Trill

“ They walked into the garden and strolled about the paths together; he was much improved since the Cambridge days, Traill thought—less self-assured and with wider interests. And then Sir Henry Trojan always gave Traill a broader feeling of life—sanity and health and strength—and lie had an admirable sense of humor.
And then it was over, and Traill was speeding back over the hill again. He thought of Isabel all the way back. He fancied that she was with him in the dark. The night was so black that he could only see the little round white circle that his lamp flung on the road in front of him. ”

“ Poor dear Tilly! she would never see thirty again; and she need hardly have troubled, thought Polly, to be insincere with her. But in the same breath she took back the reproach. A woman herself, she understood something of the fear, and shame, and heartburning that had gone to the making of the lie. Perhaps, too, it was a gentle hint from Tilly what age she now wished to be considered. And so Polly agreed, and said tenderly: yes, certainly, the difference was very marked. Meanwhile Tilly flowed on. ”

“ Had he been in love with Trilby, too? Had he ever been in love with any one?
He couldn't say. But he thought of Trilby's sweetness and unselfishness, her gayety, her innocent kissings and caressings, her drollery and frolicsome grace, her way of filling whatever place she was in with her presence, the charming sight and the genial sound of her; and felt that no girl, no woman, no lady he had ever seen yet was a match for this poor waif and stray, this long-legged, cancan-dancing, quartier-latin grisette, blanchisseuse de fin, "and Heaven knows what besides!" ”

“ But the lad set out for the Troll’s house with the bosom of his shirt full of apples, and the lions following close at his heels.
When he came near the Troll’s house, his mother was looking out of the window, and no sooner did she see him than she began to shake and shiver.
“There is my son back again,” said she, “and indeed I feel terribly frightened.”
“He’s a strong one, and that’s the truth,” said the Troll, “and I wish we could find out what makes him so, for it’s not in nature for any one to be as strong as he is.” ”

“ A handsome young man, Walter Tyrrel, of the true Cornish type—tall, dark, poetical-looking, with pensive eyes and a thick black mustache, which gave dignity and character to his otherwise almost too delicately feminine features. And he stood on the open moor just a hundred yards outside his own front door at Penmorgan, on the Lizard peninsula, looking westward down a great wedge-shaped gap in the solid serpentine rock to a broad belt of sea beyond without a ship or a sail on it. The view was indeed, as Eustace Le Neve admitted, a somewhat bleak and dreary one. ”

“ The dog was a sma' young terrier of the Highland breed, but with a drop to his ears and a crinkle in his frosty coat--no' just an ordinar' dog. I know him weel. He came to my place to be fed, near dead of hunger, then led me here. If his master lies in this kirkyard, I'll tak' the bit dog awa' with me."
Mr. Traill's astonishing fluency always carried all walls of resistance before it with men of slower wit and speech. Only a superior man could brush time-honored rules aside so curtly and stand on his human rights so surely. ”

“ The doctor blows through your nose into your Eustachian tube with a little India-rubber machine; some obstacle gives way, there is a snap in your head, and straightway you hear better than you had ever heard in all your life, almost too well; and all your life is once more changed for you!
At length he sat up again, in the middle of la Svengali's singing of the "Nussbaum," and saw her; and saw the Laird sitting by him, and Taffy, their eyes riveted on Trilby, and knew for certain that it was no dream this time, and his joy was almost a pain! ”

“ On turning my eyes in that direction, I observed at the top of the casement, as if suspended from above, first the feet, then the legs, then the body, and at length the whole figure of a man present itself. It was Edward Tyrrell. He appeared to be guiding his descent so as to bring his feet upon the centre of the stone block which occupied the lower part of the window; and having secured his footing upon this, he kneeled down and began to gaze into the room. As the moon was gleaming into the chamber, and the bed-curtains were drawn, he was able to distinguish the bed itself and its contents. ”

