Bending moment

“ The quick perishing of the body was not the thought that came to his mind, but the perishing of his soul, and his sudden appearance before his Maker, unpurged of the sins of this life. Virtue was not dead in the heart which could forget itself and the world in that dread moment, and only think of his fitness to appear at the throne of Heaven. ”

“ Now all would be bright and cheerful, and the sun of mirth would sparkle in her eyes; and anon some dark cloud of dejection would sweep along, shut out the merry light, and cast its shadow drearily over the whole countenance,—or, to use language without simile, she would one moment be merry and another sad. Toward the last, however, the latter feeling gained the ascendancy; she appeared to take no further share in the merriment of the dance; and had any watched her closely, they might have guessed the cause, from the manner in which she from time to time gazed at the pale face of Algernon. ”

“ Altogether it was a most expressive face, because, except in his abstracted mood, he always seemed to be entirely there, not concealing or repressing anything, but bending his whole mind upon what was being said. Moreover, if you said anything personal or intimate to him, a word of gratitude or pleasure, he had a quick, beautiful, affectionate look, so rewarding, so embracing that I often tried to evoke it—though an attempt to evoke it deliberately often produced no more than a half-smile, accompanied by a little wink, as if he saw through the attempt. ”

“ The trickle grew more abundant, and now, my dear fellow, if I could for a moment divert from me into you one half of the torrent of joy that pours through me day and night, you would throw the world, art, everything aside, and just live, exist. ”

“ A wind puffed out his mind's faint spark. He was absorbed into the dark. He woke again and felt a surge Within him, a mysterious urge That grew one hungry flame of passion; The whole world altered shape and fashion. Deceived, befooled, bereft and torn, He scourged the heavens with his scorn, Lifting a bitter voice to cry Against the eternal treachery — Till, suddenly, he found the breast, And ceased, and all things were at rest, The earth grew one warm languid sea And he a wave. ”

“ But it lived in my heart, it broke to flame and stirred
My self to a purpose at last not self could mar,
And I cried "We are delivered!" and I heard it echo far
Up to the vault of heaven past star on shrinking star.
So then I was running through poppies that I knew
Above a blue sea basking—and you—and you
Were running on the headland in the world made anew.
I know some force is mighty, some force I cannot reach.
I know that words are said to me that are not said with speech.
My heart has learned a lesson that I can never teach. ”

“ After a dramatic silence, he finished, in a whisper almost, and with eyebrows raised and staring gaze directed straight at the vast woman in yellow: "We are such stuff as drames are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep. May God have mercy on us. ”

“ Your spirit can loose itself from the body: it can see the past and the future; it can discover the hidden things.”
“I do not believe it,” answered Benita; “but at least it shall not be loosed by you.” ”

“ There, always awaited him a heart which, through its love, added to each blessing, and dulled every sorrow. Ever on the portal stood a being he worshiped, who, with her fair arms wreathed a welcome of love about him. They pass within; a bright face offers itself for a kiss; fondly he stoops, but the dream vanishes;—in the breaking of the morn he stands alone;—hope dead within his breast. ”

“ He did think about himself. He was thinking about himself in the middle of the night, and about her too. There had been something in her tone... her eye... At the final lesson he inquired if she would give him the first waltz at the ball. ”

“ She paused a moment, and her tender girl’s heart thought no more of herself, but only of them, those little innocent spirits on whom so awful a doom was laid, that they should bring death where other children bring laughter, and doom for delight. ”

“ And my heart, that some grim God fashioned
To be visited of a star!
MAN POSSESSED Shaken, a thousand times shaken, with the millions that grieve,
Now at last I am overtaken. I will say I believe.
I ran with the pennons of morning astream over me.
On the precipice, scorning its warning, I ran to be free.
Still I love high winds and the great running and the steep verge,
But strength past my strength overtakes my cunning, and stars emerge
High over me, eternal, deathless, deep over deep,
And my head sways heavy as I run breathless, my eyelids droop with
sleep. ”

