Richard Carstone

“ The assistant buyer had, Richard thought, one of the brightest faces he had ever seen. He was sure he had asked the right man to diagnose the case of the invalid business, even before Carson began to talk. As the talk progressed he was convinced of it.
Yet Carson began at the human, not the business, end of the matter. Richard Kendrick, himself full of concern for his friend Hugh Benson, liked that, too.
"I never felt sorrier for a man in my life," said Carson. "He shows a lot of pluck; he never once owned that the thing was too much for him. ”

“ He let go Richard's arm and flung himself down on a fallen tree-trunk, regardless of velvet and laces.
"You're a good fellow, and you don't lecture a man as Tracy does, devil take him! And you play high yourself, or you did, though 'tis an age since I saw you win or lose enough to wink at. And, after all, you're Lavvy's husband, and—oh, damn it all, Dick, 'tis monstrous hard to ask you!"
Carstares, leaning against a tree, surveyed the youthful rake amusedly.
"'Tush, Andrew!" he reassured him. "You're welcome to ask, but the Lord knows where I'm to find it! Gad, what a life! ”

“ Have ye seen Richard?"
"A year ago I held up his coach. 'Twas dark, and I could scarce see him, but I thought he seemed aged."
"Aged! Ye wouldn't be afther knowing him! 'Tis an old man he is. Though I swear 'tis no wonder with that hussy about the house! Lord, Jack, you were well out of that affair with her ladyship!"
Carstares nursed his foot reflectively.
"Lavinia? What ails her?"
"Nought that I know of, save it be her shrewish temper. 'Tis a dog's life she leads poor Dick." ”

“ He knows he has not Jemmy, and he can bear nobody else near him or about him.”
“I will see him, then, before I lave the place; an' now, Masther Richard, you know what steps you ought to take with regard to Gra Gal Sullivan. As she is willin' herself, of course there is but one way of it.”
“Of course I am aware of that,” said Dick; “but still I feel that it's devilish queer she should change so soon from Dalton to me.”
“That's bekaise you know nothing about women,” replied the Prophet. “Why, Masther Richard, I tell you that a weathercock is constancy itself compared with them. ”

“ there's none else by:
Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I.
Is there a murderer here? No;—yes, I am:
Then fly. What, from myself? Great reason why,—
Lest I revenge. What,—myself upon myself!
Alack, I love myself. Wherefore? for any good
That I myself have done unto myself?
O, no! alas, I rather hate myself
For hateful deeds committed by myself!
I am a villain: yet I lie, I am not.
Fool, of thyself speak well:—fool, do not flatter.
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree; ”

“ Richard Cory Whenever Richard Cory went down town, We people on the pavement looked at him: He was a gentleman from sole to crown, Clean favored, and imperially slim. And he was always quietly arrayed, And he was always human when he talked; But still he fluttered pulses when he said, "Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked. And he was rich, — yes, richer than a king, — And admirably schooled in every grace: In fine, we thought that he was everything To make us wish that we were in his place. So on we worked, and waited for the light, And went without the meat, and cursed the bread; ”

“ How much she wanted it—that people should look pleased as she came in, Clarissa thought and turned and walked back towards Bond Street, annoyed, because it was silly to have other reasons for doing things. Much rather would she have been one of those people like Richard who did things for themselves, whereas, she thought, waiting to cross, half the time she did things not simply, not for themselves; but to make people think this or that; perfect idiocy she knew (and now the policeman held up his hand) for no one was ever for a second taken in. ”

“ But what I have of certainty, sir,” said Richard, “is not all I have.”
“Rick, Rick!” cried my guardian with a sudden terror in his manner, and in an altered voice, and putting up his hands as if he would have stopped his ears. “For the love of God, don’t found a hope or expectation on the family curse! Whatever you do on this side the grave, never give one lingering glance towards the horrible phantom that has haunted us so many years. Better to borrow, better to beg, better to die!” ”

