Amrita

“ This “lord of birds” was hatched from an enormous egg five hundred years after it had been laid by Diti, mother of giants; his father was Kas ́yapa, a Brahman identified with the Pole Star, who had sacrificed with desire for offspring. It happened that Diti, having lost a wager, was put under bondage by the demons, and could not be released until she caused the amrita to be taken from a Celestial mountain where it was surrounded by terrible flames, moved by violent winds, which leapt up to the sky. ”

“ Warned by a fellow-warrior, Artemidor, to avoid Armida's enchanting presence he scorns the warning, saying that love for a woman is to him a thing unknown. In reality however Armida is already ensnaring him with her sorcery, he presently hears exquisitely sweet and dreamy melodies and finding himself in a soft, green valley, he lies down and falls asleep. ”

“ To the latest occupant of the cave of Mamrat is attached the legend embodied in the two ensuing chapters. It is fully illustrative of the grovelling superstition that enthrals the Amhára, of whom none ever allude to the dread sorcerer Thavánan, without an invocation to the Deity. He was an exiled noble of Northern Abyssinia, high in the favour of Asfa Woosen, fifth monarch of Shoa, who took forcible possession of his sister, and after degrading the courtier for opposing this despotic measure, sentenced him to the loss of an eye, which was put out with a hot iron. ”

“ Looking as they spoke towards the myrtle, Rinaldo looked also, and beheld, issuing out of it—Armida.
Armida came sweetly towards him, with a countenance at once grieving and rejoicing, but expressing above all infinite affection. "And do I indeed see thee again?" she said; "and wilt thou not fly me a second time? am I visited to be consoled, or to be treated again as an enemy? is poor Armida so formidable, that thou must needs close up thine helmet when thou beholdest her? Thou mightest surely have vouchsafed her once more a sight of thine eyes. ”

“ He's comin'," Amarita begged her.
But he was not coming, and for an hour Amarita dwelt upon the plans. Her eyes grew bright and her cheeks flushed. Once she pushed her pretty hair back from her forehead and looked up at the old lady, as if she had impulsive things to say. But she did not speak, and turning back to the plans, she went absorbedly over them again. Old Mis' Meade watched her scornfully, and yet tenderly, too. If ever a woman was a fool over a man, she reasoned, Amarita was that fool ”

“ No one knew who said it first, but a voice was heard to call out:
"No one will dance with you—you're Little Barefoot!" and "Barefoot! Barefoot! Barefoot!" was echoed on all sides. Amrei was ready to weep; but here again she quickly made use of the power which enabled her to ignore insult and injury. Suppressing her tears, she seized her apron by the two ends and danced around by herself so gracefully and prettily, that all the children stopped to look at her. And presently the grown-up people were nodding to one another, and a circle of men and women was formed around Amrei. ”

“ Comparison of the friends Aminta and Selina was forced by their standing together, and the representation in little Selina of the inferiority of the world of women to his Aminta; he thought of several, and splendid women, foreign and English. The comparison rose sharply now, with Aminta's novel, airy, homely, unchallengeing assumption of an equal footing beside her lord, in looks and in tones that had cast off constraint of the adoring handmaid, to show the full-blown woman, rightful queen of her half of the dominion. ”

“ Without much trouble I could have brained them with the brassie-spoon as they passed beneath me. But some odd impulse of chivalry restrained me. It is blunders like these that have wrecked the plans of the greatest generals. Just as they opened the gate who should appear but—of course—Araminta? "Oh, I'm so glad I've caught you!" she cried. "You must stay and have tea now. We'll have it in the garden. My husband's somewhere about. He said he was going to mow the lawn, but I suppose he was too lazy." Lazy, indeed! Ha, ha! So like a woman. ”

“ Amra was leaping forward, arms spread to seize her, when with a crack like the breaking of an ice mountain, the whole skies leaped into icy fire. The girl’s ivory body was suddenly enveloped in a cold blue flame so blinding that the warrior threw up his hands to shield his eyes. A fleeting instant, skies and snowy hills were bathed in crackling white flames, blue darts of icy light, and frozen crimson fires. Then Amra staggered and cried out. The girl was gone. The glowing snow lay empty and bare ”

