Roseline

“ Happy was it for the party that Roseline had not only a greater share of prudence and understanding that most of her sex, but likewise more fortitude than is usually their portion. She soon recovered, her friend soothed her into some degree of composure, and endeavoured to inspire her with hopes that some plan might be adopted which would remove those difficulties that threatened to divide two hearts love had united, and which appeared formed by nature to make each other happy. ”

“ O sweet eyes of my Roseline, sweet eyes that shine under your soft, fair lashes like two opals set in pure gold, will you close for all time without having gazed for a moment upon the wonders of the earth, upon the real sky of our human life? Is it true that your beams extinguish life and beauty wherever they rest? ”

“ Understand me, Roseline: it is not a friend that I am seeking, not one of those uncertain, light-hearted, capricious relations which encumber life without adding to it. I am dreaming like a child, of a woman who should realise the greatest possible amount of beauty in her mind and person and who should add her strength to mine in the service of the same ideals. ”

“ Audrey, who had never before seen Roseline so much out of humour, and had neither forgotten nor forgiven the affront of being prevented from disclosing a secret which she had for several days found very troublesome to keep, replied, "I couples no one; matches are made in heaven, or in the church, or at wakes; but I think, for my part, some are made in a much worser place, and so she will think too who is tacked in hollybands with the old Baron." "But who do you think, my good Audrey, will ever be so unfortunate?" ”

“ The sky was clear and the stars glowed in its depths like live things; in the distance, the Trocadéro decked the night with brilliants.
And, little by little, hope returned to me. I was persuaded that over there, in the little room which my care had provided for Rose, love would yet be the conqueror. She would awaken under those kisses. My Roseline should yet know passion and rapture. Love would triumph. It would do what I had been unable to do, it would breathe life into beauty! And, in the dead stillness, I kept hearing the kisses falling, falling heavily, like the first drops of a storm. ”

“ Roseline trembled, turned pale, and to the earliest opportunity of withdrawing, not daring to trust Edwin with her fears, or risk feeing the prisoner for some hours, lest her agitation should betray suspicions of she knew not what, but in which her terrified imagination confirmed all the hints her maid had given her.—Marry the Baron!—it was a thought so unnatural, so repugnant to every wish, every feeling of her heart,—so inimical to the ideas she had formed of happiness, that it was not to be endured.—She wept, wrung her hands, recollected herself, and again sunk into despondency ”

“ The sun arose invisible to mortal sight, as if unwilling to witness a deed his brightest rays could not enliven. Dark lowering clouds threatened to touch the turrets of the castle. The rain descended in torrents. It appeared to the disconsolate Roseline that the very heavens wept in pity to her sorrows; the thought was romantic, but it was consoling.
Melancholy, and even madness itself, are said to have their pleasures, and the most wretched sometimes steal comfort from the delusions of imagination. ”

“ Roseline, much as she disliked the Baron as a lover, had too much respect for her father's friend to permit her servant to speak of him so freely, and to lay so dreadful a crime to his charge, which she concluded, like the story of the ghost, was merely the invention of evil-minded people.—She therefore reproved Audrey with a seriousness that alarmed her, and assured her, if she ever again presumed to mention Baron Fitzosbourne in terms so disrespectful and degrading, she would instantly request her father to send her from the castle. ”

“ When these designs were made known to Walter, the distress it produced is not to be described. To be separated from Roseline!—the thought was agony;—without seeing her every day, without being in the same place with her, it was not to be borne. He should never be able to acquire any knowledge unless the gentle maid, to whom he was indebted for life, was near, and by her soul-enlivening presence animated his endeavours, while in her smiles he should find a bright reward for the unwearied pains he should not shrink from encountering for her sake. ”

“ I have neither spirits nor appetite; I can neither laugh nor sing, and, if the Baron have a mind to make me polite,—if he wish me to acquire knowledge,—if he de desirous I should become what he calls an useful member of society, he must no longer keep us separate. It is your company only that could give a charm to that of other people, and, if I could see you, I should love the world for your sake. I shall die, dear Roseline, unless they permit me to come to you.
Madeline, though she wept, was happy, and looked handsomer than ever; and Edwin,—ah! how I envied your brother Edwin! ”