“ In his youth, and indeed throughout his life, Richard had the greatest affection for England and the English. No truer American ever lived, but he thought the United States and Great Britain were bound by ties that must endure always. He admired British habits, their cosmopolitanism and the very simplicity of their mode of living. He loved their country life, and the swirl of London never failed to thrill him. During the last half of his life Richard had perhaps as many intimate friends in London as in New York. ”

“ The new Protector was a weak and worthless man; but the bulk of the nation were content to be ruled by one who was at any rate no soldier, no Puritan, and no innovator. Richard was known to be lax and worldly in his conduct, and he was believed to be conservative and even royalist in heart. ”

“ Carlton always felt as though some day some one would surely come along and say: “Look here, young man, this talent doesn’t belong to you; it’s mine. What do you mean by pretending that such an idle good-natured youth as yourself is entitled to such a gift of genius?” ”

“ He watched the bright blaze for an hour, until the hickory billets had turned into white ashes, flaking the tiles at his feet.
On the table at his side lay an unfinished letter, and by the dying embers the man who had the world at his feet groaned. “Ashes of life! The ashes of a dead past.” ”

“ Late that summer he resumed his work on The Press, but Richard was not at all satisfied with his journalistic progress, and for long his eyes had been turned toward New York. There he knew that there was not only a broader field for such talent as he might possess, but that the chance for adventure was much greater, and it was this hope and love of adventure that kept Richard moving on all of his life. ”

“ ‘Fear no more,’ said Clarissa. Fear no more the heat o’ the sun; for the shock of Lady Bruton asking Richard to lunch without her made the moment in which she had stood shiver, as a plant on the riverbed feels the shock of a passing oar and shivers: so she rocked: so she shivered.
Millicent Bruton, whose lunch parties were said to be extraordinarily amusing, had not asked her. No vulgar jealousy could separate her from Richard. But she feared time itself, and read on Lady Bruton’s face, as if it had been a dial cut in impassive stone, the dwindling of life; ”

“ Over the beautiful hills, fanned by the breezes of sunset, the softened shadows fall. Twilight brings the hush and rest of early evening. The stars mirror themselves in the sparkling bosom of Lagunitas. ”

“ George William Curtis was then its editor, and at this time no periodical had a broader or greater influence for the welfare of the country. As Richard was then but twenty-six, his appointment to his new editorial duties came as a distinct honor. The two years that Richard had spent on The Evening Sun had been probably the happiest he had ever known. He really loved New York, and at this time Paris and London held no such place in his affections as they did in later years. And indeed there was small reason why these should not have been happy years for any young man. ”

“ On that same morning, in Castle Cumber church, he had the pleasure of giving away the hand of Mary M'Loughlin to her lover, Harman, and it was on their return from her father's house, after having witnessed their subsequent marriage by Father Roche, that he met his brother's carriage containing his dead body. Richard Topertoe possessed a mind above an empty title, and, perhaps, there lived not a man who more sincerely deplored the event which made him Lord Cumber, and put him in possession of a property which he did not require. ”

“ Her superb arms are bared to the shoulder, save where heavy-gemmed bracelets clasp glittering badges of sin around her slender wrists. An indescribable grace and charm is in every movement of her sinuous body. ”

“ So far as I know he never even wanted to go to sea or to be a bareback rider in a circus. A boy, if he loves his father, usually wants to follow in his professional footsteps, and in the case of Richard, he had the double inspiration of following both in the footsteps of his father and in those of his mother. For years before Richard's birth his father had been a newspaper editor and a well-known writer of stories and his mother a novelist and short-story writer of great distinction. Of those times at Point Pleasant I fear I can remember but a few of our elders. ”

“ To behold formidable and impenetrable bodies of horse, of infantry, and of artillery, advancing from all quarters, flashing savage fury, levelling the numberless instruments of slaughter, and darting destruction around, was a scene to appal even something more than the strongest human resolution ”