“ The old man had hit the spot where, as a matter of fact, all of them were sore, although they tried to persuade themselves, and each other, that they were prejudiced against Amrei because she had come among them without any relatives of her own. And while Amrei was talking to John's sister, the old farmer said to his son in a low voice:
"One would never imagine, to look at her, what she has. Just think!—she has a bag stuffed full of crown thalers! ”

“ At the lover's side there hung a strange accoutrement for a warrior, namely, a crystal mirror. He rose a little on his elbow, and gave it into Armida's hands: and in two different objects each beheld but one emotion, she hers in the glass, and he his own in her eyes. But he would not suffer her to look long at any thing but himself; and then they spake loving and adoring words; and after a while Armida bound up her hair, and put some flowers into it, as jewels might be put upon gold, and added a rose or two to the lilies of her bosom, and adjusted her veil. ”

“ But in her condition, the heart of a woman is instantly planted in jungle when the spirits of the two men closest to her are made to stand opposed by a sudden excitement of her fears for the beloved one. She cannot see widely, and is one of the wild while the fit lasts; and, after it, that savage narrow vision she had of the unbeloved retains its vivid print in permanence. Was she unjust? Aminta cited corroboration of her being accurate: such was Lord Ormont! ”

“ Besides, Lady Ormont appeared, in the company of her friend Selina Collett, not worse than rather too thoughtful; not distinctly unhappy. And she was conversable, smiling. She might have had an explanation with my lord, accepting excuses—or, who knows? taking the blame, and offering them. Weakness is pliable. So pliable is it, that it has been known for a crack of the masterly whip to fling off the victim and put on the culprit! Ay, but let it be as it may with Lady Ormont, Aminta is of a different composition. ”

“ Lawrence, Aminta's real heart pressed forward at the beat, in tender pity of the woman for whom a yielding to love was to sin; and unwomanly is the woman who does not love: men will say it. Aminta found herself phrasing. 'Why was she unable to love her husband?—he is not old.' She hurried in flight from the remark to confidences imparted by other ladies, showing strange veins in an earthy world; after which, her mind was bent to rebuke Mrs. Pagnell for the silly soul's perpetual allusions to Lord Ormont's age. ”

“ Justice compels at times. In truth, there are times when the foggy obscurities of the preacher are by comparison broad daylight beside the whirling loose tissues of a woman unexplained. Aminta was one born to prize rectitude, to walk on the traced line uprightly; and while the dark rose overflowed the soft brown of her cheeks, under musings upon her unlicenced heart's doings overnight, she not only pleaded for woeful creatures of her sex burdened as she and erring, she weighed them in the scales with men, and put her heart where Justice pointed, sending men to kick aloft. ”

“ Something keeps me from wanting to destroy it; I don’t yet know whether it’s the person or the painting! Though, of course, I never saw any picture of Amouretta that was really right, except that one little thing of yours you showed last winter in the Vanderbilt Gallery; and what’s-his-name, the man at the desk, said very emphatically it wasn’t for sale—”
“No,” interrupted Maurice, “it wasn’t for sale, and never will be. It is one of the few things I couldn’t take money for! My wife and I intended to give it as a wedding-present to Amouretta. We both of us loved that child ”

“ He who wounds it cannot be forgiven—never!—he has killed the best of her. Aminta found herself sliding along into the sentiment, that the splendid idol of a girl's worship is, if she discover him in the lapse of years as an infinitesimally small one, responsible for the woman's possible reckless fit of giddiness. And she could see her nonsense; she could not correct it. Lines of the letters under signature of Adolphus were phosphorescent about her: they would recur; and she charged their doing so on the discovered meanness of the girl's idol. ”