“ I was never frightened into a fit as some folks have been with all their boasted courage and great knowledge."
Notwithstanding the Baron was so much alarmed by the appearance of his Isabella, that he could scarcely shake it from his mind a moment, and remained in a state of anxiety and terror, yet it was impossible he should be any longer blind to the dejection of Roseline, or insensible of her cold indifference. If she met him with a smile, it was visibly the smile of anguish. ”

“ Indeed, so noble and disinterested were his proposals, that they both gratified and astonished me: they are such as no parent could receive with indifference,—no young woman refuse. The Baron has not only a princely fortune, but a princely spirit, and such unbounded interest, that my Roseline will not only secure rank and splendor to herself, but will prove the fortunate means of obtaining them for her brothers and sisters, and of making the last closing scenes of her parents' days happier and freer from care than they have ever been. ”

“ We, therefore, have only to remain silent spectators for a time, and leave the natural vanity of her sex, united with the sanguine wishes of youth, to operate for themselves. We will invite company to the castle; I mean to give a ball in compliment to the Baron:—Roseline will reign queen of the ceremony; assailed by flattery, softened by music, exhilirated by exercise, she will forget to sigh in the midst of gaiety, and cease to disapprove the Baron, when she begins to feel that consequence which the being noticed by a man of his rank will give to her. ”

“ With orient pearl, with ruby red, With marble white, with sapphire blue, Her body every way is fed, Yet soft in touch and sweet in view: Heigh ho, fair Rosaline! Nature herself her shape admires; The Gods are wounded in her sight; And Love forsakes his heavenly fires And at her eyes his brand doth light: Heigh ho, would she were mine! Then muse not, Nymphs, though I bemoan The absence of fair Rosaline, Since for a fair there's fairer none, Nor for her virtues so divine: Heigh ho, fair Rosaline! Heigh ho, my heart! would God that she were mine! T. LODGE. ”

“ Follow thou her steps, Rosalynde, and the rather, for that thou art an exile, and banished from the court; whose distress, and it is appeased with patience, so it would be renewed with amorous passions. Have mind on thy forepassed fortunes; fear the worst, and entangle not thyself with present fancies, lest loving in haste, thou repent thee at leisure. Ah, but yet, Rosalynde, it is Rosader that courts thee; one who as he is beautiful, so he is virtuous, and harboreth in his mind as many good qualities as his face is shadowed with gracious favors ”

“ My heart beat thickly in mine ears;
The lids may shut out fleshly fears,
But still the spirit sees and hears,—
Its eyes are lidless, Rosaline!
A wildness rushing suddenly,
A knowing some ill-shape is nigh,
A wish for death, a fear to die,—
Is not this vengeance, Rosaline?
A loneliness that is not lone,
A love quite withered up and gone,
A strong soul trampled from its throne,—
What wouldst thou further, Rosaline?
'Tis drear such moonless nights as these,
Strange sounds are out upon the breeze,
And the leaves shiver in the trees,
And then thou comest, Rosaline! ”

“ ROSALIND. Why, horns; which such as you are fain to be beholding to your wives for; but he comes armed in his fortune, and prevents the slander of his wife. ORLANDO. Virtue is no horn-maker; and my Rosalind is virtuous. ROSALIND. And I am your Rosalind. CELIA. It pleases him to call you so; but he hath a Rosalind of a better leer than you. ROSALIND. Come, woo me, woo me; for now I am in a holiday humour, and like enough to consent. What would you say to me now, an I were your very very Rosalind? ORLANDO. I would kiss before I spoke. ROSALIND. Nay, you were better speak first ”

“ ALINDA'S COMFORT TO PERPLEXED ROSALYNDE "Why, how now, Rosalynde, dismayed with a frown of contrary fortune? Have I not oft heard thee say, that high minds were discovered in fortune's contempt, and heroical scene in the depth of extremities? Thou wert wont to tell others that complained of distress, that the sweetest salve for misery was patience, and the only medicine for want that precious implaister of content. Being such a good physician to others, wilt thou not minister receipts to thyself? ”

