Fez

“ It is consequently not strange that it should be the dream of rich men of Fez and Marrakesh to possess such women nor that these girls of the Sous, either captured or bought, often reach high honors in the harems of the Masters of the Mountains, of the pashas or even of the sultans. ”

“ We have seen how the carvings of Jonah and of Samson, at Ripon, were taken from the Poor Man’s Bible; here we have the Preaching Fox mentioned in a book of 1300 as being in an earlier work. A Fox bearing two Cocks by the neck on a staff is the initial T in a MS. considered by Montflaucon to be of the ninth century. Fredegarius, the Frankish historian, in the middle of the seventh century, has a fable of a Fox at the court of the Lion, repeated by others in the tenth and eleventh. Paulin Paris and Thomas Wright agreed in thinking the whole fable of French origin, and first in the Latin tongue. ”

“ I have not a shilling I can call my own----"
"Don't stop me, Fox," cried Mrs. Fox-Cordery, thoroughly enraged; "I must speak! You shameless creature, how dare you utter these falsehoods? You have a beautiful gown, and a hat, and boots, and everything a woman can wish for; and you stand there, and deny it to my face!"
"I do deny it, mother. Are these things really mine? If they are, why do you keep them locked up in your wardrobe, and why do you allow me to wear them only when I go out with you, or when any particular visitor comes to the house?" ”

“ I seized on it, Felix. Dressed in Josephine’s cloak and hat—the two girls were fortunately much of a figure—Fréron left with me, leaving it to be inferred, by those interested in my movements, that I had actually put my plan into execution. It is useless to detail the particulars of our escape; but at least one thing is certain, that Monseigneur actually believed his prey to have eluded him, and that he took instant steps, on the information received, to have us followed and intercepted. ”

“ SATAN
She is coming.
[A young woman, hardly more than a girl, comes
from between the pillars and approaches Faust.
Satan withdraws a little as she approaches.
THE WOMAN
I did not want to interrupt your talk;
But, Mr. Faust, I wished so much to speak
To you. You do not know me? [63]
FAUST
Why, it seems...
THE WOMAN
Of course you do not; why should you remember?
But I have seen your face so many times
When you perhaps not noticed me at all,
That I feel half-acquainted. Mr. Brander
Speaks of you, too, so much that I have grown
To think I know you.
FAUST
Ah; yes, Brander.... ”

“ Mary’s, Beverley, the various carvings have a decidedly manuscript appearance. The one of the Preaching Fox has labels, upon which, in some unknown original, may have been inscribed texts or other matter. Here the Fox wears only his “scapulaire,” and has his right hand raised in correct exhortative manner; his pulpit is of stone, and is early. Behind stand two persons, perhaps male and female, whose religious dress would lead us to suppose them to represent the class to whose teaching a fox-like character is to be attributed. ”

“ FELIX: The things it hurts will have to go.
FEJEVARY: I don't know about that, Felix. Perhaps in time we'll find truth in them.
FELIX: Oh, if you feel that way, father.
FEJEVARY: Don't be kind to me, my boy, I'm not that old.
SILAS: But think what it is you've said! If it's true that we made ourselves—made ourselves out of the wanting to be more—created ourselves you might say, by our own courage—our—what is it?—aspiration. Why, I can't take it in. I haven't got the mind to take it in. And what mind I have got says no. It's too—
FEJEVARY: It fights with what's there. ”

“ THE FOX AND THE CROW
A CROW stole a piece of cheese one day, and flew with it up into a tree, so as to eat it at her leisure.
As she sat there, holding it in her beak, a Fox chanced to pass by, and looking up saw her. “How good that cheese smells!” thought he; “I’ll have it, sure as I’m a Fox.”
Coming close to the tree, he said, “My dear Madam, what a beautiful creature you are! I was not aware till this moment what rare beauty your family possesses. What eyes! What glossy feathers! What grace of form! Is your voice as charming to hear, as your person is to look upon? ”

“ We hear them without alarm, having so frequently heard them before. But if, like Felix, we had been brought up in the darkness of paganism, and if another Paul had come and opened our eyes, and unveiled those sacred terrors, how exceedingly should we have feared! This was the case with Felix. He perceived the bandage which conceals the sight of futurity drop in a moment. He heard St. Paul, that herald of grace and ambassador to the Gentiles, he heard him reason on temperance and a judgment to come. His soul was amazed; his heart trembled; his knees smote one against another. ”

