Riveting

“ I want you so much, your enthusiasm is so fiery, that I can concede no more to the mere sentiment which makes me say to myself, 'It is a shame to use this great-hearted, wrong-headed creature for my personal ends.' I come at once to the point—that is, the matter on which I seek you this evening. ”

“ Whether in dialogue or in monologue, 'The Revenger's Tragedy' is so equally admirable for instinctive obedience to nature and imaginative magnificence of inspiration, so equally perfect in the passionate harmony of its verse and the inspired accuracy of its locution, that years of study and elaboration might have seemed necessary to bring about this inexpressible improvement in expression of yet more sombre and more fiery thought or feeling. ”

“ It was a face that, while it filled you with some melancholy foreboding of the changes and chances which must, in the inevitable course of fate, cloud the openness of the unwrinkled brow, and soberize the fire of the daring and restless eye, instilled also within you some assurance of triumph, and some omen of success,—a vague but powerful sympathy with the adventurous and cheerful spirit which appeared literally to speak in its expression. ”

“ Were they not all caught alike in the web of a mysterious and inscrutable force, mere puppets as it seemed in a stupendous drama whose beginning and whose end were beyond all human insight and control, but puppets also of flesh and blood, whose passions and whose spirit, whose ambitions and whose ideals, whose souls and bodies so strong and so weak, gave to the drama the immortal breath of life? ”

“ IF I could have a thousand years—just one little thousand years—more of life, I might, in that time, draw near enough to true Romance to touch the hem of her robe.
Up from ships men come, and from waste places and forest and road and garret and cellar to maunder to me in strangely distributed words of the things they have seen and considered. ”

“ The brilliant phrase, like good wine, needs no bush. But just as the orator marks his good things by a dramatic pause, or by raising or lowering his voice, or by gesture, so the writer marks his epigrams with italics, setting the little gem, so to speak, like a jeweller—an excusable love of one's art, not all mere vanity, I like to think"—all this with the most pleasant smile and manner. ”

“ Not a vulgar end like yours, but a revenge which shall be almost divine or diabolical, call it which you will, in its completeness. Perhaps it is a madness, perhaps it is an inspiration, perhaps it is a fate. ”

“ From somewhere, from the past or the present, from the dream or the actuality, her young illusions and her young longings rushed over her, driven by the fragrance of the lilacs, which was stinging her blood into revolt. Only an instant the revolt lasted, but in that instant of vision nothing mattered in life except romance, enchantment, adventure. ”

“ But when, in a modern novel, guiltless of all this picturesque superstition, we see the sinner treated with a narrow, nagging sort of severity, our unregenerate nature rebels stoutly against such a manifest lack of balance. Not long ago, I chanced to read a story which actually dared to have a villain for a hero, and I promised myself much pleasure from so original and venturesome a step. ”

“ Revenge from some baneful corner shall level a tale of dishonour at thee, which no innocence of heart or integrity of conduct shall set right.—The fortunes of thy house shall totter,—thy character, which led the way to them, shall bleed on every side of it,—thy faith questioned,—thy works belied,—thy wit forgotten,—thy learning trampled on. ”

“ Under its prolixity and lack of dramatic climax, she recognized in it the taste and flavor of real life—a quality which is particularly thrilling against the unfamiliar background of another epoch.
She had fallen in love with the play and she had not been entirely unconscious of the existence of the author. ”

“ He paused, sighed deeply, and, covering his face with his hand, resumed, in faltering accents,—
"But once—but once only, did such vision of the Beautiful made Human rise before me,—rise amidst 'golden exhalations of the dawn.' It beggared my life in vanishing. ”

“ He leaves no clamouring confession behind him, to enable him to have a posthumous revenge upon those whom he hates. Perhaps after all my hopes and fears, a greater triumph than any I have experienced is at hand for me. ”

“ One evening, during one of my finest moments, when it seemed as if the roof would fall under the explosions of frantic applause, my eyes fell upon a face in a proscenium box almost on the stage, an impassive face, the sight of which made my blood suddenly run cold. You have no idea of the mysterious influences which govern the actor's inspiration, how the expression of certain faces absorbs him, and stimulates or deadens his audacity. ”

“ We invest some object, whose praises, whispered secretly in the ear, have glided imperceptibly to the heart, with all the attributes supplied by our own vivid and readily according imaginations; and so accustomed do we become to linger on the picture, we adore the semblance with an ardour which the original often fails to excite. ”

“ You do listen carefully to the voice—since he may say ‘Yes’ as if he really meant it, or as if he only half-meant it, or as if he meant just the opposite—but you also watch his eyes and his mouth—and in moments of strong excitement it is recorded of many a villain that his fingers twitched, and of many a heroine that her bosom heaved ”

“ You require a nobler goal, and a more glorious reward. He who feels in his soul that Fate has reserved for him a great and exalted part in this world's drama may reasonably look with indifference on these paltry rehearsals of common characters. ”

“ The true criterion for estimating the true value of romantic fiction, of tales of action and adventure, must be always its artistic and intellectual qualities, the question whether it succeeds in filling a broad canvas, in dealing with masculine sentiment and stirring action, in striking the deeper chords of human emotion and energy. ”

“ If one could vest the abstract with personal feelings, what an ample revenge would be hers at the sight of the renegade—sick-hearted, weary, and shamefaced—coming back to the ways of his youth and race, and succumbing to some one part of that which he had despised and rejected in toto! ”

“ What have I done to be treated in this way?" "What hast thou done? Why thou hast shaved many a poor soul close enough," said the other; "thou art only meeting thy reward." So he played up another tune yet merrier than the first. ”

“ Yet what marvel—the strangest my senses have witnessed or feigned in the fraud they have palmed on me—is greater than that by which a simple affection, that all men profess to have known, has changed the courses of life prearranged by my hopes and confirmed by my judgment? ”