“ Loud and shrill and sweet beyond compare—drowning the orchestra; of a piercing quality quite ineffable; a joy there is no telling; a clear, purling, crystal stream that gurgles and foams and bubbles along over sunlit stones; "a wonder, a world's delight!"
And there is not a sign of effort, of difficulty overcome. All through, Trilby smiles her broad, angelic smile; her lips well parted, her big white teeth glistening as she gently jerks her head from side to side in time to Svengali's bâton, as if to shake the willing notes out quicker and higher and shriller.... ”

“ Traill noticed the sailor's covert glances at Enid, so he said:
"By the way, Mr. Emmett, you were on the Britannic when my wife and I, her sister, and two children, came to England before the Esmeralda was lost?"
"Yes, sir." He paused.
During many an Atlantic crossing he and Mr. Traill had talked of that last joyous journey, when he, a boy who had just joined the service, sat at their table, as was the custom of junior officers in those years.
Mr. Traill smiled. He knew what was in the other man's mind.
"Do you see a likeness in this young lady to anyone you have ever known?" he asked. ”

“ The only failure is the head (on page 59 of the book) which is in more senses than one "as bad as they make them." He is excellent where he laughs over the two Englishmen cleaning themselves; he is delightful where he examines the roof of Trilby's mouth, "like the dome of the Panthéon," "room in it for 'toutes les gloires de la France.'" Where he stands in the midst of the crowded studio, "All as it Used to Be," he looks every inch the artist, more so than the "idle apprentice," lounging against the door-jamb. ”

“ It was Trilby, Trilby, Trilby! a poor fallen sinner and waif all but lost amid the scum of the most corrupt city on earth. Trilby weak and mortal like himself, and in woful want of pardon! and in her gray dovelike eyes he saw the shining of so great a love that he was abashed; for well he knew that all that love was his, and would be his forever, come what would or could. ”

“ Then, before the men could seize him or prevent the rash attempt, he had dashed into the great waves that curled and thundered on the beach, and was struggling hard with the sea in a life and death contest. Eustace Le Neve held the rope, and tried to aid him in his endeavors. He had meant to plunge in himself, but Walter Tyrrel was beforehand with him. He was no match in a race against time for the fiery and impetuous Cornish temperament. It wasn’t long, however, before the breakers proved themselves more than equal foes for Walter Tyrrel. ”

“ And what did he feel for Trilby? He couldn't tell yet. It was too vast as yet to be measured; and, alas! it was weighted with such a burden of sorrow and regret that he might well put off the thought of it a little while longer, and gather in what bliss he might: like the man whose hearing has been restored after long years, he would revel in the mere physical delight of hearing for a space, and not go out of his way as yet to listen for the bad news that was already in the air, and would come to roost quite soon enough. ”

“ Du Maurier's 'Trilby' is curiously prefigured, in part at least, in Nodier's; and yet there is not the smallest thing that the most jealous critic could call a plagiarism; it is a legitimate parentage. As you go on with Nodier's story, you love his Trilby more and more, as you do du Maurier's, until you think that there was never so bewitching a fairy; and your love for Trilby is interwoven with your love for Jeannie, his mortal sweetheart, just as your love for du Manner's Trilby is forever mixed up with your tender sentiment for Little Billee. ”

“ Hill thought it best for us to return to the fair, and lay out the money we had left in victuals for the children, and then try to collect the boys together and return home. My head ached with the noise of the fair, and I was loth to go back to it. We had nearly reached the town, when Frank met us; his face was adorned with two black eyes, otherwise he did not seem to have received much damage from the fight.
"Where have you been, you tiresome boy? always fighting and quarrelling, and scaring honest bodies out of their wits," screamed nurse Hill in a shrill voice, as soon as she saw him. ”

“ Nothing else that Mother Nature has to show, not even the human face divine, has more subtle power to suggest high physical distinction, happy evolution, and supreme development; the lordship of man over beast, the lordship of man over man, the lordship of woman over all!
En, voilà, de l'éloquence—à propos de bottes!
Trilby had respected Mother Nature's special gift to herself—had never worn a leather boot or shoe, had always taken as much care of her feet as many a fine lady takes of her hands. ”

