Not long before the beginning of this century, Septimus Kinsolving, an old New Yorker, invented an idea. He originated the discovery that bread is made from flour and not from wheat futures. Perceiving that the flour crop was short, and that the Stock Exchange was having no perceptible effect on the growing wheat, Mr. Kinsolving cornered the flour market.
The result was that when you or my landlady (before the war she never had to turn her hand to anything; Southerners accomodated) bought a five-cent load of bread you laid down an additional two cents, which went to Mr. Kinsolving as a testimonial to his perspicacity.
A second result was that Mr. Kinsolving quit the game with $2,000,000 prof - er - rake-off.
Mr. Kinsolving's son Dan was at college when the mathematical experiment in breadstuffs was made. Dan came home during vacation, and found the old gentleman in a red dressing-gown reading "Little Dorrit" on the porch of his estimable red brick mansion in Washington Square. He had retired from business with enough extra two-cent pieces from bread buyers to reach, if laid side by side, fifteen times around the earth and lap as far as the public debt of Paraguay.
Dan shook hands with his father, and hurried over to Greenwich Village to see his old high-school friend, Kenwitz. Dan had always admired Kenwitz. Kenwitz was pale, curly-haired, intense, serious, mathematical, studious, altruistic, socialistic, and the natural foe of oligarchies. Kenwitz had foregone college, and was learning watch-making in his father's jewelry store. Dan was smiling, jovial, easy-tempered and tolerant alike of kings and ragpickers. The two foregathered joyously, being opposites. And then Dan went back to college, and Kenwitz to his mainsprings - and to his private library in the rear of the jewelry shop.
Four years later Dan came back to Washington Square with the accumulations of B. A. and two years of Europe thick upon him. He took a filial look at Septimus Kinsolving's elaborate tombstone in Greenwood and a tedious excursion through typewritten documents with the family lawyer; and then, feeling himself a lonely and hopeless millionaire, hurried down to the old jewelry store across Sixth Avenue.
Kenwitz unscrewed a magnifying glass from his eye, routed out his parent from a dingy rear room, and abandoned the interior of watches for outdoors. He went with Dan, and they sat on a bench in Washington Square. Dan had not changed much; he was stalwart, and had a dignity that was inclined to relax into a grin. Kenwitz was more serious, more intense, more learned, philosophical and socialistic.
"I know about it now," said Dan, finally. "I pumped it out of the eminent legal lights that turned over to me poor old dad's collections of bonds and boodle. It amounts to $2,000,000, Ken. And I am told that he squeezed it out of the chaps that pay their pennies for loaves of bread at little bakeries around the corner. You've studied economics, Dan, and you know all about monopolies, and the masses, and octopuses, and the rights of laboring people. I never thought about those things before. Football and trying to be white to my fellowman were about the extent of my college curriculum.
Monday, November 26, 2012
The lady was absorbed in burning tiny holes with the tip of her cigarette
The lady was absorbed in burning tiny holes with the tip of her cigarette, through the skirt of the young girl. Itague watched as the pattern grew. She was writing ma fetiche, in black-rimmed holes. The sculptress wore no lingerie. So that when the lady finished the words would be spelled out by the young sheen of the girl's thighs. Defenseless? Itague wondered briefly.
II
The next day the same clouds were over the city, but it did not rain. Melanie had awakened in the Su Feng costume, excited as soon as her eyes recognized the image in the mirror, knowing it hadn't rained. Porcepic showed up early with a guitar. He sat on the stage and sang sentimental Russian ballads about willow trees, students getting drunk and going off on sleigh-rides, the body of his love floating belly up in the Don. (A dozen young gathered round the samovar to read novels aloud: where had youth gone?) Porcepic, nostalgic, snuffled over his guitar.
Melanie, looking newly scrubbed and wearing the dress she'd arrived in, stood behind him, hands over his eyes, and caroled harmony. Itague found them that way. In the yellow light, framed by the stage, they seemed like a picture he'd seen somewhere once. Or perhaps it was only the melancholy notes of the guitar, the subdued looks of precarious joy on their faces. Two young people conditionally at peace in the dog days. He went into the bar and began chipping away at a large block of ice; put the chips into an empty champagne bottle and filled the bottle with water.
By noon the dancers had arrived, most of the girls seemingly deep in a love affair with Isadora Duncan. They moved over the stage like languid moths, gauzy tunics fluttering limp. Itague guessed half the men were homosexual. The other half dressed that way: foppish. He sat at the bar and watched as Satin began the blocking.
"Which one is she?" The woman again. In Montmartre, 1913, people materialized.
"Over there with Porcepic."
She hurried over to be introduced. Vulgar, thought Itague, and then amended it at once to "uncontrollable." Perhaps? A little. La Jarretiere stood there only gazing. Porcepic looked upset, as if they'd had an argument. Poor, young, pursued, fatherless. What would Gerfaut make of her? A wanton. In body if he could; in the pages of a manuscript most certainly. Writers had no moral sense.
Porcepic sat at the piano, playing Adoration of the Sun. It was a tango with cross-rhythms. Satin had devised some near-impossible movements to go with it. "It cannot be danced," screamed a young man, leaping from the stage to land, belligerent, in front of Satin.
Melanie had hurried off to change to her Su Feng costume. Lacing on her slippers she looked up and saw the woman, leaning in the doorway.
"You are not real."
"I . . ." Hands resting dead on her thighs.
"Do you know what a fetish is? Something of a woman which gives pleasure but is not a woman. A shoe, a locket . . . une jarretiere. You are the same, not real but an object of pleasure."
Melanie could not speak.
"What are you like unclothed? A chaos of flesh. But as Su Feng, lit by hydrogen, oxygen, a cylinder of lime, moving doll-like in the confines of your costume . . . You will drive Paris mad. Women and men alike."
II
The next day the same clouds were over the city, but it did not rain. Melanie had awakened in the Su Feng costume, excited as soon as her eyes recognized the image in the mirror, knowing it hadn't rained. Porcepic showed up early with a guitar. He sat on the stage and sang sentimental Russian ballads about willow trees, students getting drunk and going off on sleigh-rides, the body of his love floating belly up in the Don. (A dozen young gathered round the samovar to read novels aloud: where had youth gone?) Porcepic, nostalgic, snuffled over his guitar.
Melanie, looking newly scrubbed and wearing the dress she'd arrived in, stood behind him, hands over his eyes, and caroled harmony. Itague found them that way. In the yellow light, framed by the stage, they seemed like a picture he'd seen somewhere once. Or perhaps it was only the melancholy notes of the guitar, the subdued looks of precarious joy on their faces. Two young people conditionally at peace in the dog days. He went into the bar and began chipping away at a large block of ice; put the chips into an empty champagne bottle and filled the bottle with water.
By noon the dancers had arrived, most of the girls seemingly deep in a love affair with Isadora Duncan. They moved over the stage like languid moths, gauzy tunics fluttering limp. Itague guessed half the men were homosexual. The other half dressed that way: foppish. He sat at the bar and watched as Satin began the blocking.
"Which one is she?" The woman again. In Montmartre, 1913, people materialized.
"Over there with Porcepic."
She hurried over to be introduced. Vulgar, thought Itague, and then amended it at once to "uncontrollable." Perhaps? A little. La Jarretiere stood there only gazing. Porcepic looked upset, as if they'd had an argument. Poor, young, pursued, fatherless. What would Gerfaut make of her? A wanton. In body if he could; in the pages of a manuscript most certainly. Writers had no moral sense.
Porcepic sat at the piano, playing Adoration of the Sun. It was a tango with cross-rhythms. Satin had devised some near-impossible movements to go with it. "It cannot be danced," screamed a young man, leaping from the stage to land, belligerent, in front of Satin.
Melanie had hurried off to change to her Su Feng costume. Lacing on her slippers she looked up and saw the woman, leaning in the doorway.
"You are not real."
"I . . ." Hands resting dead on her thighs.
"Do you know what a fetish is? Something of a woman which gives pleasure but is not a woman. A shoe, a locket . . . une jarretiere. You are the same, not real but an object of pleasure."
Melanie could not speak.
"What are you like unclothed? A chaos of flesh. But as Su Feng, lit by hydrogen, oxygen, a cylinder of lime, moving doll-like in the confines of your costume . . . You will drive Paris mad. Women and men alike."
She leaned over him
She leaned over him, and he felt as in a dream the old potential charm of her flower-sweet breath and glowing beauty. Still, though he submitted to her caresses, he did not return them. Within his ears the impassioned words of Helene were sounding perpetually, deafening him to every other appeal. His visible presence was with Wanda, his breast was deeply stirred with pity and affection and remorse for her, but his soul was left behind with that stricken girl, to whose broken-hearted confessions he had been a forced listener.
The day had lost its brightness, as though twilight had suddenly laid her dusky hand across the burning gaze of noon; the shadows deepened perceptibly about them; the sky threatened, the darkened trees seemed full of dread, the last gleam of light faded swiftly into the black approaching clouds, and they were speedily engulfed in one of those impatient summer showers, whose sharp fury quickly spends itself. Edward was reminded of that time a year ago when they were alone in the storm. Again the Indian girl bent reverently to the ground, exclaiming in awed accents, "The Great Spirit is angry." "He has need to be angry," muttered the young man, hurrying his companion to a denser part of the forest, where the thickly intermingled boughs might form a roof above them. But before they reached it a terrific burst of thunder broke upon their ears, and a tree beside them was suddenly snapped by the wind, and flung to the ground. The girl, with the quick instinct of a savage, stepped aside, pulling hard as she did so upon the arm of Edward. But he, walking as one in a dream, was scarcely less unconscious of what was going on around him than when, a moment later, he lay, felled to the earth by the fallen tree.
