Estaminet

“ After dinner Lady Montfort led Endymion to her lord, and left him seated by his host. Lord Montfort was affable and natural in his manner. He said, “I have not yet made the acquaintance of Lady Roehampton, for I never go out; but I hope to do so, for Lady Montfort tells me she is quite captivating.”
“She is a very good sister,” said Endymion.
“Lady Montfort has told me a great deal about yourself, and all of it I was glad to hear. I like young men who rise by their merits, and Mr. Sidney Wilton tells Lady Montfort that yours are distinguished.” ”

“ Or is it the very meanest miserliness, that he may keep you all to himself? There we are again! I say he is an unreadable sphinx.”
Aminta had rung the bell for her maid. Mrs. Pagnell could be counted on for drawing in her tongue when the domestics were near.
A languor past delivery in sighs was on the young woman's breast. She could have heard without a regret that the heart was to cease beating. Had it been downright misery she would have looked about her with less of her exanimate glassiness. The unhappy have a form of life: until they are worn out, they feel keenly. She felt nothing. ”

“ Poor Endymion, who loved her passionately, over whom she exercised the influence of a divinity, who would do nothing without consulting her, and who was moulded, and who wished to be moulded, by her inspiring will, was also a shrewd man of the world, and did not permit his sentiment to cloud his perception of life and its doings. He felt that Lady Montfort had fallen from a lofty position, and she was not of a temperament that would quietly brook her fate. ”

“ Where there are crowned heads, there are always some charming women. Endymion found himself in a delightful circle. Long days and early hours, and a beautiful country, renovate the spirit as well as the physical frame. Excursions to romantic forests, and visits to picturesque ruins, in the noon of summer, are enchanting, especially with princesses for your companions, bright and accomplished. Yet, notwithstanding some distractions, Endymion never omitted writing to Lady Montfort every day. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Emmet lives in it, and outlives. It is the compensation of a lot cast in a planet where even our own honourable action has a trick of turning hostile and smearing us, that there is something in the best of us which cannot be smeared. Robert Emmet’s large soul has, like a magician, pieced together his broken body, the symbol of his broken, mistimed, and because mistimed, unhallowed effort. But only his own soul [89] has done it, and by a power within, shaking herself clear of censure. Mr. Henry Curran devotes to him a reticent paragraph obliquely affectionate. ”

“ Not a word had yet been spoken by either of them; only a murmur of sympathy on the part of Endymion. Lady Montfort spoke first.
“I am weaker than I thought, but it is a great trial.” And then she said how sorry she was, that she could not receive him at Princedown; but she thought it best that he should not go there. “I have a great deal of business to transact—you would not believe how much. I do not dislike it, it occupies me, it employs my mind. I have led so active a life, that solitude is rather too much for me. ”

“ She rallied him. “I shall call you the Knight of the Woeful Countenance if you approach me with such a visage. What can be the matter with you?”
“Nothing,” repeated Endymion, looking rather away.
The Knight of the Dolphin came up and said, “This is a critical affair to-morrow, my dear Lady Montfort. If the Count Ferroll is discomfited by the prince, it may be a casus belli. You ought to get Lord Roehampton to interfere and prevent the encounter.”
“The Count of Ferroll will not be discomfited,” said Lady Montfort. “He is one of those men who never fail.” ”

“ I like, above all things, to live with good-tempered people.”
“I hope you may not be disappointed. My temper is my own affair, and I am content always to be alone.”
“Why! you are talking nonsense, Endymion.”
“Probably; I do not pretend to be gifted. I am not one of those gentlemen who cannot fail. I am not the man of the future.”
“Well! I never was so surprised in my life,” exclaimed Lady Montfort. “I never will pretend to form an opinion of human character again. Now, my dear Endymion, rouse yourself, and come back with me. ”

“ She saw the last troops cross the hill and the smoke clouds thicken. Presently [Pg 85] she saw black missiles hurtle through the air and bright flashes from beyond the hill divide the low-lying cloud. Suddenly she screamed. A dark object, passing over the ridge with a shrill, whistling sound, had plunged into Grandfather Willing's potato patch. Private Christy took Emmeline by the arm and led her round the corner of the house.
"Nothing but a stray shot, sissy; but if I was you, I believe I'd stay here. Nothing can hurt you through these stone walls." ”

“ Anthea found it difficult to keep the Psammead from being squeezed very uncomfortably.
The crowd swept through the streets of dull-looking houses with few windows, very high up, across the market where people were not buying but exchanging goods. In a momentary pause Robert saw a basket of onions exchanged for a hair comb and five fish for a string of beads. The people in the market seemed better off than those in the crowd ”

“ The wood-nimphs reply when they hear me complain,
Thou never shalt see thy Amintas againe:
For death hath befriended him,
Fate hath defended him,
None, none alive, is so happy a swaine.
You sheapards and nimphs that have danc'd to his laies,
Come helpe me to sing forth Amintas his praise ”

“ I wish I could help you to realise, I wish I could myself adequately realise, the humanity, the gentle and grave humanity, of Emmet. We are so dominated by the memory of that splendid death of his, by the memory of that young figure, serene and smiling, climbing to the gallows above that sea of silent men in Thomas Street, that we forget the life of which that death was only the necessary completion: and the life has perhaps a nearer meaning for us than the death. ”

“ She should “be at papa’s,” though he and his family were in town; but that was no reason why Endymion should not call on her. And he came, and called every day. Lady Montfort was full of her new house; it was in Carlton Gardens, the house she always wished, always intended to have. There is nothing like will; everybody can do exactly what they like in this world, provided they really like it. Sometimes they think they do, but in general, it is a mistake. Lady Montfort, it seemed, was a woman who always could do what she liked. She could do what she liked with Endymion Ferrars ”

