure as fate, and even a man who isn't a brute can't help making her feel it. You've nothing to gain in that game, Teresa, and everything to lose. ”

“ He was a handsome man, of the type whose harsh lines and dark color are softened by the blanching touch of age. His crisp thick silvery hair, his heavy brows and black eyes, the clear-cut rigidity of his strong mouth, his straight stalwart shoulders, gave him a certain splendor of aspect. His loneliness, too, and silence, the immobility of his look, added to this rather grim distinction. ”

“ All the laboriousness of life, the grey aspect of duty, the necessity for infinite, incessant exertion of the will, for self-control, for self-sacrifice—all the puritan conception of the world and the human soul—surged over her like a cold muddy sea. Was this, then, what one must live in? And to what end? To pass the endless struggle on to someone else?
For the first time, it seemed to her, in the long hours of that night, she saw the world as it really was. She saw it as a long combat, and she saw that no relation could escape this law of struggle and change, certainly not hers and Basil's. ”

“ Tom walked all the way back to his New York boarding-house, unconscious of the stinging cold, on fire with the hot surging of his anger. He vowed to himself that Cecilia should not destroy his relation with Bertha, almost his only pleasure; that if it were true, or ever should be, that Bertha cared for him, he would not be bullied into giving her up, and that he would find out if she did care. She was a dear, charming girl; she was capable of liking a man for himself alone. If she cared enough, they might marry, even if they were poor at first. ”

“ The sand and the wind together make that strange country of desolation and haunting colour—and to me they make Lorna. Creature of changing mood and impulse, of desire shifting as the wind, yet constant—constant desire for lite, expressed in changing forms—desire too keen perhaps, never to be satisfied, remorseless ... but living! ”

“ There could not be much talk while they were facing the wind along the cliff edge; it blew the breath from their mouths, and beat on them with a joyous fury, forcing deep into their lungs the fresh, strong breath of the sea. ”

“ How would George feel this, if he could know?
This thought was a keen pain. Richard Travis had no belief in the soul's immortality. In his sad creed, as the body went back to dust, the spirit of man was lost in the void, and became, except for its earthly record, as though it had never been. ”

“ Love is understanding between man and woman! It is the only understanding there is, the only sight, the only speech! It is the wedding of souls, it is the most divine thing on earth, it is the most beautiful thing in life, it is life itself! Oh, Laurence!
He pours out a flood of words, hot from his heart. He does not think whether she understands. He knows she understands. The tears run down his face.
And she? She turns pale, she shrinks into herself, her eyelids fall over her eyes. She does not answer him. In silence, she reaches for her little basket and packs it. She puts on her hat. ”

“ That's what you're afraid of, that Bertha might marry a poor fellow?"
He sprang up, huddling on his coat and trembling with emotion.
"By the Lord, you're the coldest-blooded woman on the face of this earth! I didn't think there was a woman like you, Cecilia! To think that you should say all this to me! I did care for you, Cecilia—I did love you. ”

“ Over his shoulder she caught a sudden glimpse of the abyss that seemed to open below them—there seemed nothing to stop the fall—and the circle of mountain-peaks swam before her eyes.
"Dizzy? Want to come down?" he enquired.
His smile irritated her, and she turned and went on, choosing a difficult and uncertain foothold with each step. A little further above, the mild eminence which had lured her on suddenly reared a vertical surface, as high again as the distance she had climbed. She looked, aghast, her foot slipped and she went sliding down on a fall of loose slate. ”