“ Amouretta’s brilliant blush came and went so often during her story, and finally stayed so long, that it played the very deuce with Maurice’s entire morning; you know how difficult it is to paint emerald satin when the wearer is blushing; the green and the red come to blows. And Maurice, who had two daughters of his own, howbeit small, was really worried, until one afternoon at the Century, Mr. William Saltonstall, long of limb, lineage, and purse,—a man of undoubted probity, and a collector, too!—had touched him on the shoulder, and poured out the whole story of his love for Amouretta. ”

“ Seen swimming, she charmed him. Abstract views of a woman summon opposite advocates: one can never say positively, That is she! But the visible fair form of a woman is hereditary queen of us. We have none of your pleadings and counter-pleadings and judicial summaries to obstruct a ravenous loyalty. My lord beheld Aminta take her three quick steps on the plank, and spring and dive and ascend, shaking the ends of her bound black locks ”

“ This indeed was a trial to poor mortal vanity. She soon grew so accustomed to the distinction paid to her charms, that instead of oppresive it became necessary to her. The brother and sister who fondly loved each other, who from their infancy had shared all their little joys, and little griefs together, were mutually delighted at the praises the other received. Amaranthé loved to hear of the excellent qualities of the heart, and liberal temper and vivacity of her brother, and Adrian’s heart bounded with joy and swelled with pride at the homage paid to the beauty of his sister. ”

“ Amrie, from Siebenhöfen, the niece, who by all the neighborhood was called proud and haughty, was so wonderfully friendly and condescending to our Amrie, that Amelia said to her, “It is a [137] pity you are not a young man, for I believe Amrie would marry you at once, and not send you off as she does all her other suitors.” ”

“ Aminta's healthy frame rode her over petty agitations of a blood uninflamed, as lightly as she swam the troubled sea-waters her body gloried to cleave. She woke in the morning peaceful and mildly reflective, like one who walks across green meadows. Only by degrees, by glimpses, was she drawn to remember the trotting, cantering, galloping, leaping of an active heart during night. We cannot, men or woman, control the heart in sleep at night. There had been wild leapings. Night will lead an unsatisfied heart of a woman, by way of sleep, to scale black mountains, jump jagged chasms. ”

“ Oh, Amrie, my John must wait till thou art grown. I say no more. Why dost thou not speak?”
Amrie felt as though deprived of breath, her throat was dry. It seemed to her as though the dead stood there—a spectre. The secret was upon her lips. She might betray it, and the roof fall in and all be buried.
Sometimes Mariann was talkative in another manner, although all related to the one subject, the remembrance of her son. Heavily came upon Amrie the dark questions of the order of Providence.
“Why does a child die for which the mother has waited, trembling—with her whole soul has waited? ”

“ Morsfield in the list, paired or not yet paired: gossip raged. Aminta was of a disposition too generously cordial to let her be the rigorous critic of people with whom she was in touch. But her mind knew relief when she recollected that her humble little school-mate, Selina Collect, who had suffered on her behalf in old days, was coming up to her from the Suffolk coast on a visit for a week. However much a slave and an unloved woman, she could be a constant and protecting friend. Besides, Lord Ormont was gracious to little Selina. ”

“ No lady of the land could convey so much either way, to attract or to repel, as Aminta, Countess of Ormont! And the man, the only man, insensible to her charm or her scorn, was her own wedded lord and husband. Old, to be sure, and haughty, his pride might not allow him to overlook poor Mr. Morsfield's unintentional offence. But the presence of the countess's aunt was a reply to any charge he might seek to establish. Unhappily, the case is one between men on their touchiest point, when women are pushed aside, and justice and religion as well. ”

“ Go, hard heart, with such peace as thou leavest in this bosom. Begone; take thine injustice from my sight for ever. My spirit will follow thee, not as a help, but as a retribution. I shall die first, and thou wilt die speedily: thou wilt perish in the battle. Thou wilt lie expiring among the dead and bleeding, and wilt call on Armida in thy last moments, and I shall hear it—yes, I shall hear it; I shall look for that."
Down fell Armida on the ground, senseless; and Rinaldo stood over her, weeping at last. Open thine eyes, poor wretch, and see him. Alas, the heavens deny thee the consolation! ”