Neon

“ And that night was by all odds the finest that Neewa had ever seen. Now that the nights were warm, he had come to love the moon even more than the sun, for by birth and instinct he was more a prowler in darkness than a hunter of the day. The moon rose out of the east in a glory of golden fire. The spruce and balsam forests stood out like islands in a yellow sea of light, and the creek shimmered and quivered like a living thing as it wound its way through the glowing valley. ”

“ Nenook had shared his mother's den through the arctic night just gone; and now the savage old seal-slayer herself came leaping as if from the empty air.
She had been lying in the rough ice within fifty feet of Nenook, her two younger cubs beside her, and the three, through their protective coloration, had entirely escaped the gaze of the two hunters. This was no half-grown four-year-old to lay low with a deer-arrow—she who came leaping across the intervening distance like a white demon to her son's defense. ”

“ The potter’s face clouded deep and he went away to the window, where he turned his back on the lovers, and looked into the garden in silent reflection.
Martialis stepped to Neæra’s side, and so they remained without a word for some time. A struggle was proceeding in Masthlion’s breast, and his lips were moving as he communed with himself. ‘Shall she be told?’ he thought; ‘would she lose me, or still cling to me? We have reared and tended her—new ways beget new ideas—it is idle to say we will be thus and thus until the time try us. ”

“ I think I will get up in the mornings as Jeanne does, and try to love my mountains, and go about amongst my people, and try to spell life with different letters. Come with me, Nigel. There is shooting and fishing there, and horses wild enough for even you to find pleasure in riding. We have tried many things in life. ”

“ I was reading some time since about the Arabian horses, and when we get to a better place I will show you that there is no such mighty matter in stopping at full speed, or mounting and dismounting at a gallop. But what were you speaking of, brother?"
"Of the most charming creature in the world," said I, feeling every word that I uttered.
"Yes, yes, brother, responded Archibald, stooping on the off side of his mare, and turning the stirrup with his foot; "yes; but I cannot well bear to talk of her now." ”

“ In a wide, flat part of the valley where the creek split itself into a dozen little channels, and the water rippled between sandy bars and over pebbly shallows, Neewa and his mother were nosing about lazily for a breakfast of crawfish. The world had never looked more beautiful to Neewa. ”

“ Next day ushered in for Neale a well-earned rest, and he proceeded to enjoy it to the full.
The fall had always been Neale’s favorite season. Here, as elsewhere, the aspect of it was flaming and golden, but different from what he had known hitherto. Dreaming silence of autumn held the wildness and loneliness of the Wyoming hills. The sage shone gray and purple, the ridges yellow and gold; the valleys were green and amber and red. No dust, no heat, no wind—a clear, blue, cloudless sky, sweet odors in the still air—it was a beautiful time. ”

“ You are sanguine and confident of the future; I am not. Hawks should pair only with hawks, and sparrows with sparrows. More words at present, however, would be spent to no purpose—the matter requires time and reflection.’
‘The child Neæra is not goods or chattels, husband—is she to have no word for herself?’ remarked his wife quietly.
‘Ay, truly, Tibia; thou hast ever a word in season,’ answered the potter to his delighted spouse. ‘The gods forgive me for a thoughtless blockhead. It would be a fine way of making a pot without first proving if the clay be fit. ”

“ Neæra glided to him, and hid her face in his shoulder.
Martialis folded his arms and watched them. The potter had unconsciously dealt a deathblow to his own cause, if it needed one at all. Their eyes met at that moment. The acute perception, or instinct, of the artisan interpreted too well the calm, resolute light of the young man’s glance, so warm with the picture of the fair girl before him, and he groaned inwardly as he restlessly stroked his daughter’s glossy locks. ”

“ One would have thought it a scene from Pagan life that had been suddenly petrified by the sovereign touch of the naiad.
I then remembered the species of fear that this nymph had caused me in broad daylight, with her air of proud repose in the midst of these monsters writhing beneath her feet.
Can an unemotional soul express true beauty? thought I, and should this creature of marble awake to life, despite her magnificence would she not terrify one, by that air of supreme indifference which renders her so superior to the beings of our race? ”