Wanda uttered an ejaculation of horror and alarm, and exerting all her strength she dragged the inanimate figure away from its enshrouding coverlet of leaves. The rain beat heavily upon the bloodless, upturned face. "What can I do for you?" she cried in despair, taking his handkerchief and binding tightly the deep wound on his head. He opened his eyes languidly, and murmured scarcely above his breath, "Bring Helene!" She did not pause even to kiss the pale lips, but flew swift as Love itself upon Love's errand. And yet, in her consuming desire to obey the least wish of her idol, it seemed to her that every fibre of her eager frame was clogged and weighted with lead. The rain blinded her eyes, the tangled underbrush tripped her feet, and more than once she fell panting and trembling on the dead leaves. Only for a moment; then she sprang up again, leaping, running, pushing away the branches that stretched across her path, spurning at every step the solid earth that interposed so much of its dull bulk between her and her heart's desire. Reaching the lake she jumped quickly into a boat Edward had given her, which lay near, and she made haste for Kempenfeldt Bay.
The rain ceased before she reached Pine Towers, and with the first radiant glance of the sun Helene had come to the wood's edge for the sake of the forest odours, which are never so pungent and delicious as immediately after a thunder-storm. In the thinnest, most transparent of summer white gowns, with her lily-pale face and drooping figure, she looked like some rare flower which the storm in pity had spared. So thought Wanda, who, now that the object of her search was in sight, approached very slowly and wearily, her breast rent by fierce pangs of jealousy. Why had Edward wished at such a critical time for this useless weakling? What possible good could she be to him in what might be his dying moments? And all the time, Helene, fixing her sad eyes upon this wild girl of the woods, noting her drenched, ragged and earth-stained raiment, and the dark sullen expression that jealousy had painted upon her face, saw more than all and above all the overwhelming beauty, which belittled all externals, and made them scarcely worth notice. "What wonder," thought Helene, "that Edward is given up heart and soul to this peerless creature, when the mere sight of her quickens my slow pulses?"
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Only five folk as tha' likes
"Only five folk as tha' likes?" he said. "Who is th'
other four?""Your mother and Martha," Mary checked them offon her fingers,fake uggs boots, "and the robin and Ben Weatherstaff."Dickon laughed so that he was obliged to stifle the soundby putting his arm over his mouth.
"I know tha' thinks I'm a queer lad," he said, "but Ithink tha' art th' queerest little lass I ever saw."Then Mary did a strange thing. She leaned forwardand asked him a question she had never dreamed of askingany one before. And she tried to ask it in Yorkshirebecause that was his lan- guage, and in India a nativewas always pleased if you knew his speech.
"Does tha' like me?" she said.
"Eh!" he answered heartily, "that I does. I likesthee wonderful, an' so does th' robin, I do believe!""That's two, then,fake ugg delaine boots," said Mary. "That's two for me."And then they began to work harder than ever and more joyfully.
Mary was startled and sorry when she heard the big clockin the courtyard strike the hour of her midday dinner.
"I shall have to go," she said mournfully. "And youwill have to go too, won't you?"Dickon grinned.
"My dinner's easy to carry about with me," he said.
"Mother always lets me put a bit o' somethin' in my pocket."He picked up his coat from the grass and brought out ofa pocket a lumpy little bundle tied up in a quite clean,coarse, blue and white handkerchief. It held two thickpieces of bread with a slice of something laid between them.
"It's oftenest naught but bread," he said, "but I've gota fine slice o' fat bacon with it today."Mary thought it looked a queer dinner, but he seemedready to enjoy it.
"Run on an' get thy victuals," he said. "I'll be donewith mine first. I'll get some more work done before Istart back home."He sat down with his back against a tree.
"I'll call th' robin up," he said,adidas jeremy scott wings, "and give him th'
rind o' th' bacon to peck at. They likes a bit o'
fat wonderful."Mary could scarcely bear to leave him. Suddenly itseemed as if he might be a sort of wood fairy whomight be gone when she came into the garden again.
He seemed too good to be true. She went slowly half-wayto the door in the wall and then she stopped and went back.
"Whatever happens, you--you never would tell?" she said.
His poppy-colored cheeks were distended with his first bigbite of bread and bacon, but he managed to smile encouragingly.
"If tha' was a missel thrush an' showed me where thy nest was,does tha' think I'd tell any one,mens rolex datejust? Not me," he said.
"Tha' art as safe as a missel thrush."And she was quite sure she was.
Chapter 12 Might I Have A Bit Of Earth
Mary ran so fast that she was rather out of breath when shereached her room. Her hair was ruffled on her foreheadand her cheeks were bright pink. Her dinner was waitingon the table, and Martha was waiting near it.
"Tha's a bit late," she said. "Where has tha' been?""I've seen Dickon!" said Mary. "I've seen Dickon!""I knew he'd come," said Martha exultantly. "How does tha'
like him?""I think--I think he's beautiful!" said Mary in a determinedvoice.
Martha looked rather taken aback but she looked pleased, too.
other four?""Your mother and Martha," Mary checked them offon her fingers,fake uggs boots, "and the robin and Ben Weatherstaff."Dickon laughed so that he was obliged to stifle the soundby putting his arm over his mouth.
"I know tha' thinks I'm a queer lad," he said, "but Ithink tha' art th' queerest little lass I ever saw."Then Mary did a strange thing. She leaned forwardand asked him a question she had never dreamed of askingany one before. And she tried to ask it in Yorkshirebecause that was his lan- guage, and in India a nativewas always pleased if you knew his speech.
"Does tha' like me?" she said.
"Eh!" he answered heartily, "that I does. I likesthee wonderful, an' so does th' robin, I do believe!""That's two, then,fake ugg delaine boots," said Mary. "That's two for me."And then they began to work harder than ever and more joyfully.
Mary was startled and sorry when she heard the big clockin the courtyard strike the hour of her midday dinner.
"I shall have to go," she said mournfully. "And youwill have to go too, won't you?"Dickon grinned.
"My dinner's easy to carry about with me," he said.
"Mother always lets me put a bit o' somethin' in my pocket."He picked up his coat from the grass and brought out ofa pocket a lumpy little bundle tied up in a quite clean,coarse, blue and white handkerchief. It held two thickpieces of bread with a slice of something laid between them.
"It's oftenest naught but bread," he said, "but I've gota fine slice o' fat bacon with it today."Mary thought it looked a queer dinner, but he seemedready to enjoy it.
"Run on an' get thy victuals," he said. "I'll be donewith mine first. I'll get some more work done before Istart back home."He sat down with his back against a tree.
"I'll call th' robin up," he said,adidas jeremy scott wings, "and give him th'
rind o' th' bacon to peck at. They likes a bit o'
fat wonderful."Mary could scarcely bear to leave him. Suddenly itseemed as if he might be a sort of wood fairy whomight be gone when she came into the garden again.
He seemed too good to be true. She went slowly half-wayto the door in the wall and then she stopped and went back.
"Whatever happens, you--you never would tell?" she said.
His poppy-colored cheeks were distended with his first bigbite of bread and bacon, but he managed to smile encouragingly.
"If tha' was a missel thrush an' showed me where thy nest was,does tha' think I'd tell any one,mens rolex datejust? Not me," he said.
"Tha' art as safe as a missel thrush."And she was quite sure she was.
Chapter 12 Might I Have A Bit Of Earth
Mary ran so fast that she was rather out of breath when shereached her room. Her hair was ruffled on her foreheadand her cheeks were bright pink. Her dinner was waitingon the table, and Martha was waiting near it.
"Tha's a bit late," she said. "Where has tha' been?""I've seen Dickon!" said Mary. "I've seen Dickon!""I knew he'd come," said Martha exultantly. "How does tha'
like him?""I think--I think he's beautiful!" said Mary in a determinedvoice.
Martha looked rather taken aback but she looked pleased, too.
Shane and McClintock and me mounted our mules and rode across the rawhide bridge just as the Peches
"Shane and McClintock and me mounted our mules and rode across the rawhide bridge just as the Peches reached the other side and began firing stones and long knives at us. We cut the thongs that held up our end of the bridge and headed for the coast."
A tall, bulky policeman came into Finch's shop at that moment and leaned an elbow on the showcase. Finch nodded at him friendly.
"I heard down at Casey's," said the cop, in rumbling, husky tones, "that there was going to be a picnic of the Hat-Cleaners' Union over at Bergen Beach, Sunday. Is that right?"
"Sure," said Finch. "There'll be a dandy time."
"Gimme five tickets," said the cop, throwing a five-dollar bill on the showcase.
"Why,'' said Finch, "ain't you going it a little too--"
"Go to h--!" said the cop. "You got 'em to sell, ain't you? Somebody's got to buy 'em. Wish I could go along."
I was glad to See Finch so well thought of in his neighborhood.
And then in came a wee girl of seven, with dirty face and pure blue eyes and a smutched and insufficient dress.
"Mamma says," she recited shrilly, "that you must give me eighty cents for the grocer and nineteen for the milkman and five cents for me to buy hokey-pokey with--but she didn't say that," the elf concluded, with a hopeful but honest grin.
Finch shelled out the money, counting it twice, but I noticed that the total sum that the small girl received was one dollar and four cents.
"That's the right kind of a law," remarked Finch, as he carefully broke some of the stitches of my hatband so that it would assuredly come off within a few days--"the law of supply and demand,fake uggs boots. But they've both got to work together. I'll bet," he went on, with his dry smile, "she'll get jelly beans with that nickel--she likes 'em. What's supply if there's no demand for it?"
"What ever became of the King?" I asked, curiously.
''Oh, I might have told you," said Finch. "That was Shane came in and bought the tickets. He came back with me, and he's on the force now."
A Technical Error
I never cared especially for feuds, believing them to be even more overrated products of our country than grapefruit, scrapple, or honeymoons. Nevertheless, if I may be allowed, I will tell you of an Indian Territory feud of which I was press-agent, camp-follower, and inaccessory during the fact.