“ The world of the Mabinogion is a world of pure phantasy, a new earth of marvels and enchantments, of dark forests whose silence is broken by the hermit's bell and sunny glades where the light plays on the hero's armour. ”

“ No woman in India was as happy, at that particular moment, as the Genevese, who merely bowed in silence, and glided softly away, having escaped the levin-bolt of Hugh Johnstone’s wrath, ever ready, lurking under his bushy, white eyebrows. ”

“ Carlton answered her, “if you only knew me better you would have no doubt on the subject at all. It isn’t the thing some men would do, I admit, but it is exactly what any one who knows me would expect of me. I should describe it, having had acquaintance with the young man for some time, as being eminently characteristic. And besides, think what a good story it makes! Every other man who goes abroad this summer will try to tell about his travels when he gets back to New York, and, as usual, no one will listen to 135him. ”

“ They beckon to the world to wander hither, and rest under these blue-vaulted balmy skies. Near the splendid streams, picturesque ridges, and lovely valleys of the new State, health and happiness may be found, even peace. ”

“ To be deep and subtle as a thieving Greek, to be cold and sneaking as an Apache, to be as murderous as a Malay creeping, creese in hand, over the bulwarks of a merchantman,—all that is to be only himself. ”

“ SIEGMUND
Use threats more baleful
Than blows from Hunding!
Lurkest thou here
Longing for strife,
Fix on him for thy prey.
I think it is he who will fall!
BRÜNNHILDE
Nay, Wälsung,
Doubt not my word;
Thine is the death decreed.
SIEGMUND
Knowest this sword? ”

“ A camp of three hundred white tents surrounded a faery palace with gilded posterns and brightly-coloured oriels which rose like a dream from the barren plain of Guisnes, its walls hung with tapestry, its roof embossed with roses, its golden fountain spouting wine over the greensward. But all this pomp and splendour, the chivalrous embraces and tourneys of the kings, the gorgeous entry of Wolsey in his crimson robe on a mule trapped with gold, the fresh treaty which ratified the alliance, hardly veiled the new English purpose. ”

“ Miss Cavendish declared, helplessly. "When I think of those suppers and the flowers, I feel—I feel like a robber."
"Don't," begged Carroll. "I am really the most happy of men—that is, as the chap says in the play, I would be if I wasn't so damned miserable. But I owe no man a penny and I have assets—I have £80 to last me through the winter and two marvellous plays; and I love, next to yourself, the most wonderful woman God ever made. ”

“ Even studies no longer worried him particularly and he at once started in to make friendships, many of which lasted throughout his life. As is usual with young men of seventeen, most of these men and women friends were several times Richard's age, but at the period Richard was a particularly precocious and amusing youth and a difference of a few decades made but little difference—certainly not to Richard. ”

“ The maiden spied on him without his knowing it, and saw that from a youth he turned himself into an ogre, with hair as red as madder and a face as black as coal. His eyeballs bulged out of their sockets, and his mouth looked like a dish full of blood. Crooked white fangs thrust themselves from his lips, and two wings grew from his shoulders. Spreading them, he flew down to earth and at once turned into a man again. ”

“ In the foreground, in the garden, lies TRISTAN sleeping on a couch under the shade of a great lime-tree, stretched out as if lifeless. At his head sits KURVENAL, bending over him in grief and anxiously listening to his breathing. From without comes the mournful sound of a shepherd's pipe. ”

“ As he shields his face from biting winds, he can see again the panorama of the great plains, billowy hills, and broad vistas, tantalizing in their deceptive nearness. Thundering herds of buffalo and all the wild chivalry of the Sioux and Cheyennes sweep before him. The majestic forests of the West have darkened his way. The Great Salt Lake, a lonely inland sea; Lake Tahoe, a beautiful jewel set in snowy mountains; and its fairy sisters near Truckee—all these pass before his mental vision.
But the youth is tired. Onward ever, like the "Wandering Jew," still to the West with Fremont. ”