“ O Rosalind, I love you, I adore you, would that there were a word stronger than that! I have never loved, I have never adored any woman but you;—I prostrate myself, I annihilate myself before you, and I would like to compel all creation to bend the knee before my idol; to me you are more than all nature, more than myself, more than God;—indeed, it seems strange to me that God does not come down from heaven to be your slave. Where you are not, everything is a desert, everything is dead, everything is black ”

“ And then Rosaline slowly lifted her white face.
"Yes," she answered. "The Seven Whistlers." And the avowal struck such consternation on her hearers, although the suggestion had first come from them, that they became dumb.
"Father heard them, you know," went on Rosaline, a look of terror in her eyes, and a dreamy, far-off sound in her voice. "Father heard them. And they mean ill-luck."
"They bode death: as some says," spoke Nancy Tomson, lowering her voice to an appropriate key.
"Yes," repeated Rosaline, in a tone of sad wailing. "Yes: they bode death. Oh, mother! mother!" ”

“ So thy Rosalynde may be most amiable and yet unkind; full of favor and yet froward, coy without wit, and disdainful without reason."
"O Shepherd," quoth Rosader, "knewest thou her personage, graced with the excellence of all perfection, being a harbor wherein the graces shroud their virtues, thou wouldest not breathe out such blasphemy against the beauteous Rosalynde. She is a diamond, bright but not hard, yet of most chaste operation; a pearl so orient, [1] that it can be stained with no blemish; a rose without prickles, and a princess absolute as well in beauty as in virtue. ”

“ Tush, desire hath no respect of persons: Cupid is blind and shooteth at random, as soon hitting a rag as a robe, and piercing as soon the bosom of a captive as the breast of a libertine. Thou speakest it, poor Rosalynde, by experience; for being every way distressed, surcharged with cares, and overgrown with sorrows, yet amidst the heap of all these mishaps, love hath lodged in thy heart the perfection of young Rosader, a man every way absolute as well for his inward life, as for his outward lineaments, able to content the eye with beauty, and the ear with the report of his virtue. ”

“ Around it stood two or three females, tenants of the house, gazing on the rigid, cold form, pale as marble, which, with closed eyes and motionless hands lay extended before them. With a cry of anguish that would have pierced the most stony heart, Rosalie sprang forward, and laying her now burning cheek on the cold one of her father’s, and casting her soft arms around his neck, she called to him in accents, whose tender pathos none could hear unmoved; she implored him to speak to his own Rosalie; to come back from death, and live for her who had none to live for but him. ”

“ The blue book which was serving as a model, Rosalind had found on her aunt's table, and asked permission to use.
"Well, then, 'Article II. The object of this Society shall be, To remember the Secret of the Forest; to bear hard things bravely; to search for the ring—' Anything else?"
"Maurice, that is beautiful. Is there anything else?" Rosalind pressed her lips with a forefinger.
"Belle wanted to have 'to help the needy,' or something of the kind."
"The down-trodden," said Rosalind, laughing. "I don't like that, do you?"
"Let's wait; we may think of something after a while. ”

“ We are introduced to Rosalind as a poor bird with a drooping wing; her father is banished, she is bereft of her birth-right, and is living on sufferance as companion to the usurper's daughter, being, indeed, half a prisoner in the palace, where till lately she reigned as princess. It is not until she has donned the doublet and hose, appears in the likeness of a page, and wanders at her own sweet will in the open air and the greenwood, that she recovers her radiant humour, and roguish merriment flows from her lips like the trilling of a bird. ”

“ But, in good sooth, are you he that hangs the verses on the trees wherein Rosalind is so admired? ORLANDO. I swear to thee, youth, by the white hand of Rosalind, I am that he, that unfortunate he. ROSALIND. But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak? ORLANDO. Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much. ROSALIND. Love is merely a madness; and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do; and the reason why they are not so punish'd and cured is that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too. ”