I was on a visit to Sam Durkee's ranch, where I had a great time falling off unmanicured ponies and waving my bare hand at the lower jaws of wolves about two miles away. Sam was a hardened person of about twenty- five, with a reputation for going home in the dark with perfect equanimity, though often with reluctance.
Over in the Creek Nation was a family bearing the name of Tatum,Cheap Adidas Jeremy Scott Big Tongue Shoes. I was told that the Durkees and Tatums had been feuding for years. Several of each family had bitten the grass, and it was expected that more Nebuchadnezzars would follow. A younger generation of each family was growing up,ladies rolex datejusts, and the grass was keeping pace with them,fake ugg delaine boots. But I gathered that they had fought fairly; that they had not lain in cornfields and aimed at the division of their enemies' suspenders in the back -- partly, perhaps, because there were no cornfields, and nobody wore more than one suspender. Nor had any woman or child of either house ever been harmed. In those days -- and you will find it so yet -- their women were safe.
A tall, bulky policeman came into Finch's shop at that moment and leaned an elbow on the showcase. Finch nodded at him friendly.
"I heard down at Casey's," said the cop, in rumbling, husky tones, "that there was going to be a picnic of the Hat-Cleaners' Union over at Bergen Beach, Sunday. Is that right?"
"Sure," said Finch. "There'll be a dandy time."
"Gimme five tickets," said the cop, throwing a five-dollar bill on the showcase.
"Why,'' said Finch, "ain't you going it a little too--"
"Go to h--!" said the cop. "You got 'em to sell, ain't you? Somebody's got to buy 'em. Wish I could go along."
I was glad to See Finch so well thought of in his neighborhood.
And then in came a wee girl of seven, with dirty face and pure blue eyes and a smutched and insufficient dress.
"Mamma says," she recited shrilly, "that you must give me eighty cents for the grocer and nineteen for the milkman and five cents for me to buy hokey-pokey with--but she didn't say that," the elf concluded, with a hopeful but honest grin.
Finch shelled out the money, counting it twice, but I noticed that the total sum that the small girl received was one dollar and four cents.
"That's the right kind of a law," remarked Finch, as he carefully broke some of the stitches of my hatband so that it would assuredly come off within a few days--"the law of supply and demand,fake uggs boots. But they've both got to work together. I'll bet," he went on, with his dry smile, "she'll get jelly beans with that nickel--she likes 'em. What's supply if there's no demand for it?"
"What ever became of the King?" I asked, curiously.
''Oh, I might have told you," said Finch. "That was Shane came in and bought the tickets. He came back with me, and he's on the force now."
A Technical Error
I never cared especially for feuds, believing them to be even more overrated products of our country than grapefruit, scrapple, or honeymoons. Nevertheless, if I may be allowed, I will tell you of an Indian Territory feud of which I was press-agent, camp-follower, and inaccessory during the fact.
I was on a visit to Sam Durkee's ranch, where I had a great time falling off unmanicured ponies and waving my bare hand at the lower jaws of wolves about two miles away. Sam was a hardened person of about twenty- five, with a reputation for going home in the dark with perfect equanimity, though often with reluctance.
Over in the Creek Nation was a family bearing the name of Tatum,Cheap Adidas Jeremy Scott Big Tongue Shoes. I was told that the Durkees and Tatums had been feuding for years. Several of each family had bitten the grass, and it was expected that more Nebuchadnezzars would follow. A younger generation of each family was growing up,ladies rolex datejusts, and the grass was keeping pace with them,fake ugg delaine boots. But I gathered that they had fought fairly; that they had not lain in cornfields and aimed at the division of their enemies' suspenders in the back -- partly, perhaps, because there were no cornfields, and nobody wore more than one suspender. Nor had any woman or child of either house ever been harmed. In those days -- and you will find it so yet -- their women were safe.
Friday, November 23, 2012
It was because she seemed such a wonderful woman in hernice moorland cottage way that at last sh
It was because she seemed such a wonderful woman in hernice moorland cottage way that at last she was toldabout the Magic.
"Do you believe in Magic?" asked Colin after he hadexplained about Indian fakirs. "I do hope you do.""That I do, lad," she answered. "I never knowed it bythat name but what does th' name matter? I warrant theycall it a different name i' France an' a different one i'
Germany. Th' same thing as set th' seeds swellin' an' th'
sun shinin' made thee a well lad an' it's th' Good Thing.
It isn't like us poor fools as think it matters if us iscalled out of our names. Th' Big Good Thing doesn't stopto worrit, bless thee. It goes on makin' worlds by th'
million--worlds like us. Never thee stop believin' in th'
Big Good Thing an' knowin' th' world's full of it--an'
call it what tha' likes. Tha' wert singin' to it when Icome into th' garden.""I felt so joyful," said Colin, opening his beautifulstrange eyes at her. "Suddenly I felt how different Iwas--how strong my arms and legs were, you know--andhow I could dig and stand--and I jumped up and wantedto shout out something to anything that would listen.""Th' Magic listened when tha' sung th' Doxology.
It would ha' listened to anything tha'd sung. It was th'
joy that mattered. Eh! lad, lad--what's names to th'
Joy Maker," and she gave his shoulders a quick softpat again.
She had packed a basket which held a regular feastthis morning, and when the hungry hour came and Dickonbrought it out from its hiding place, she sat down withthem under their tree and watched them devour their food,laughing and quite gloating over their appetites. She wasfull of fun and made them laugh at all sorts of odd things.
She told them stories in broad Yorkshire and taught themnew words. She laughed as if she could not help itwhen they told her of the in- creasing difficulty therewas in pretending that Colin was still a fretful invalid.
"You see we can't help laughing nearly all the timewhen we are together," explained Colin. "And itdoesn't sound ill at all. We try to choke it backbut it will burst out and that sounds worse than ever.""There's one thing that comes into my mind so often,"said Mary, "and I can scarcely ever hold in when I thinkof it suddenly. I keep thinking suppose Colin's faceshould get to look like a full moon. It isn't like oneyet but he gets a tiny bit fatter every day--and supposesome morning it should look like one--what should we do!""Bless us all, I can see tha' has a good bit o' play actin'
to do," said Susan Sowerby. "But tha' won't have to keepit up much longer. Mester Craven'll come home.""Do you think he will?" asked Colin. "Why?"Susan Sowerby chuckled softly.
"I suppose it 'ud nigh break thy heart if he foundout before tha' told him in tha' own way," she said.
"Tha's laid awake nights plannin' it.""I couldn't bear any one else to tell him," said Colin.
"I think about different ways every day, I think now Ijust want to run into his room." "That'd be a finestart for him," said Susan Sowerby. "I'd like to seehis face, lad. I would that! He mun come back --thathe mun."One of the things they talked of was the visit theywere to make to her cottage. They planned it all.
"Do you believe in Magic?" asked Colin after he hadexplained about Indian fakirs. "I do hope you do.""That I do, lad," she answered. "I never knowed it bythat name but what does th' name matter? I warrant theycall it a different name i' France an' a different one i'
Germany. Th' same thing as set th' seeds swellin' an' th'
sun shinin' made thee a well lad an' it's th' Good Thing.
It isn't like us poor fools as think it matters if us iscalled out of our names. Th' Big Good Thing doesn't stopto worrit, bless thee. It goes on makin' worlds by th'
million--worlds like us. Never thee stop believin' in th'
Big Good Thing an' knowin' th' world's full of it--an'
call it what tha' likes. Tha' wert singin' to it when Icome into th' garden.""I felt so joyful," said Colin, opening his beautifulstrange eyes at her. "Suddenly I felt how different Iwas--how strong my arms and legs were, you know--andhow I could dig and stand--and I jumped up and wantedto shout out something to anything that would listen.""Th' Magic listened when tha' sung th' Doxology.
It would ha' listened to anything tha'd sung. It was th'
joy that mattered. Eh! lad, lad--what's names to th'
Joy Maker," and she gave his shoulders a quick softpat again.
She had packed a basket which held a regular feastthis morning, and when the hungry hour came and Dickonbrought it out from its hiding place, she sat down withthem under their tree and watched them devour their food,laughing and quite gloating over their appetites. She wasfull of fun and made them laugh at all sorts of odd things.
She told them stories in broad Yorkshire and taught themnew words. She laughed as if she could not help itwhen they told her of the in- creasing difficulty therewas in pretending that Colin was still a fretful invalid.
"You see we can't help laughing nearly all the timewhen we are together," explained Colin. "And itdoesn't sound ill at all. We try to choke it backbut it will burst out and that sounds worse than ever.""There's one thing that comes into my mind so often,"said Mary, "and I can scarcely ever hold in when I thinkof it suddenly. I keep thinking suppose Colin's faceshould get to look like a full moon. It isn't like oneyet but he gets a tiny bit fatter every day--and supposesome morning it should look like one--what should we do!""Bless us all, I can see tha' has a good bit o' play actin'
to do," said Susan Sowerby. "But tha' won't have to keepit up much longer. Mester Craven'll come home.""Do you think he will?" asked Colin. "Why?"Susan Sowerby chuckled softly.
"I suppose it 'ud nigh break thy heart if he foundout before tha' told him in tha' own way," she said.
"Tha's laid awake nights plannin' it.""I couldn't bear any one else to tell him," said Colin.
"I think about different ways every day, I think now Ijust want to run into his room." "That'd be a finestart for him," said Susan Sowerby. "I'd like to seehis face, lad. I would that! He mun come back --thathe mun."One of the things they talked of was the visit theywere to make to her cottage. They planned it all.
He had an appointment with the great Dale Mooneyham in Tucson to talk about Maxatil
He had an appointment with the great Dale Mooneyham in Tucson to talk about Maxatil.