“ Fox treated me with a kind of deference—as if I were a great unknown. His “you literary men” was pleasing. It was the homage that the pretender pays to the legitimate prince; the recognition due to the real thing from the machine-made imitation; the homage of the builder to the architect.
“Ah, yes,” it seemed to say, “we jobbing men run up our rows and rows of houses; build whole towns and fill the papers for years. But when we want something special—something monumental—we have to come to you.”
Fox came in again. ”

“ Fox, I cast an appealing glance at the former and was greatly chagrined to find him already on his feet.
“Enjoy your dance,” he cried; “I have a word to say to Mrs. Fairbrother,” and was gone before my new partner had taken me on his arm.
Was Mrs. Fairbrother the lady with the diamond? Yes; as I turned to enter the parlor with my partner, I caught a glimpse of Mr. Durand’s tall figure just disappearing from the step behind the sage-green curtains.
“Who is Mrs. Fairbrother?” I inquired of Mr. Fox at the end of the dance.
Mr. Fox, who is one of society’s perennial beaux, knows everybody. ”

“ I said, "one likes to know about one's sister. You and the Right Honourable Charles Gurnard are Dimensionists, and who are the others of your set?"
"There is only one," she answered. And would you believe it!—it seems he was Fox, the editor of my new paper.
"You select your characters with charming indiscriminateness," I said. "Fox is only a sort of toad, you know—he won't get far."
"Oh, he'll go far," she answered, "but he won't get there. Fox is fighting against us."
"Oh, so you don't dwell in amity?" I said. "You fight for your own hands." ”

“ A Teutonic journalist, a musical critic, I suppose, inquired as to the origin of the meagre pheasant. Fox replied that it had been preserved in the back-yard. The dramatic critic mumbled unheard that some piece or other was off the bills of the Adelphi. I grinned vacantly. Afterward, under his breath, Fox put me up to a thing or two regarding the inner meaning of the new daily. Put by him, without any glamour of a moral purpose, the case seemed rather mean. The dingy smoking-room depressed me and the whole thing was, what I had, for so many years, striven to keep out of. ”

“ Come, Faust!”
“That is a most singular young man,” soliloquised Frere as he took down and unrolled a Persian manuscript; “very like an excitable steam-engine with an ill-regulated safety-valve in disposition; I only hope he won’t blow up bodily while I have the care of him. He is a fine fellow, too, and it’s impossible not to be very fond of him; but he’s an awful responsibility for a quiet man to have thrust upon him.” ”

“ Fox.
"I rushed downstairs, just in time to hide myself behind a cask, when you, Mr. Fox, came in dragging the young lady by the arm. And, as you passed me, Mr. Fox, I thought I saw you try and get off her diamond ring, and when you could not, Mr. Fox, it seemed to me in my dream, that you out with your sword and hacked off the poor lady's hand to get the ring."
"It is not so, nor it was not so. And God forbid it should be so," said Mr. Fox, and was going to say something else as he rose from his seat, when Lady Mary cried out:
"But it is so, and it was so. ”

“ In cafe of the Worst, it is some sort of Ease to have Company in our Misfortunes. It puts a Body our of Countenance to be in a Fashion by Himself, and therefore the Fox did well to Try if he could bring his Fellow Foxes to put themselves into His Mode. When we have Carry'd a Point as far as it will go, and can make no more on't, 'tis a Stroke of Art and Philosophy, to look as if we did not so much as With for a Thing that is not to be Had. ”

“ The attacks grew more virulent as the night advanced. He groaned and raved, and said things—oh, the most astounding things in gibberish that upset one's nerves and everything else. At the height he sang hymns, and then, as the fits passed, relapsed into incredible clear-headedness. It gave me, I say, a new idea of Fox. It was as if, for all the time I had known him, he had been playing a part, and that only now, in the delirium of his pain, in the madness into which he drank himself, were fragments of the real man thrown to the surface. ”

“ FEJEVARY: Are you crazy? What are these people to you?
MADELINE: They're people from the other side of the world who came here believing in us, drawn from the far side of the world by things we say about ourselves. Well, I'm going to pretend—just for fun—that the things we say about ourselves are true. So if you'll—arrange so I can get it, Uncle Felix, as soon as it's mine. ”