“ You may see the gleaming of a Naiad’s slippery shoulders,
And the water sliding cool and quiet over all.
Through the narrow gorges where the flying-foxes muster,
Hanging from the kurrajongs like monstrous magic grapes,
Something spreads a sudden fear that breaks each heavy cluster—
See the furry prick-eared faun that chuckles and escapes! ”

“ Through the crowded Paris terminal Neeland pushed his way, carrying the olive-wood box in his hand and keeping an eye on his porter, who preceded him carrying the remainder of his luggage and repeating:
“Place, s’il vous plaît, m’sieu’, dames!”
To Neeland it was like a homecoming after many years’ exile; the subtle but perfectly specific odour of Paris assailed his nostrils once again; the rapid, emphatic, lively language of France sounded once more delightfully in his eager ears; vivacity and intelligence sparkled in every eye that met his own. ”

“ From that in stant till the day I left him he was the old Jean—joking, fibbing, laughing, and always playing—Jean L'Enfant.
And I think of Jean le Nègre ... you are something to dream over, Jean; summer and winter (birds and darkness) you go walking into my head; you are a sudden and chocolate-coloured thing, in your hands you have a habit of holding six or eight plantons (which you are about to throw away) and the flesh of your body is like the flesh of a very deep cigar. ”

“ My Neila sang at parting!—what doth that Nautch-girl here?
"Whence comes she by the music of Neila's tender strain,
She, in that shameless tinsel?—O Nautch-girl, sing again!"
"Ah, Soorj!"—so followed answer—"here thine own Neila stands,
Faithful in life and death alike,—look up, and take my hands:
"Speak low, lest the guard hear us;—to-night, if thou must die,
Shureef shall have no triumph, but bear thee company."
[109]
So sang she like the Koil that dies beside its mate;
With eye as black and fearless, and love as hot and great. ”

“ Masthlion, these arguments will be vain, so use them not. I ask you to give me your daughter Neæra, in betrothal.’
The potter did not reply straightway, but, smoothing the trembling girl’s head ceaselessly with his hand, he stood with his brow contracted in painful thought, and his eyes bent on the ground.
‘In good faith, Centurion,’ he said, after an uneasy silence, ‘you rend my heart between doubt and anxiety, and a desire [pg 15] to act generously as well as prudently. Can I deliver up my child to a stranger? ”

“ Neæra clasped her hands across his shoulder and leant her face toward his, for she was as tall, if not a little above his stature. The contrast between her lovely pure countenance and his oddly clay-daubed visage was so comical that Martialis smiled.
‘Come, father,’ said Neæra in his ear; ‘you have wrought enough for to-day. It is not often we have a visitor.’
‘Such a visitor—no!’ replied Masthlion, smiling. ‘Away! Leave me in my den—you want my room, not my company. ”

“ The waves curled up over his head at times; great monsters swam towards him with fierce looks,—serpents and alligators opening their huge jaws as if to devour him; yet he panted on until he was cast upon the shore.
"When he awoke, Neil found himself lying upon the soft grass, near a spring of water that gurgled from a moss-grown rock, with a pleasant [Pg 99] sound, and tinkled along in mimic cascades beside him. He was surrounded by a group of fair children, who bade him drink of the spring. Neil drank deeply, and immediately he felt a new life. ”

“ After he had been speaking for less than a minute, Rue Carew’s hands tightened in the clasp of the Princess Naïa, who glanced at the girl and noticed that she had lost her colour.
And Neeland continued his partly playful, partly serious narrative of “moving accidents by flood and field,” aware of the girl’s deep, breathless interest, moved by it, and, conscious of it, the more inclined to avoid the picturesque and heroic, and almost ashamed to talk of himself at all under the serious beauty of the girl’s clear eyes. ”