They spent two nights in Vegas, in a hotel with real cheetahs and panthers on display in a fake game preserve outside the front entrance. Clay lost $30,000 playing blackjack and Ridley spent $25,000 on clothes in the designer boutiques packed around the hotel's atrium. The Gulfstream fled to Tucson.
Mott & Mooneyham had converted an old train station downtown into a pleasantly shabby suite of offices. The lobby was the old waiting area, a long vaulted room where two secretaries were tucked away in corners at opposite ends, as if they had to be separated to keep the peace. On closer inspection, they seemed incapable of fighting; both were in their seventies and lost in their own worlds. It was a museum of sorts, a collection of products that Dale Mooneyham had taken to court and shown to juries. In one tall cabinet was a gas water heater, and the bronze placard above the door gave the name of the case and the amount of the verdict—$4.5 million, October 3, 1988, Stone County, Arkansas. There was a damaged three-wheeler that had cost Honda $3 million in California, and a cheap rifle that had so enraged a Texas jury that it gave the plaintiff $11 million. Dozens of products—a lawn mower, a burned-out frame of a Toyota Celica, a drill press, a defective life vest, a crumpled ladder. And on the walls were the press clippings and large photos of the great man handing over checks to his injured clients. Clay, alone because Ridley was shopping, browsed from display to display, entranced with the conquests and unaware that he had been kept waiting for almost an hour.
As assistant finally fetched him and led him down a wide hall lined with spacious offices. The walls were covered with framed blowups of newspaper headlines and stories, all telling of thrilling courtroom victories. Whoever Mott was, he was certainly an insignificant player. The letterhead listed only four other lawyers.
Dale Mooneyham was seated behind his desk and only half-stood when Clay entered, unannounced and feeling very much like a vagrant. The handshake was cold and obligatory. He was not welcome there, and he was confused by his reception. Mooneyham was at least seventy, a big-framed man with a thick chest and large stomach. Blue jeans, gaudy red boots, a wrinkled western shirt, and certainly no necktie. He'd been dying his gray hair black, but was in need of another treatment because the sides were white, the top dark and slicked back with too much grease. Long wide face, the puffy eyes of a drinker.
"Nice office, really unique," Clay said, trying to thaw things a bit.
"Bought it forty years ago," Mooneyham said. "For five thousand bucks."
"Quite a collection of memorabilia out there."
"I've done all right, son. I haven't lost a jury trial in twenty-one years. I suppose I'm due for a loss, at least that's what my opponents keep saying."
Clay glanced around and tried to relax in the low, ancient leather chair. The office was at least five times as big as his, with the heads of stuffed game covering the walls and watching his every move. There were no phones ringing, no faxes clattering in the distance. There was not a computer in Mooneyham's office.
They spent two nights in Vegas, in a hotel with real cheetahs and panthers on display in a fake game preserve outside the front entrance. Clay lost $30,000 playing blackjack and Ridley spent $25,000 on clothes in the designer boutiques packed around the hotel's atrium. The Gulfstream fled to Tucson.
Mott & Mooneyham had converted an old train station downtown into a pleasantly shabby suite of offices. The lobby was the old waiting area, a long vaulted room where two secretaries were tucked away in corners at opposite ends, as if they had to be separated to keep the peace. On closer inspection, they seemed incapable of fighting; both were in their seventies and lost in their own worlds. It was a museum of sorts, a collection of products that Dale Mooneyham had taken to court and shown to juries. In one tall cabinet was a gas water heater, and the bronze placard above the door gave the name of the case and the amount of the verdict—$4.5 million, October 3, 1988, Stone County, Arkansas. There was a damaged three-wheeler that had cost Honda $3 million in California, and a cheap rifle that had so enraged a Texas jury that it gave the plaintiff $11 million. Dozens of products—a lawn mower, a burned-out frame of a Toyota Celica, a drill press, a defective life vest, a crumpled ladder. And on the walls were the press clippings and large photos of the great man handing over checks to his injured clients. Clay, alone because Ridley was shopping, browsed from display to display, entranced with the conquests and unaware that he had been kept waiting for almost an hour.
As assistant finally fetched him and led him down a wide hall lined with spacious offices. The walls were covered with framed blowups of newspaper headlines and stories, all telling of thrilling courtroom victories. Whoever Mott was, he was certainly an insignificant player. The letterhead listed only four other lawyers.
Dale Mooneyham was seated behind his desk and only half-stood when Clay entered, unannounced and feeling very much like a vagrant. The handshake was cold and obligatory. He was not welcome there, and he was confused by his reception. Mooneyham was at least seventy, a big-framed man with a thick chest and large stomach. Blue jeans, gaudy red boots, a wrinkled western shirt, and certainly no necktie. He'd been dying his gray hair black, but was in need of another treatment because the sides were white, the top dark and slicked back with too much grease. Long wide face, the puffy eyes of a drinker.
"Nice office, really unique," Clay said, trying to thaw things a bit.
"Bought it forty years ago," Mooneyham said. "For five thousand bucks."
"Quite a collection of memorabilia out there."
"I've done all right, son. I haven't lost a jury trial in twenty-one years. I suppose I'm due for a loss, at least that's what my opponents keep saying."
Clay glanced around and tried to relax in the low, ancient leather chair. The office was at least five times as big as his, with the heads of stuffed game covering the walls and watching his every move. There were no phones ringing, no faxes clattering in the distance. There was not a computer in Mooneyham's office.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Chapter 38 The Victor's Return Is there a more glorious
Chapter 38 The Victor's Return
Is there a more glorious, a more soul-stirring sight than that of a brave nation bursting from foreign bondage, casting from her the chains that bound and the sackcloth that covered her, rising victorious and free--free to worship the one God in purity and truth? Even so, when the shadow of the eclipse is over, the moon bursts forth into brightness, to shine again in beauty in the firmament of heaven.
It was thus with Jerusalem when Maccabeus and his followers went up to the holy city which they had delivered, through God's blessing on their arms. The town was in a delirium of joy, which there was now no need to conceal. The voice of thanksgiving and rejoicing was heard in every street; women wept for very happiness; and while the younger inhabitants made the walls ring with their shouts, the old men blessed God that they had been spared to see such a day. The advanced season forbade any profusion of flowers; but on every side palm branches were waving, doors and windows were decked with evergreens, and goodly boughs were strewed in the way. Every trace of heathenism was eagerly destroyed in the streets, and the very children fiercely trampled under foot the fragments of idol or altar.
Again was the song of Miriam heard, "Sing ye unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously;" and women went forth with timbrels to welcome the warriors of Judah. Though it was the month of Casleu,[1] the sun shone with cheerful radiance and warmth, as if Nature herself shared in the general rejoicing.
Up Mount Zion they come, the brave, the true, the devout; they who through much tribulation have kept the faith; they who have never bowed the knee to idol, nor forsaken the covenant of God. Maccabeus is foremost now in glory as once in danger. Press ye to see him, children of Judah! shout to welcome him, sons of the free!
A group of matrons and maidens surrounded the entrance to the Temple. Zarah and Rachel were amongst them.
"You should stand foremost, my daughter, to greet the conquerors," cried Rachel to her fair young companion, who was rather inclined to shrink back. "The Asmonean blood flows in your veins; you are kinswoman to our prince; and you have yourself nobly suffered persecution for the faith. What! tears in your eyes, maiden, on such a morning as this!"
"Oh, that my beloved mother, Hadassah, had lived to behold it!" thought Zarah. "She would have deemed this glorious day a type and forerunner of that even more blessed time when the ransomed of the Lord shall return to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away" (Isa. xxxv. 10).
Yes; as that bright, warm day in winter, soon to be succeeded by frosts and storms, was in regard to the long, glorious summer, so was the happiness of Judaea under the sway of her first Asmonean princes, compared to the glory which will be hers when her many ages of tribulation shall be ended. In the time of Maccabeus and his successors, the "discrowned queen" had arisen from the dust; but she has not yet, even at this late period, mounted her throne. More fearful judgments, more terrible desolation, were to succeed an interval of prosperity and freedom in the history of Zion. The Romans, more formidable even than the Syrians, were to give Jerusalem's sons to the sword and her Temple to the flames; and God's ancient people were to be scattered throughout all nations, to be a by-word and a hissing amongst them. But the glory is not departed for ever. We may--or our descendants must--see the Vine brought out of Egypt, budding into new beauty and life at the breath of the promised Spring.
Is there a more glorious, a more soul-stirring sight than that of a brave nation bursting from foreign bondage, casting from her the chains that bound and the sackcloth that covered her, rising victorious and free--free to worship the one God in purity and truth? Even so, when the shadow of the eclipse is over, the moon bursts forth into brightness, to shine again in beauty in the firmament of heaven.
It was thus with Jerusalem when Maccabeus and his followers went up to the holy city which they had delivered, through God's blessing on their arms. The town was in a delirium of joy, which there was now no need to conceal. The voice of thanksgiving and rejoicing was heard in every street; women wept for very happiness; and while the younger inhabitants made the walls ring with their shouts, the old men blessed God that they had been spared to see such a day. The advanced season forbade any profusion of flowers; but on every side palm branches were waving, doors and windows were decked with evergreens, and goodly boughs were strewed in the way. Every trace of heathenism was eagerly destroyed in the streets, and the very children fiercely trampled under foot the fragments of idol or altar.
Again was the song of Miriam heard, "Sing ye unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously;" and women went forth with timbrels to welcome the warriors of Judah. Though it was the month of Casleu,[1] the sun shone with cheerful radiance and warmth, as if Nature herself shared in the general rejoicing.
Up Mount Zion they come, the brave, the true, the devout; they who through much tribulation have kept the faith; they who have never bowed the knee to idol, nor forsaken the covenant of God. Maccabeus is foremost now in glory as once in danger. Press ye to see him, children of Judah! shout to welcome him, sons of the free!