“ We survey the scene that moves around, with a gaze no longer distracted by every hope that flutters by; and it is therefore that we find ourselves more calculated than before for the graver occupations of our race. ”

“ The breath of his words, of the very words he spoke, fanned the spark of divine folly in his breast, the spark that made him—the hard-headed, heavy-handed adventurer—stand out from the crowd, from the sordid, from the joyous, unscrupulous, and noisy crowd of men that were so much like himself. ”

“ When the end is known, and the facts and fancies pieced together, remarks are wearisome. The lovers have made it up, and good fortune awaits them; bon voyage!—what's the next story, who writes it, and is the heroine fair or dark, ugly or handsome? ”

“ The dark head beside him shook hopelessly; but he repeated the verdict with additional emphasis. “I tell you, craft is our only hope; some artfulness that shall undermine their strength even as their tricks crept, snake-like, under our guard.” ”

“ Such are the deeds which perverse nature compels thousands of rational beings to perform and to witness—such is the spectacle, endlessly prolonged and diversified, which is exhibited in every field of battle, of which habit and example, the temptations of gain, and the illusions of honour, will make us, not reluctant or indifferent, but zealous and delighted actors and beholders! ”

“ On these uninteresting evidences of an active as well as a frugal mind a solitary tallow-candle shed its feeble light; and Honor, from whose vivid imagination the picture of the brilliant theatre with its dazzling footlights and bright array of meretricious beauty had not altogether faded away, gazed around with feelings nearly akin to loathing and disgust. ”

“ We see the characters in their characterizations standing out clearly as symbols of the motives and forces in the play. The hero and the heroine battle for, and accomplish, the gratifying conclusion; the villain and his accomplices employ their villainous designs in an unprincipled effort to overthrow the good, wholesome and happy elements. Obstacles thrown in the path of one side constitute suspense, and in their removal form a situation. ”

“ Oh, but you have. I trust you implicitly because you stand under the shadow of the scaffold, and at a word from me the bolt is drawn. You will postpone all thought of revenge until your neck is out of the noose ”

“ She was straight and vivid, and his pulses quickened, taking fire. Sun, air and water; sparkle, radiance and color—these things were about him filling his senses with delight and she seemed to epitomize them all in a personal incarnation. ”

“ And of course these greater victories, if they are greater, belong in the nature of things to those actors whose ambition it is to present and interpret the deeper emotions—those emotions, I mean, so deeply seated in humanity that their occasional difference of expression counts as for nothing beside the intensity with which they are felt and experienced by all. ”

“ The attention of the writer was focussed, not upon the peculiarities or the emotions of the beast protagonist in each fierce, brief drama, but upon the thrill of the action, the final triumph of the human actor. ”

“ While the ear is charmed with the style, and the fancy riots on the luxuriance of description, which so intimately blend the charms of virtue and the fascinations of vice, they are not readily distinguished by all. ”

“ The rapturous crisis came at last and laid us prostrate with soul-killing ecstasies. We each retained the dear object of our mutual caresses within our lips and our fingers remained within the delightful recesses that had so much contributed to the excessive raptures we had enjoyed. We lay for some time in this sweet languid enjoyment. ”

“ All belonging to the mere study of mind charmed and enchained her; but active and practical in her very reveries, if she brooded, it was to scheme, to plot, to weave, web, and mesh, and to smile in haughty triumph at her own ingenuity and daring. ”

“ These traps of scene, of situation, of climax, of acts and tableaux or of whatever they are, require to be set and adjusted with the utmost nicety and skill so that they will spring at the precise instant and in the precise manner to seize and hold the admiration—sympathy—interest—or whatever they may be intended to capture, of an audience. ”

“ The heart beats quickly, and we feel ourselves taking a part in the exciting scenes described. You lay the book aside with the feeling that you have seen a gloriously true picture of the Revolution. His whole story is so absorbing that you will sit up far into the night to finish it. As a love romance it is charming. ”

“ It was as if some spark of youth, strong and dominant, had been blown to flame in his aged shell. And Youth, triumphant, lending him the torch, made him impressive. Below him men began to waver, to nod approval, to look ashamed. ”

“ The whole country had an astonishing look of vigor—of the vigor which comes with rude strength; and it had that charm which goes with all untamed beauty—the power to sting one into a sense of agitated enjoyment. ”

“ By this simple beginning, she gives herself a power of rising to the passion of the scene. As she proceeds, every gesture, every look, acquires new violence; till at last, transported, she fills the whole vehemence of the play and the whole idea of the poet. ”

“ Interest is confined to the actions, passions, sufferings and joys of human life, to its pathetic, tragic, humorous and sentimental incidents. Of the state of souls beyond the grave we hear and are supposed to care nothing. In the drama the pedantry of the Revival, which had not injured romantic literature, made itself perniciously felt. ”

“ When, on the following day, the hour arrived, and the drums proclaimed the bloody spectacle: the queen arose with a splendid train, and rejoiced in her heart at the triumph of her indignation.
[Pg 119] For revenge is like a cooling cordial to the burning mind.
The herald opened the lists, the delinquent stood there trembling, and the drums beat again. ”

“ With the instincts peculiar to his race, he contemplates revenge. All his idle hours are spent brooding over plans to frustrate the designs of his rival—in short, to put him out of the way altogether. ”

“ He led the heroes and heroines a wilder dance than ever; and yet all through it ran that same convincing air of honesty and earnestness that had marked his first work. He got the characters into the most extraordinary situations, put them through the most surprising performances, and made them talk the strangest talk! ”

“ How long with their splendour—with their gilding and glass—with their air of respectability and comfort, will they attract the unwary, ruin the weak, and slay the strong man in his strength and pride? ”