“ Sighs are the Children of Lovers, that are born every Hour. And that my Watch may always be just, Love himself ought to conduct it; and your Heart should keep time with the Movement:
My Present's delicate and new,
If by your Heart the Motion's set;
According as that's false or true,
You'll find my Watch will answer it.
Every Hour is tedious to a Lover separated from his Mistress: and to shew you how good I am, I will have my Watch instruct you, to pass some of them without [Pg 16] Inquietude; that the force of your Imagination may sometimes charm the Trouble you have for my Absence ”

“ Those weeks, those wonderful weeks that we lived, so close to primitive, savage Nature—bloody fanged Nature!—those weeks that I stood by your side and saw her paint for us her beautiful, terrible pictures of Life, pictures whose blue was the storm-wave and the sky veiled with fever-haze, whose white was the roaring surf and the glare of thunderbolts, whose red was fire and blood! And you saved me from all—all! I had never even dreamt that a man could be so courageous, so enduring, so strong! ”

“ Youth and love brook no delays. Yet, as she felt his lips upon her own, she regarded him with a writhen countenance of unqualified terror. Love comes to the maiden spirit with sudden tumult, and strikes it, not as a blithe discovery, or an all-Elysian joy, but as a birth and an agony, from which, if the soul survives, comes unspeakable happiness. ”

“ Here, thou tenderest Part of my Soul! (continu’d he, giving her a rich Diamond Ring) wear this ’till my Return! I hope the Sight of it may sometimes re-call the dying Memory of Gracelove to your better-busy’d Thoughts. Ah, Gracelove! (said she) nothing can so well, nothing I am sure can better employ my Thoughts, than thy dear self: Heaven only excepted. They enlarg’d a great deal more on this Subject at that Time; but the Night before his Departure was entirely spent in Sighs, Vows, and Tears, on both Sides. ”

“ Ah Ben replied, now with his eyes half closed, “you are going to tell me that, although the man may have been battered and bruised, he really feels no pain, because of the unnatural excitement of the moment; but there you only rivet the argument against yourself; for I maintain—and not from theory, but from knowledge—that that very excitement is an exaltation of the spirit, which may be cultivated and relied upon to conquer pain and the ills of the flesh forever!” ”

“ Why should he not wake up out of his nightmare and begin to live? In a momentary flash he seemed to see his past in a true perspective, as it really was, as some well-balanced person not himself would have seen it. ”

“ Then he looked curiously at me, with a half-smile, and added, "But happy as I have been, I find it in my heart to envy you. You hardly know how much you are to be envied. You have no more partings to fear; your beautiful past is all folded up, to be creased and tarnished no more. ”

“ There was no fear upon her face,
Although they slew her in that place.
The daggers rent and tore her breast
Like dogs that snarl above a kill,
Her proud face gazed above them still,
Seeking rest—Oh, seeking rest! ”

“ Inside my heart. Three hours till God comes true,
When there’s no earth or sky or time in clocks
But only hell and paradise and you.
Life bows his strings! I shout the amazing tune!
... The dullest member drops his coffee spoon.
77 THE KNOCKOUT
The bell clanged “Time!” again. The boxers sparred,
Creep-footed, tiger-muscled, cautious-eyed,
Love the bright pugilist with his glance enskied,
Fate swart as rock, indomitably hard. ”

“ Their shouts rolled to the rafters, The drink-horns crashed and rang, And all their talk was a clangor of war, As swords together sang! But dimly, through the deep night, Where stars like flowers shone, A passionate shape came gliding — I saw one thing alone. I only saw my young love Shining against the dark, The whiteness of her raiment, The head that bent to hark. I only saw my young love, Like flowers in the sun — Her hands like waxen petals, Where yawning poppies run. I only felt there, chrysmal, Against my cheek her breath, Though all the winds were baying, And the sky bright with Death. ”

“ It isn’t nearly enough to feel. The moment you “feel,” you want to create. You not only want, but you have to; you can’t possibly help yourself. You have just read that heavenly poem. You now want to write something like it. You hear what spring once said to a poet, and you want to put down what spring says to you!’
‘Oh, you’re quite wrong,’ said Legs. ‘He {45}has said what spring means. That’s the last word on the subject. But summer now: this, to-day——’
‘So you want to create,’ said I.
A glorious trait about Legs is that he never admits conviction. He only changes the subject. ”