“ It was a dirty colour, ominous of ill-temper beyond the great breakwater to the northward; and it fretted and fumed inshore and made white and ghastly faces from the open sea.
But Neeland, dining from a tray in a portholed pit consecrated to the use of a casual supercargo, rejoiced because he adored the sea, inland lubber that he had been born and where the tides of fate had stranded him. For, to a New Yorker, the sea seems far away—as far as it seems to the Parisian. ”

“ For a space the world was whirling round and round in a sickening circle. Then he pulled himself together, and made out Neewa a dozen feet away. Neewa was just awakening to the truth of an exhilarating discovery. Next to a boy on a sled or a beaver on his tail, no one enjoys a “slide” more than a black-bear cub, and as Brimstone rearranged his scattered wits, Neewa climbed twenty or thirty feet up the slope and deliberately rolled down again! Brimstone's jaws fell apart in amazement. Again Neewa climbed up and rolled down—and Brimstone ceased to breathe altogether. ”

“ Only the mighty powers of nature were in dominion here: the lashing snows of winter, the bitter cold, the wind that wept by unheard by human ears. Ned was closer to the heart of nature, and thus to the heart of life, than he had ever been before. ”

“ It is plain that a careful study of the masterpieces of classical literature, and of the places to which they refer, has necessarily preceded the writing of ‘Neæra.’ One of the best scenes in the book is the final appearance of all the characters before Tiberius, who is to decide whether Neæra is or is not the long-lost granddaughter of the Senator, and whether the villain is guilty or not of the blackest crimes.... The style is for the most part good. ”

“ Neale looked thoughtful. "I'm no mystic. Their way of managing life often looks to me like sort of lying down on the job. I'm no mystic and I'm no fish. Looks to me as though the thing to do isn't to go off in a far corner to get your momentary glimpse of daylight, but to batter a hole in the roof of your cave and let daylight in where you live all the time. ”

“ Ned was in a strange world,—a great world of shams, where the trees were clots of green paint on immense canvas sheets stretched on tottering wooden frames, where hospitable castles had no substance, where mountain crags were trestles of various heights supporting spring mattresses, covered with dusty imitations of mosses and vines, on which desperate leaps might safely be made. ”

“ Among all the winged creatures of the air within the ark, canst thou name one with instinct more subtle than the raven's? Black and uncanny looking, forsooth! Witness his speech, I tell thee," decisively, "the bird hath understanding."
As Noah ceased speaking, there came a low, faint tapping at the window. With a glad countenance he hastened to open it, and in flew the raven, quite exhausted.
"Water, water, everywhere," croaked the bird, and after wearily eating the food Noah gave him, tucked his head beneath his wing and was soon fast asleep. ”

“ Neæra wrinkled her pretty brows and perused her companion’s dark-hued shaggy face with an anxious, inquiring look. Then she shook her head.
‘I cannot understand,’ she said; ‘to say that of me seems to be nonsense.’
‘Don’t you see?’ exclaimed Cestus, reaching out his arm, and laying his thick forefinger on her hand, as it rested on her knee, ‘don’t you see? When you become the wife of Martialis he will take you to Rome, and by and by your—Masthlion will be unable to live without the sight of you, so he will assuredly follow. ”

“ At times I drew near, delicately, standing among thick leaves or crouched in long grown grasses, and I stared and mourned as I looked on men. For Nemed and four couples had been saved from that fierce storm, and I saw them increase and multiply until four thousand couples lived and laughed and were riotous in the sun, for the people of Nemed had small minds but great activity. ”

“ Then, round a corner the wand of an invisible magician waves: darkness and winter cold become summer warmth and light.
This light was the level golden glory of late afternoon when Stephen saw it from Nevill's car; and so green were the wide stretching meadows and shining rivers far below, that he seemed to be looking at them through an emerald, as Nero used to gaze at his gardens in Rome. ”

“ Sometimes, alone on the deck at night, Ned was close to the dearest reality, the most profound discovery that could possibly touch his life: that the dreadful spirit of God moved upon the face of these desolate waters, no less than, as is told in Genesis, at creation's dawn. ”