A group of matrons and maidens surrounded the entrance to the Temple. Zarah and Rachel were amongst them.
"You should stand foremost, my daughter, to greet the conquerors," cried Rachel to her fair young companion, who was rather inclined to shrink back. "The Asmonean blood flows in your veins; you are kinswoman to our prince; and you have yourself nobly suffered persecution for the faith. What! tears in your eyes, maiden, on such a morning as this!"
"Oh, that my beloved mother, Hadassah, had lived to behold it!" thought Zarah. "She would have deemed this glorious day a type and forerunner of that even more blessed time when the ransomed of the Lord shall return to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away" (Isa. xxxv. 10).
Yes; as that bright, warm day in winter, soon to be succeeded by frosts and storms, was in regard to the long, glorious summer, so was the happiness of Judaea under the sway of her first Asmonean princes, compared to the glory which will be hers when her many ages of tribulation shall be ended. In the time of Maccabeus and his successors, the "discrowned queen" had arisen from the dust; but she has not yet, even at this late period, mounted her throne. More fearful judgments, more terrible desolation, were to succeed an interval of prosperity and freedom in the history of Zion. The Romans, more formidable even than the Syrians, were to give Jerusalem's sons to the sword and her Temple to the flames; and God's ancient people were to be scattered throughout all nations, to be a by-word and a hissing amongst them. But the glory is not departed for ever. We may--or our descendants must--see the Vine brought out of Egypt, budding into new beauty and life at the breath of the promised Spring.
He again telephoned the hospital
He again telephoned the hospital. To his surprise, he found himself speaking with Gruner. He had asked for the private nurse. One could get through? Elya must be molested by calls. With the mortal bulge in his head he was still in the game, did business.
"How are you?"
"How are you, Uncle?"
The actual meaning of this might have been, "Where are you?"
"How are you feeling?"
"There's been no change. I thought we would be seeing each other."
"I’m coming in. I'm sorry. When there's something important there is always some delay. It never fails, Elya."
"When you left yesterday, it was like unfinished business between us. We got sidetracked by Angela and such hopeless questions. There was something I was meaning to ask. About Cracow. The old days. And by the way, I bragged about you to a Polish doctor here. He wanted very much to see the Polish articles you sent from the Six-Day War. Do you have copies?"
"Certainly, at home. I have plenty."
"Aren't you at home now?"
"Actually I'm not."
"I wonder if you'd mind bringing the clippings. Would you mind stopping off?"
"Of course not. But I don't want to lose the time."
"I may have to go down for tests. EIya's voice was filled with unidentifiable tones. Sammler's interpretive skill was insufficient. He was uneasy. "Why shouldn't there be time?" Elya said. There's time enough for everything." This had an odd ring, and the accents were strange.
"Yes?"
"Of course, yes. It was good you called. A while ago I tried to phone you. There was no answer. You went out early."
Uneasiness somewhat interfered with Sammler's breathing. Long and thin, he held the telephone, concentrating, aware of the anxious Intensity gathered in his face. He was silent. Elya said, "Angela is on her way over."
"I am coming too."
"Yes. Elya lingered somewhat on the shortest words. "Well, Uncle?"
"Good-by, for now."
"Good-by, Uncle Sammler."
Rapping at the pane, Sammler tried to get Shula’s attention . Among the wagging flowers she was conspicuously white. His Primavera. On her head she wore a dark-red scarf. Covering up, afflicted always by the meagerness of her hair. It was perhaps the natural abundance, growth power, exuberance that she admired in flowers. Seeing her among the blond openmouthed daffodils, which were being poured back and forth by the wind, her father believed that she was in love. From the hang of her shoulders, the turn of the orange lips, he saw that she was already prepared to accept unrequited longing. Dr. Lal was not for her; she would never clasp his head or hold his beard between her breasts. You could seldom get people to long for what was possible—that was the cruelty of it. He opened the French window.
"Where is the timetable?" he said.
"I can't find it. The Gruners don't use the train. Anyway, you'll get to New York quicker with Emil. He's going to the hospital."
"I don't suppose he'd wait at the airport for Wallace. Not today."
"Why did you say that about Lal, that he was just a bushy black little fellow?"
"I hope you're not personally interested in him."
"Why not?"
"How are you?"
"How are you, Uncle?"
The actual meaning of this might have been, "Where are you?"
"How are you feeling?"
"There's been no change. I thought we would be seeing each other."
"I’m coming in. I'm sorry. When there's something important there is always some delay. It never fails, Elya."
"When you left yesterday, it was like unfinished business between us. We got sidetracked by Angela and such hopeless questions. There was something I was meaning to ask. About Cracow. The old days. And by the way, I bragged about you to a Polish doctor here. He wanted very much to see the Polish articles you sent from the Six-Day War. Do you have copies?"
"Certainly, at home. I have plenty."
"Aren't you at home now?"
"Actually I'm not."
"I wonder if you'd mind bringing the clippings. Would you mind stopping off?"
"Of course not. But I don't want to lose the time."
"I may have to go down for tests. EIya's voice was filled with unidentifiable tones. Sammler's interpretive skill was insufficient. He was uneasy. "Why shouldn't there be time?" Elya said. There's time enough for everything." This had an odd ring, and the accents were strange.
"Yes?"
"Of course, yes. It was good you called. A while ago I tried to phone you. There was no answer. You went out early."
Uneasiness somewhat interfered with Sammler's breathing. Long and thin, he held the telephone, concentrating, aware of the anxious Intensity gathered in his face. He was silent. Elya said, "Angela is on her way over."
"I am coming too."
"Yes. Elya lingered somewhat on the shortest words. "Well, Uncle?"
"Good-by, for now."
"Good-by, Uncle Sammler."
Rapping at the pane, Sammler tried to get Shula’s attention . Among the wagging flowers she was conspicuously white. His Primavera. On her head she wore a dark-red scarf. Covering up, afflicted always by the meagerness of her hair. It was perhaps the natural abundance, growth power, exuberance that she admired in flowers. Seeing her among the blond openmouthed daffodils, which were being poured back and forth by the wind, her father believed that she was in love. From the hang of her shoulders, the turn of the orange lips, he saw that she was already prepared to accept unrequited longing. Dr. Lal was not for her; she would never clasp his head or hold his beard between her breasts. You could seldom get people to long for what was possible—that was the cruelty of it. He opened the French window.
"Where is the timetable?" he said.
"I can't find it. The Gruners don't use the train. Anyway, you'll get to New York quicker with Emil. He's going to the hospital."
"I don't suppose he'd wait at the airport for Wallace. Not today."
"Why did you say that about Lal, that he was just a bushy black little fellow?"
"I hope you're not personally interested in him."
"Why not?"
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Villains
"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! -- tear up the planks! -- here, here! -- it is the beating of his hideous heart!"
THE END
The Pit And The Pendulum
Impia tortorum longas hic turba furores Sanguinis innocui non satiata, aluit.
Sospite nunc patria, fracto nunc funeris antro, Mors ubi dira fuit vita salusque patent.
[Quatrain composed for the gates of a market to be erected upon the site of the Jacobin Club House in Paris.]
I WAS sick, sick unto death, with that long agony, and when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me. The sentence, the dread sentence of death, was the last of distinct accentuation which reached my ears. After that, the sound of the inquisitorial voices seemed merged in one dreamy indeterminate hum. It conveyed to my soul the idea of REVOLUTION, perhaps from its association in fancy with the burr of a mill-wheel. This only for a brief period, for presently I heard no more. Yet, for a while, I saw, but with how terrible an exaggeration! I saw the lips of the black-robed judges. They appeared to me white -- whiter than the sheet upon which I trace these words -- and thin even to grotesqueness; thin with the intensity of their expression of firmness, of immovable resolution, of stern contempt of human torture. I saw that the decrees of what to me was fate were still issuing from those lips. I saw them writhe with a deadly locution. I saw them fashion the syllables of my name, and I shuddered, because no sound succeeded. I saw, too, for a few moments of delirious horror, the soft and nearly imperceptible waving of the sable draperies which enwrapped the walls of the apartment; and then my vision fell upon the seven tall candles upon the table. At first they wore the aspect of charity, and seemed white slender angels who would save me: but then all at once there came a most deadly nausea over my spirit, and I felt every fibre in my frame thrill, as if I had touched the wire of a galvanic battery, while the angel forms became meaningless spectres, with heads of flame, and I saw that from them there would be no help. And then there stole into my fancy, like a rich musical note, the thought of what sweet rest there must be in the grave. The thought came gently and stealthily, and it seemed long before it attained full appreciation; but just as my spirit came at length properly to feel and entertain it, the figures of the judges vanished, as if magically, from before
me; the tall candles sank into nothingness; their flames went out utterly; the blackness of darkness superened; all sensations appeared swallowed up in a mad rushing descent as of the soul into Hades. Then silence, and stillness, and night were the universe.
I had swooned; but still will not say that all of consciousness was lost. What of it there remained I will not attempt to define, or even to describe; yet all was not lost. In the deepest slumber -- no! In delirium -- no! In a swoon -- no! In death -- no! Even in the grave all was not lost. Else there is no immortality for man. Arousing from the most profound of slumbers, we break the gossamer web of some dream. Yet in a second afterwards (so frail may that web have been) we remember not that we have dreamed. In the return to life from the swoon there are two stages; first, that of the sense of mental or spiritual; secondly, that of the sense of physical existence. It seems probable that if, upon reaching the second stage, we could recall the impressions of the first, we should find these impressions eloquent in memories of the gulf beyond. And that gulf is, what? How at least shall we distinguish its shadows from those of the tomb? But if the impressions of what I have termed the first stage are not at will recalled, yet, after long interval, do they not come unbidden, while we marvel whence they come? He who has never swooned is not he who finds strange palaces and wildly familiar faces in coals that glow; is not he who beholds floating in mid-air the sad visions that the many may not view; is not he who ponders over the perfume of some novel flower; is not he whose brain grows bewildered with the meaning of some musical cadence which has never before arrested his attention.