“ I shall live—and Death retreats from me afraid!
SATAN
What! Then I'll do his office!
FAUST
Spare your pains
The tide of strength recedes, swift as it came....
Oldham! I cannot die! I cannot die!...
And I am dying....
[Faust sinks back with closed eyes. The door opens
softly and the butler enters, followed by Midge
who carries an armful of flowers. She looks around
the room, bewildered; then crosses quickly to Faust's
chair.
SATAN
Madam, you come too late.
[Faust opens his eyes—and, lifting the manuscript,
with feeble hand holds it out to her. [115]
FAUST
No, not too late.... ”

“ At length came a young fox. Then Mrs Fox said: ‘Has the gentleman red stockings on, and has a little pointed mouth?’ ‘Yes,’ said the cat, ‘he has.’ ‘Then let him come upstairs,’ said Mrs Fox, and ordered the servant to prepare the wedding feast.
‘Sweep me the room as clean as you can, Up with the window, fling out my old man! For many a fine fat mouse he brought, Yet of his wife he never thought, But ate up every one he caught.’
Then the wedding was solemnized with young Mr Fox, and there was much rejoicing and dancing; and if they have not left off, they are dancing still. ”

“ There was once upon a time an old fox with nine tails, who believed that his wife was not faithful to him, and wished to put her to the test. He stretched himself out under the bench, did not move a limb, and behaved as if he were stone dead. Mrs Fox went up to her room, shut herself in, and her maid, Miss Cat, sat by the fire, and did the cooking. When it became known that the old fox was dead, suitors presented themselves. ”

“ BRANDER
Brother in the Lord,
Let us together from devoted hearts
Repeat: "Thy Will Be Done."
[Faust continues to kneel in silence. The music
ceases.
BRANDER
Faust, let us pray:
"Father, we do beseech Thee for Thy light"...
SATAN
Brother, pray thus: "Thy Will Be Done"...
FAUST (rising)
What will?...
BRANDER
Faust!
FAUST
Lost is my way among eternal shadows.
Darkened is every light; and clouds are rolled
With blackening curtain over all the stars
Within my heaven. But I stand upright
Now to the end, no traitor to that dawn
I cannot image.
SATAN
[77] What do you mean? ”

“ Felix.Providence, and they no longer knew him, though up to that day they had known him well. They therefore asked the priest himself where Felix was: the prudent man perceived that it was the work of God, and replied, smiling, "I do not know the man you are looking for." And in this he spoke the truth; for nobody does know himself. Upon this the persecutors turned their attention elsewhere, and asked those whom they met, where Felix was. ”

“ Such were the events that preyed on the heart of Felix, and rendered him, when I first saw him, the most miserable of his family. He could have endured poverty; and while this distress had been the meed of his virtue, he gloried in it: but the ingratitude of the Turk, and the loss of his beloved Safie, were misfortunes more bitter and irreparable. The arrival of the Arabian now infused new life into his soul. ”

“ She shook her head forlornly.
“I am very sorry,” she said.
“You want your Ronsin back?”
“Or something in its place. I know you can if you will, Felix. It is only perversity that prevents you. Do, to please me, paint something I can understand.”
“But that I cannot? Well, shall I paint you, Fifine?” ”

“ Felix visited the grate at night, and made known to the prisoner his intentions in his favour. The Turk, amazed and delighted, endeavoured to kindle the zeal of his deliverer by promises of reward and wealth. Felix rejected his offers with contempt; yet when he saw the lovely Safie, who was allowed to visit her father, and who, by her gestures, expressed her lively gratitude, the youth could not help owning to his own mind, that the captive possessed a treasure which would fully reward his toil and hazard. ”

“ I'm the man here."
"If that's the case . . ." I said.
"Oh, that's it," he answered.
I helped him to put the paper to bed; took some of the work off his hands. It was all part of the getting back to life; of the resuming of rusty armour; and I wanted to pass the night. I was not unused to it, as it happened. Fox had had several of these fits during my year, and during most of them I had helped him through the night; once or twice for three on end. Once I had had entire control for a matter of five nights. But they gave me a new idea of Fox, those two or three weird hours that night. ”