“ For Emmet, finely gifted though he was, was just a young man with the same limitations, the same self-questionings, the same falterings, the same kindly human emotions surging up sometimes in such strength as almost to drown a heroic purpose, as many a young man we have known. ”

“ He was proud of her bearing on horseback. She rode well and looked well. A finer weapon wherewith to strike at a churlish world was never given into the hands of man. These English may see in her, if they like, that they and their laws and customs are defied. It does her no hurt, and it hits them a ringing buffet.
Among the cavaliers they passed was Mr. Morsfield. He rode by slowly. The earl stiffened his back in returning the salute. Both that and the gentleman were observed by Aminta.
'He sees to having good blood under him,' said the earl. ”

“ Lady Montfort herself had no thought but her husband. His happiness, his enjoyment of existence, his success and power in life, entirely absorbed her. The anxiety which she felt that in everything he should be master was touching. Once looked upon as the most imperious of women, she would not give a direction on any matter without his opinion and sanction. One would have supposed from what might be observed under their roof, that she was some beautiful but portionless maiden whom Endymion had raised to wealth and power. ”

“ I have a purpose in life, and I will fulfil it. It is a charm that its accomplishment would be the most grateful result to the two beings I most love in the world.”
So when Lady Montfort shortly after opened her views to Endymion as to his visiting Paris, and his purpose in so doing, the seeds were thrown on a willing soil, and he embraced her counsels with the deepest interest. ”

“ Sometimes, when he paid his daily visit to Berengaria, she who knew him by heart, who studied every expression of his countenance and every tone of his voice, would say to him, after a few minutes of desultory and feeble conversation, “You are thinking of your sister, Endymion?”
He did not reply, but gave a sort of faint mournful smile.
“This separation is a trial, a severe one, and I knew you would feel it,” said Lady Montfort. “I feel it; I loved your sister, but she did not love me. Nobody that I love ever does love me.” ”

“ What pangs will he not make others suffer, so that he may ease his selfish heart of a part of its own pain? Day after day he would seek his dear mistress, pour insane hopes, supplications, rhapsodies, raptures, into her ear. She listened, smiled, consoled, with untiring pity and sweetness. Esmond was the eldest of her children, so she was pleased to say; and as for her kindness, who ever had or would look for aught else from one who was an angel of goodness and pity? After what has been said, 'tis needless almost to add that poor Esmond's suit was unsuccessful. ”

“ There were many wagons standing idle down by Willoughby Run; perhaps one could be spared to take her. If she could only go home and see her mother she would ask for nothing more in the world. Perhaps Henry had come back. If Henry were wounded like these men, her mother could not take care of him and Bertha, too. She must go home. Then Emmeline gave a great cry. Deliverance had come! She sprang to the window and began to call to some one outside. Private Christy, who was on his knees near the window, turned and looked out quickly.
[Pg 95] "They are Union soldiers!" cried Emmeline. ”

“ My lord heard at the door of his house that Lady Ormont had not arrived. Yet she had started a day in advance of him. He looked down, up and round at Charlotte. He looked into an empty hall. Pagnell was not there. A sight of Pagnell would, strange to say, have been agreeable.
Storm was in the air, and Aminta was on the road. Lightning has, before now, frightened carriage-horses. She would not misconduct herself; she would sit firm. No woman in England had stouter nerve—few men. ”

“ The gods of Amentet rejoice in thy beauties and the unseen places sing hymns of praise unto thee. Those who dwell in the Sektet boat go round about thee, and the Souls of the East pay homage to thee, and when they meet thy Majesty they cry: ‘Come, come in peace!’ There is a shout of welcome to thee, O lord of heaven and governor of Amentet! Thou art acknowledged by Isis who seeth her son in thee, the lord of fear, the mighty one of terror. Thou settest as a living being in the hidden place. ”

“ Esmond said.
"I know it, I know it," she answered, in a tone of such sweet humility, as made Esmond repent that he should ever have dared to reproach her. "I know how wicked [314] my heart has been; and I have suffered too, my dear. But I knew you would come back—I own that. And to-day, Henry, in the anthem, when they sang it, 'When the Lord turned the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream,' I thought yes, like them that dream—them that dream. ”

“ I marvel Corsites giveth me so much liberty, all the world knowing his charge to be so high and his nature to be most strange, who hath so ill entreated ladies of great honor that he hath not suffered them to look out of windows, much less to walk abroad. It may be he is in love with me, for, Endymion, hardhearted Endymion excepted, what is he that is not enamored of my beauty? But what respectest thou the love of all the world? Endymion hates thee. Alas, poor Endymion, my malice hath exceeded my love, and thy faith to Cynthia quenched my affections. Quenched, Tellus? ”

“ In Aminta's realized recollections, amid the existing troubles of her mind, the charge against him grew paler, and she could no longer quite think that the young hero transformed into a Mr. Cuper had deceived her, though he had done it—much as if she had assisted at the planting and watched aforetime the promise of a noble tree, to find it, after an interval of years, pollarded—a short trunk shooting out a shock of small, slim, stiff branches ”

“ This is interrupted by the entrance of Oceanus and a train of Nereids. The presence of all these immortals is too much for Endymion’s human senses: he swoons; a ring of Nereids lift and carry him tenderly away; he is aware of a message of hope and cheer from his goddess, written in starlight on the dark; and when he comes to himself, finds that he is restored to earth, lying on the grass beside a forest pool in his native Caria. ”