THE END
The Pit And The Pendulum
Impia tortorum longas hic turba furores Sanguinis innocui non satiata, aluit.
Sospite nunc patria, fracto nunc funeris antro, Mors ubi dira fuit vita salusque patent.
[Quatrain composed for the gates of a market to be erected upon the site of the Jacobin Club House in Paris.]
I WAS sick, sick unto death, with that long agony, and when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me. The sentence, the dread sentence of death, was the last of distinct accentuation which reached my ears. After that, the sound of the inquisitorial voices seemed merged in one dreamy indeterminate hum. It conveyed to my soul the idea of REVOLUTION, perhaps from its association in fancy with the burr of a mill-wheel. This only for a brief period, for presently I heard no more. Yet, for a while, I saw, but with how terrible an exaggeration! I saw the lips of the black-robed judges. They appeared to me white -- whiter than the sheet upon which I trace these words -- and thin even to grotesqueness; thin with the intensity of their expression of firmness, of immovable resolution, of stern contempt of human torture. I saw that the decrees of what to me was fate were still issuing from those lips. I saw them writhe with a deadly locution. I saw them fashion the syllables of my name, and I shuddered, because no sound succeeded. I saw, too, for a few moments of delirious horror, the soft and nearly imperceptible waving of the sable draperies which enwrapped the walls of the apartment; and then my vision fell upon the seven tall candles upon the table. At first they wore the aspect of charity, and seemed white slender angels who would save me: but then all at once there came a most deadly nausea over my spirit, and I felt every fibre in my frame thrill, as if I had touched the wire of a galvanic battery, while the angel forms became meaningless spectres, with heads of flame, and I saw that from them there would be no help. And then there stole into my fancy, like a rich musical note, the thought of what sweet rest there must be in the grave. The thought came gently and stealthily, and it seemed long before it attained full appreciation; but just as my spirit came at length properly to feel and entertain it, the figures of the judges vanished, as if magically, from before
me; the tall candles sank into nothingness; their flames went out utterly; the blackness of darkness superened; all sensations appeared swallowed up in a mad rushing descent as of the soul into Hades. Then silence, and stillness, and night were the universe.
I had swooned; but still will not say that all of consciousness was lost. What of it there remained I will not attempt to define, or even to describe; yet all was not lost. In the deepest slumber -- no! In delirium -- no! In a swoon -- no! In death -- no! Even in the grave all was not lost. Else there is no immortality for man. Arousing from the most profound of slumbers, we break the gossamer web of some dream. Yet in a second afterwards (so frail may that web have been) we remember not that we have dreamed. In the return to life from the swoon there are two stages; first, that of the sense of mental or spiritual; secondly, that of the sense of physical existence. It seems probable that if, upon reaching the second stage, we could recall the impressions of the first, we should find these impressions eloquent in memories of the gulf beyond. And that gulf is, what? How at least shall we distinguish its shadows from those of the tomb? But if the impressions of what I have termed the first stage are not at will recalled, yet, after long interval, do they not come unbidden, while we marvel whence they come? He who has never swooned is not he who finds strange palaces and wildly familiar faces in coals that glow; is not he who beholds floating in mid-air the sad visions that the many may not view; is not he who ponders over the perfume of some novel flower; is not he whose brain grows bewildered with the meaning of some musical cadence which has never before arrested his attention.
He'll turn up all right
He'll turn up all right, and come stalking in some day with agold-mine in one pocket and a prairie in the other, as jolly as agrig,' said Ted, who was in no haste to deliver Octoo to her rightfulowner.
'Perhaps he has gone to Montana and given up the farm plan. He seemedto like Indians best, I thought'; and Rob went to help his motherwith her pile of letters and his cheerful suggestions.
'I hope so, it would suit him best. But I am sure he would have toldus his change of plan and sent for some money to work with. No,ladies rolex datejusts, Ifeel in my prophetic bones that something is wrong,' said Mrs Jo,looking as solemn as Fate in a breakfast-cap.
'Then we shall hear; ill news always travels fast. Don't borrowtrouble, Jo,cheap jeremy scott adidas, but hear how well Nat is getting on. I'd no idea the boywould care for anything but music. My good friend Baumgarten haslaunched him well, and it will do him good if he lose not his head. Agood lad, but new to the world, and Leipzig is full of snares for theunwary. Gott be with him!'
The Professor read Nat's enthusiastic account of certain literary andmusical parties he had been to, the splendours of the opera, thekindness of his new friends, the delight of studying under such amaster as Bergmann, his hopes of rapid gain, and his great gratitudeto those who had opened this enchanted world to him.
'That, now, is satisfactory and comfortable. I felt that Nat hadunsuspected power in him before he went away; he was so manly andfull of excellent plans,' said Mrs Jo, in a satisfied tone.
'We shall see. He will doubtless get his lesson and be the better forit. That comes to us all in our young days,fake uggs boots. I hope it will not be toohard for our good Jungling,' answered the Professor, with a wisesmile, remembering his own student life in Germany.
He was right; and Nat was already getting his lesson in life with arapidity which would have astonished his friends at home. Themanliness over which Mrs Jo rejoiced was developing in unexpectedways, and quiet Nat had plunged into the more harmless dissipationsof the gay city with all the ardour of an inexperienced youth takinghis first sip of pleasure,ladies rolex presidents. The entire freedom and sense ofindependence was delicious, for many benefits began to burden him,and he longed to stand on his own legs and make his own way. No oneknew his past here; and with a well-stocked wardrobe, a handsome sumat his banker's, and the best teacher in Leipzig, he made his debutas a musical young gentleman, presented by the much-respectedProfessor Bhaer and the wealthy Mr Laurence, who had many friendsglad to throw open their houses to his protege. Thanks to theseintroductions, his fluent German, modest manners, and undeniabletalent, the stranger was cordially welcomed, and launched at onceinto a circle which many an ambitious young man strove in vain toenter.
All this rather turned Nat's head; and as he sat in the brilliantopera-house, chatted among the ladies at some select coffee-party, orwhisked an eminent professor's amiable daughter down the room, tryingto imagine she was Daisy, he often asked himself if this gay fellowcould be the poor homeless little Street musician who once stoodwaiting in the rain at the gates of Plumfield. His heart was true,his impulses good, and his ambitions high; but the weak side of hisnature came uppermost here; vanity led him astray, pleasureintoxicated him, and for a time he forgot everything but the delightsof this new and charming life. Without meaning to deceive, he allowedpeople to imagine him a youth of good family and prospects; heboasted a little of Mr Laurie's wealth and influence, of ProfessorBhaer's eminence, and the flourishing college at which he himself hadbeen educated. Mrs Jo was introduced to the sentimental Frauleins whoread her books, and the charms and virtues of his own dear Madchenconfided to sympathetic mammas. All these boyish boastings andinnocent vanities were duly circulated among the gossips, and hisimportance much increased thereby, to his surprise and gratification,as well as some shame.
she began
"Dear," she began, "I have become greatly interested in a young man, and I thought it only right that you should know about it before it goes any further."
"Ah, yes, certainly." The gentleman looked rather abstracted. "And the young fellow--is he interested too?"
"Oh,ladies rolex presidents, interested is a feeble word. He is desperately in love."
"Then you haven't taken me into your confidence a moment too soon. Has he declared his passion?"
"No; that's just the trouble. He goes mooning round and mooning round, and never saying a word. And I'm sure," added the lady in an aggrieved tone, "I've given him every opportunity,rolex gmt. Yesterday after infinite pains I brought him and Helene together in the arbour, and made some pretext for escaping into the house. What did that--infant--do but follow me out?"
"Quite natural, if his feelings towards you are such as you have described."
"Towards me! You don't imagine I am talking of myself."
"That is what your words would lead one to believe."
"Oh, dear husband, you know perfectly well what I mean. I do think that when a man sets out to be stupid he succeeds a thousand times better than a woman. Surely you have noticed how badly Edward Macleod and Helene DeBerczy are behaving."
"Really, my dear, I have not. I supposed they were behaving remarkably well."
"In one sense--yes,jeremy scott adidas wings. They are as 'polite as peas.' But why should they be polite?"
"Well, it is a custom of the country, I suppose. It's hard to account for all the strange things one sees in a foreign land."
"My object is not so much to account for it as to put an end to it. It's ridiculous for two people, who have known each other from babyhood, to be standing aloof, and looking as if the honour of each other's acquaintance was the last thing to be desired. And now Mademoiselle Helene wants to go home. She does not complain or repine or importune, but every day, and several times a day, she presents the idea to her mother, with varying degrees of emphasis, and in the tone of one who believes that continual dropping will wear away the stone. Madame DeBerczy as yet remains sweetly obdurate. She is enjoying her visit, and there seems to be no special good reason why it should be terminated. I particularly wish them to stay, as I want if possible to bring about a better understanding between Helene and Edward. We must not let them escape."
In pursuance of the policy suggested by his wife, Sir Peregrine took occasion to have a special kindly little chat with Helene, with a view to overcome her reluctance to remain. Naturally of a reserved disposition his cordial hospitality found expression in looks and actions rather than words,ugg boots uk, and these took a greater value from the infrequency with which they were uttered.
"What is this I hear about your wanting to leave us?" he said, addressing Helene, who, with her mother, was seated on his left at dinner that evening. "Have you really grown very tired of us all?"
The young lady laid down her knife and fork, and the unconscious movement, combined with her unusual pallor, gave one the impression that she was indeed very tired.