“ There was Durien, for instance—Trilby's especial French adorer, "pour le bon motif!" a son of the people, a splendid sculptor, a very fine character in every way—so perfect, indeed, that there is less to say about him than any of the others—modest, earnest, simple, frugal, chaste, and of untiring industry; living for his art, and perhaps also a little for Trilby, whom he would have been only too glad to marry. ”

“ The coastguard grew suddenly graver. “Like enough,” he said, stroking his chin. “Like enough; and right, too, for him, sir. You see, he’s a Tyrrel, and he’s bound to be cautious.’
“Why so?” Le Neve asked, somewhat puzzled. “Why a Tyrrel more than the rest of us?”
The man hesitated and stared hard at him.
“Well, it’s like this, sir,” he answered at last, with the shamefaced air of the intelligent laboring man who confesses to a superstition. “We Cornish are old-fashioned, and we has our ideas. The Tyrrels are new people like, in Cornwall, as we say ”

“ It has indeed—but, Tyrrel, when was it otherwise with engagements formed in youth and in folly? You and I would, you know, become men and women, while we were yet scarcely more than children—We have run, while yet in our nonage, through the passions and adventures of youth, and therefore we are now old before our day, and the winter of our life has come on ere its summer was well begun.—O Tyrrel! ”

“ After all, he was right perhaps, from his point of view: you can get as dirty in a week as in a lifetime, so what's the use of taking such a lot of trouble? Besides, so long as you are clean enough to suit your kind, to be any cleaner would be priggish and pedantic, and get you disliked.
Just as Svengali was about to knock at the Laird's door, Trilby came down-stairs from Durien's, very unlike herself. Her eyes were red with weeping, and there were great black rings round them; she was pale under her freckles. ”

“ Favorite types of beauty change with each succeeding generation. These were the days of Buckner's aristocratic Album beauties, with lofty foreheads, oval faces, little aquiline noses, heart-shaped little mouths, soft dimpled chins, drooping shoulders, and long side ringlets that fell over them—the Lady Arabellas and the Lady Clementinas, Musidoras and Medoras! A type that will perhaps come back to us some day.
May the present scribe be dead!
Trilby's type would be infinitely more admired now than in the fifties. ”

“ The misadventure of Sir Walter Tyrrel was, that on August 2d, in the year 1100, William II, surnamed Rufus or the Red Rover (from the color of his hair) , was hunting in the New Forest accompanied by Sir Walter Tyrrel, a French gentleman. [Pg 15] A stag suddenly started up and Tyrrel let fly at him an arrow which struck a tree, and, glancing off, hit the King in the breast, killing him instantly. Sir Walter immediately put spurs to his horse, gained the channel coast and embarked for France, where he joined the Crusades as a voluntary penance for his involuntary crime. ”

“ She is now! But she had no more idea of singing than I have of winning a steeple-chase at the croix de Berny. She could no more sing than a fiddle can play itself! She could never tell one tune from another—one note from the next. Do you remember how she tried to sing 'Ben Bolt' that day when she first came to the studio in the Place St. Anatole des Arts? It was droll, hein? à se boucher les oreilles! Well, that was Trilby, your Trilby! that was my Trilby too—and I loved her as one loves an only love, an only sister, an only child—a gentle martyr on earth, a blessed saint in heaven! ”

“ Tiralla. He was her father confessor. "A good little woman, an exceedingly nice little woman," he said in a laudatory tone.
"I had a fearful to-do with Tiralla the other day, your reverence," said Kranz of the gendarmerie, who was sitting at the end of the table stroking his fierce-looking, greyish moustache. "I felt quite sorry for the woman. I had to speak. I didn't think it could be possible, but I was told of it, and I found out for myself that it was true--Tiralla lets the day-labourers kill hares for him. It makes no difference to him whether they're on other people's property or not. ”

“ Tyrrel,” said Captain Jekyl, “you must allow me to speak with candour. There is too great a stake betwixt your brother and you to permit you to be friends; but I do not see it is necessary that you should therefore be mortal enemies.”
“I am not my brother's enemy, Captain Jekyl,” said Tyrrel—“I have never been so—His friend I cannot be, and he knows but too well the insurmountable barrier which his own conduct has placed between us.” ”