“ I am frail Flesh and Blood, but—yet—yet I can resist; and I prefer my Vows to all your powerful Temptations.—I will be deaf and blind, and guard my Heart with Walls of Ice, and make you know, that when the Flames of true Devotion are kindled in a Heart, it puts out all other Fires; which are as ineffectual, as Candles lighted in the Face of the Sun.—Go, vain Wanton, and repent, and mortify that Blood which has so shamefully betray’d thee, and which will one Day ruin both thy Soul and Body.’—
At these Words Miranda, more enrag’d, the nearer she imagin’d her self to Happiness, made no Reply ”

“ Sure in the conviction that he was a strong man, a man of imagination and of deeds, she could easily excuse this failing in him, as she did that other habit of impulsive action in trifles. Nay, more, she found keen pleasure in excusing it. 'Dear thing!' she reflected, 'he forgets so.' Therefore she waited, content in enjoying the image in the glass of her dark face, her small plump person, and her Paris gown—that dream! ”

“ Do not rise yet; you may find Thoughts agreeable enough, when you awake, to entertain you longer in Bed. And 'tis in that Hour you ought to recollect all the Dreams you had in the Night. If you had dream'd any thing to my advantage, confirm your self in that thought; but if to my disadvantage, renounce it, and disown the injurious Dream. 'Tis in this Hour also that I give you leave to reflect on all that I have ever said and done, that has been most obliging to you, and that gives you the most tender Sentiments. ”

“ But at the critical point, at the psychological moment, a hard feeling comes into your heart, and a glazed blind look into your eyes, and you glance away. You perceive that she is staring straight in front of her; you perceive that she is deliberately cutting you. ”

“ And as the tree waved its plume in the night-wind, and the bird swayed on the moving twig, and the gas-lamp burned meekly and patiently beyond, I seemed to catch in these simple things a glimpse of the secret meaning of human existence, such as one gets sometimes, startlingly, in a mood of idle receptiveness. ”

“ A dim desire, of pleasant places, And lush fields in the summer sun, And logs aflame, and walls, and faces, — And wine, and old ambrosial talk, A golden ball in fountains dancing, And unforgotten hands. (Ah, God, I trod them down where I have trod, And they remain, and they remain, Etched in unutterable pain, Loved lips and faces now apart, That once were closer than my heart — In agony, in agony, And horribly a part of me.... For Lethe is for no man set, And in Hell may no man forget.) ”

“ It is better to bend than to break.
Let us make our passions bend, and become one with our head as every limb and branch pertaining to a tree becomes one with its head, and with the roots from which it springs. ”

“ But come unto me, ye anxious, whose hearts are bowed with care, and I will give you your hearts’ desire! No man calls on me in vain; I turn none empty away; the world is full of my mercies upon those who trust in me ”

“ Ah! The sensation of his nearness, the warmth of his face, the titillation of his hair, the slow, luxurious intake of our breaths, the sweet cruelty of his desperate clutch on my shoulders, the glimpses of his skin through my eyelashes when I raised ever so little my eyelids! Pain and joy of life, you were mingled then!
I remembered that I was a woman, and disengaged myself and withdrew from him. I hated to do it; but I did it. We became self-conscious. The brilliant and empty drawing-room scanned us unfavourably with all its globes and mirrors. ”

“ No two human beings ever [309] understood one another more absolutely, more profoundly, than did Rosa and myself, for we had been through the valley and through the flood together. And so it happened that we did not trouble much with conversation. It was our souls, not our mouths which talked—talked softly and mysteriously in the gracious stillness and obscurity of that Paris night. ”

“ Cedric. My dear child, everything's all right. The honeymoon shall not be shortened by a single day. Everything's absolutely all right.
Flora. (Shakes her head.) It isn't. You're only giving way to please me.
Cedric. Well, really—— (laughing) .
Flora. Cedric. Honestly. Yes or no. Do you think I ought to yield to the aeroplane?
Cedric. (They look at each other.) I think you oughtn't to ask quite such questions?
Flora. (Agreeing.) No. Such questions ought to be asked earlier. But human nature is so—human, that probably it wouldn't be any use asking them any earlier. ”