Trenor and Miss Bart prolonged their drive till long after sunset
Trenor and Miss Bart prolonged their drive till long after sunset; and before it was over he had tried, with some show of success,jeremy scott wings, to prove to her that,ladies rolex presidents, if she would only trust him, he could make a handsome sum of money for her without endangering the small amount she possessed. She was too genuinely ignorant of the manipulations of the stock-market to understand his technical explanations, or even perhaps to perceive that certain points in them were slurred; the haziness enveloping the transaction served as a veil for her embarrassment, and through the general blur her hopes dilated like lamps in a fog. She understood only that her modest investments were to be mysteriously multiplied without risk to herself; and the assurance that this miracle would take place within a short time, that there would be no tedious interval for suspense and reaction, relieved her of her lingering scruples.
Again she felt the lightening of her load, and with it the release of repressed activities. Her immediate worries conjured, it was easy to resolve that she would never again find herself in such straits, and as the need of economy and self-denial receded from her foreground she felt herself ready to meet any other demand which life might make. Even the immediate one of letting Trenor, as they drove homeward,rolex submariner replica, lean a little nearer and rest his hand reassuringly on hers, cost her only a momentary shiver of reluctance. It was part of the game to make him feel that her appeal had been an uncalculated impulse, provoked by the liking he inspired; and the renewed sense of power in handling men, while it consoled her wounded vanity, helped also to obscure the thought of the claim at which his manner hinted. He was a coarse dull man who, under all his show of authority, was a mere supernumerary in the costly show for which his money paid: surely, to a clever girl, it would be easy to hold him by his vanity, and so keep the obligation on his side.
Part 1 Chapter 8
The first thousand dollar cheque which Lily received with a blotted scrawl from Gus Trenor strengthened her self-confidence in the exact degree to which it effaced her debts.
The transaction had justified itself by its results: she saw now how absurd it would have been to let any primitive scruple deprive her of this easy means of appeasing her creditors. Lily felt really virtuous as she dispensed the sum in sops to her tradesmen, and the fact that a fresh order accompanied each payment did not lessen her sense of disinterestedness. How many women, in her place, would have given the orders without making the payment!
She had found it reassuringly easy to keep Trenor in a good humour. To listen to his stories, to receive his confidences and laugh at his jokes, seemed for the moment all that was required of her, and the complacency with which her hostess regarded these attentions freed them of the least hint of ambiguity. Mrs. Trenor evidently assumed that Lily's growing intimacy with her husband was simply an indirect way of returning her own kindness.
"I'm so glad you and Gus have become such good friends," she said approvingly. "It's too delightful of you to be so nice to him, and put up with all his tiresome stories. I know what they are, because I had to listen to them when we were engaged--I'm sure he is telling the same ones still. And now I shan't always have to be asking Carry Fisher here to keep him in a good-humour. She's a perfect vulture,Home Page, you know; and she hasn't the least moral sense. She is always getting Gus to speculate for her, and I'm sure she never pays when she loses."
Again she felt the lightening of her load, and with it the release of repressed activities. Her immediate worries conjured, it was easy to resolve that she would never again find herself in such straits, and as the need of economy and self-denial receded from her foreground she felt herself ready to meet any other demand which life might make. Even the immediate one of letting Trenor, as they drove homeward,rolex submariner replica, lean a little nearer and rest his hand reassuringly on hers, cost her only a momentary shiver of reluctance. It was part of the game to make him feel that her appeal had been an uncalculated impulse, provoked by the liking he inspired; and the renewed sense of power in handling men, while it consoled her wounded vanity, helped also to obscure the thought of the claim at which his manner hinted. He was a coarse dull man who, under all his show of authority, was a mere supernumerary in the costly show for which his money paid: surely, to a clever girl, it would be easy to hold him by his vanity, and so keep the obligation on his side.
Part 1 Chapter 8
The first thousand dollar cheque which Lily received with a blotted scrawl from Gus Trenor strengthened her self-confidence in the exact degree to which it effaced her debts.
The transaction had justified itself by its results: she saw now how absurd it would have been to let any primitive scruple deprive her of this easy means of appeasing her creditors. Lily felt really virtuous as she dispensed the sum in sops to her tradesmen, and the fact that a fresh order accompanied each payment did not lessen her sense of disinterestedness. How many women, in her place, would have given the orders without making the payment!
She had found it reassuringly easy to keep Trenor in a good humour. To listen to his stories, to receive his confidences and laugh at his jokes, seemed for the moment all that was required of her, and the complacency with which her hostess regarded these attentions freed them of the least hint of ambiguity. Mrs. Trenor evidently assumed that Lily's growing intimacy with her husband was simply an indirect way of returning her own kindness.
"I'm so glad you and Gus have become such good friends," she said approvingly. "It's too delightful of you to be so nice to him, and put up with all his tiresome stories. I know what they are, because I had to listen to them when we were engaged--I'm sure he is telling the same ones still. And now I shan't always have to be asking Carry Fisher here to keep him in a good-humour. She's a perfect vulture,Home Page, you know; and she hasn't the least moral sense. She is always getting Gus to speculate for her, and I'm sure she never pays when she loses."
I walk a few steps and see high school graduation
I walk a few steps and see high school graduation, Stuart proud in a military school uniform. In the center of the wall, there is an empty space without a frame, a rectangle of wallpaper just the slightest shade darker. A picture has been removed.
“Dad, that is enough about—” I hear Stuart say, his voice strained. But just as quickly, there is silence.
“Dinner is served,” I hear a maid announce and I weave my way back into the living room. We all trail into the dining room to a long, dark table. The Phelans are seated on one side, the Whitworths on the other. I am diagonal from Stuart, placed as far as possible from him. Around the room, the wainscoting panels have been painted to depict scenes of pre-Civil War times, happy Negroes picking cotton, horses pulling wagons, white-bearded statesmen on the steps of our capitol. We wait while the Senator lingers in the living room. “I’ll be right there, y’all go ahead and start.” I hear the clink of ice,cheap jeremy scott adidas wings, the clop of the bottle being set down two more times before he finally comes in and sits at the head of the table.
Waldorf salads are served. Stuart looks over at me and smiles every few minutes. Senator Whitworth leans over to Daddy and says, “I came from nothing, you know. Jefferson County, Mississippi. My daddy dried peanuts for eleven cents a pound.”
Daddy shakes his head. “Doesn’t get much poorer than Jefferson County.”
I watch as Mother cuts off the tiniest bite of apple. She hesitates, chews it for the longest time, winces as it goes down. She wouldn’t allow me to tell Stuart’s parents about her stomach problem. Instead, Mother ravishes Missus Whitworth with degustationary compliments. Mother views this supper as an important move in the game called “Can My Daughter Catch Your Son?”
“The young people so enjoy each other’s company.” Mother smiles. “Why, Stuart comes out to see us at the house nearly twice a week.”
“Is that right?” says Missus Whitworth.
“We’d be delighted if you and the Senator could drive out to the plantation for supper sometime, take a walk around the orchard?”
I look at Mother. Plantation is an outdated term she likes to use to gloss up the farm, while the “orchard” is a barren apple tree. A pear tree with a worm problem.
But Missus Whitworth has stiffened around the mouth. “Twice a week,jeremy scott adidas 2012? Stuart, I had no idea you came to town that often,cheap jeremy scott adidas.”
Stuart’s fork stops in midair. He casts a sheepish look at his mother.
“Y’all are so young.” Missus Whitworth smiles. “Enjoy yourselves. There’s no need to get serious so quickly.”
The Senator leans his elbows on the table. “From a woman who practically proposed to the other one herself, she was in such a hurry.”
“Dad,” Stuart says through gritted teeth, banging his fork against his plate.
The table is silent, except for Mother’s thorough,Link, methodical chewing to try to turn solid food into paste. I touch the scratch, still pink along my arm.
The maid lays pressed chicken on our plates, tops it with a perky dollop of mayonnaisey dressing, and we all smile, glad for the mood breaker. As we eat, Daddy and the Senator talk about cotton prices, boll weevils. I can still see the anger on Stuart’s face from when the Senator mentioned Patricia. I glance at him every few seconds, but the anger doesn’t seem to be fading. I wonder if that’s what they’d argued about earlier, when I was in the hall.
“Dad, that is enough about—” I hear Stuart say, his voice strained. But just as quickly, there is silence.
“Dinner is served,” I hear a maid announce and I weave my way back into the living room. We all trail into the dining room to a long, dark table. The Phelans are seated on one side, the Whitworths on the other. I am diagonal from Stuart, placed as far as possible from him. Around the room, the wainscoting panels have been painted to depict scenes of pre-Civil War times, happy Negroes picking cotton, horses pulling wagons, white-bearded statesmen on the steps of our capitol. We wait while the Senator lingers in the living room. “I’ll be right there, y’all go ahead and start.” I hear the clink of ice,cheap jeremy scott adidas wings, the clop of the bottle being set down two more times before he finally comes in and sits at the head of the table.
Waldorf salads are served. Stuart looks over at me and smiles every few minutes. Senator Whitworth leans over to Daddy and says, “I came from nothing, you know. Jefferson County, Mississippi. My daddy dried peanuts for eleven cents a pound.”
Daddy shakes his head. “Doesn’t get much poorer than Jefferson County.”
I watch as Mother cuts off the tiniest bite of apple. She hesitates, chews it for the longest time, winces as it goes down. She wouldn’t allow me to tell Stuart’s parents about her stomach problem. Instead, Mother ravishes Missus Whitworth with degustationary compliments. Mother views this supper as an important move in the game called “Can My Daughter Catch Your Son?”
“The young people so enjoy each other’s company.” Mother smiles. “Why, Stuart comes out to see us at the house nearly twice a week.”
“Is that right?” says Missus Whitworth.
“We’d be delighted if you and the Senator could drive out to the plantation for supper sometime, take a walk around the orchard?”
I look at Mother. Plantation is an outdated term she likes to use to gloss up the farm, while the “orchard” is a barren apple tree. A pear tree with a worm problem.
But Missus Whitworth has stiffened around the mouth. “Twice a week,jeremy scott adidas 2012? Stuart, I had no idea you came to town that often,cheap jeremy scott adidas.”
Stuart’s fork stops in midair. He casts a sheepish look at his mother.
“Y’all are so young.” Missus Whitworth smiles. “Enjoy yourselves. There’s no need to get serious so quickly.”
The Senator leans his elbows on the table. “From a woman who practically proposed to the other one herself, she was in such a hurry.”
“Dad,” Stuart says through gritted teeth, banging his fork against his plate.
The table is silent, except for Mother’s thorough,Link, methodical chewing to try to turn solid food into paste. I touch the scratch, still pink along my arm.
The maid lays pressed chicken on our plates, tops it with a perky dollop of mayonnaisey dressing, and we all smile, glad for the mood breaker. As we eat, Daddy and the Senator talk about cotton prices, boll weevils. I can still see the anger on Stuart’s face from when the Senator mentioned Patricia. I glance at him every few seconds, but the anger doesn’t seem to be fading. I wonder if that’s what they’d argued about earlier, when I was in the hall.
Monday, November 19, 2012
How is the Duck
"How is the Duck?" Peter blurts. "She told me about it. Luise."
Armand almost blurts back, "The Duck is excellent," but wagering it is a religious question, replies, "I see the Duck seldom of late. Perhaps, by now, she has taken in her charge so many other Souls as troubl'd as my own, that there remains less time for me,— perhaps, as she has con-tinu'd upon her own way, I have even pass'd altogether from her Care."
"But, Time, surely, by now, no longer matters to her?" Peter now curi?ous, "- - no longer passes the same way, I mean."
The Frenchman shrugs. "Yet we few, fortunate Objects of her Visits, remain ever tight in Time's Embrace," sighing, as if for the Duck alone....
"She, then,.. .enters and leaves the Stream of Time as she likes?" Luise, tossing her eyes vigorously skyward, slides away to attend to an Oven-Load of loaves and biscuits. The lads, whose flow of saliva has begun to escape the best efforts of their lower lips to contain it, proceed to eat their way from one end of a long trestle table to the other, thro' Hams and Fowl, Custards and Tarts, fried Noodles and Opossum Alamodes, all the while deep in discourse upon the deepest Topicks there are.
The instruments arrive on the seventh of July at Cumberland, throng'd and a-blare with skin-wearers and cloth-wearers ever mingling, Indian and White, French and Spanish. Ladies pack Pistols and Dirks, whilst
coarser Sisters prove to be saintlier than expected. Poison'd by strong
Drink,fake uggs for sale, Pioneers go bouncing Cheese-and-Skittle-wise from one Pedes?trian to another, Racoon-Tails askew, daring Hooves and Wheel-Rims, and the impatience of a Street-ful of Business-Folk who must mind their Watch-Time, often to the Minute, all day long. Riflemen sit out on the Porches of Taverns and jingle their Vent-Picks in time to the musick of African Slaves, who play upon Banjos and Drums here, far into the Night. The Place smells of Heart-wood, and Animals, and Smoke. Great Waggons with white Canopies, styl'd "Conestogas," form up at the west?ern edge of town,jeremy scott adidas 2012, an uncommon Stir, passionate shouting, Herds filling the Street, as one by one each Machine is brought 'round, and its Team of Horses hitch'd on,— proceeding then to the end of a waiting line, where all stand, be it snow or summer, patient as cows at milking time.
"Thing about out here," cackles Thomas Cresap, when they go to pay him a visit,adidas jeremy scott, "is it's perfect. It's 'at damn U-topia's what it is, and nobody'll own to it. No King, no Governor, nought but the Sheriff, whose Delight is to leave you alone, for as long as you do not actively seek his attention, which he calls 'fuckin' with him.' As long as you don't 'fuck' with him, he don't 'fuck' with you,fake uggs boots! Somethin', hah? About as intrusive as Authority ought to git, in m' own humble Opinion, o' course. And there's to be sure the usual rotten apple among Sheriffs, that, 'scuse me Gents, Got-damn'd Lancaster Sheriff... Old Smith?... We had pitch'd musket battles with him and his Army of Pennite Refuse. 'Course back there you probably only heard their side of it."
"Mr. Sam Smith entertain'd us with an account, at Pechway, two, per?haps three years ago."
Armand almost blurts back, "The Duck is excellent," but wagering it is a religious question, replies, "I see the Duck seldom of late. Perhaps, by now, she has taken in her charge so many other Souls as troubl'd as my own, that there remains less time for me,— perhaps, as she has con-tinu'd upon her own way, I have even pass'd altogether from her Care."
"But, Time, surely, by now, no longer matters to her?" Peter now curi?ous, "- - no longer passes the same way, I mean."
The Frenchman shrugs. "Yet we few, fortunate Objects of her Visits, remain ever tight in Time's Embrace," sighing, as if for the Duck alone....
"She, then,.. .enters and leaves the Stream of Time as she likes?" Luise, tossing her eyes vigorously skyward, slides away to attend to an Oven-Load of loaves and biscuits. The lads, whose flow of saliva has begun to escape the best efforts of their lower lips to contain it, proceed to eat their way from one end of a long trestle table to the other, thro' Hams and Fowl, Custards and Tarts, fried Noodles and Opossum Alamodes, all the while deep in discourse upon the deepest Topicks there are.
The instruments arrive on the seventh of July at Cumberland, throng'd and a-blare with skin-wearers and cloth-wearers ever mingling, Indian and White, French and Spanish. Ladies pack Pistols and Dirks, whilst
coarser Sisters prove to be saintlier than expected. Poison'd by strong
Drink,fake uggs for sale, Pioneers go bouncing Cheese-and-Skittle-wise from one Pedes?trian to another, Racoon-Tails askew, daring Hooves and Wheel-Rims, and the impatience of a Street-ful of Business-Folk who must mind their Watch-Time, often to the Minute, all day long. Riflemen sit out on the Porches of Taverns and jingle their Vent-Picks in time to the musick of African Slaves, who play upon Banjos and Drums here, far into the Night. The Place smells of Heart-wood, and Animals, and Smoke. Great Waggons with white Canopies, styl'd "Conestogas," form up at the west?ern edge of town,jeremy scott adidas 2012, an uncommon Stir, passionate shouting, Herds filling the Street, as one by one each Machine is brought 'round, and its Team of Horses hitch'd on,— proceeding then to the end of a waiting line, where all stand, be it snow or summer, patient as cows at milking time.
"Thing about out here," cackles Thomas Cresap, when they go to pay him a visit,adidas jeremy scott, "is it's perfect. It's 'at damn U-topia's what it is, and nobody'll own to it. No King, no Governor, nought but the Sheriff, whose Delight is to leave you alone, for as long as you do not actively seek his attention, which he calls 'fuckin' with him.' As long as you don't 'fuck' with him, he don't 'fuck' with you,fake uggs boots! Somethin', hah? About as intrusive as Authority ought to git, in m' own humble Opinion, o' course. And there's to be sure the usual rotten apple among Sheriffs, that, 'scuse me Gents, Got-damn'd Lancaster Sheriff... Old Smith?... We had pitch'd musket battles with him and his Army of Pennite Refuse. 'Course back there you probably only heard their side of it."
"Mr. Sam Smith entertain'd us with an account, at Pechway, two, per?haps three years ago."
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
one of your barns was struck by lightning and we sat up all night
"Yes, one of your barns was struck by lightning and we sat up all night,fake uggs usa." "Yee, yee.(1) I remember well! Your mother was a beautiful spirit. I could n't forget her."
(1)"Yea" is always thus pronounced by the Shakers.
"And we came once again, mother and I, and spent the afternoon with you, and went strawberrying in the pasture,adidas jeremy scott."
"Yee, yee, so we did; I hope your mother continues in health."
"She died the very next year," Susanna answered in a trembling voice, for the time of explanation was near at hand and her heart failed her.
"Won't you come into the sittingroom and rest a while? You must be tired walking from the deepot."
"No, thank you, not just yet. I'll step into the front entry a minute,jeremy scott adidas wings.--Sue, run and sit in that rocking-chair on the porch and watch the cows going into the big barn.--Do you remember, Eldress Abby, the second time I came, how you sat me down in the kitchen with a bowl of wild strawberries to hull for supper? They were very small and ripe; I did my best, for I never meant to be careless, but the bowl slipped and fell, my legs were too short to reach the floor, and I could n't make a lap, so in trying to pick up the berries I spilled juice on nay dress, and on the white apron you had tied on for me. Then my fingers were stained and wet and the hulls kept falling in with the soft berries, and when you came in and saw me you held up your hands and said, 'Dear, dear! you _have_ made a mess of your work,adidas jeremy scott wings!' Oh, Eldress Abby, they've come back to me all day, those words. I've tried hard to be good, but somehow I've made just such a mess of my life as I made of hulling the berries. The bowl is broken, I have n't much fruit to show, and I am all stained and draggled. I should n't have come to Albion on the five o'clock train--that was an accident; I meant to come at noon, when you could turn me away if you wanted to."
"Nay, that is not the Shaker habit," remonstrated Abby. "You and the child can sleep in one of the spare chambers at the Office Building and be welcome."
"But I want much more than that," said Susanna, tearfully. "I want to come and live here, where there is no marrying nor giving in marriage. I am so tired with my disappointments and discouragements and failures that it is no use to try any longer. I am Mrs. Hathaway, and Sue is my child, but I have left my husband for good and all, and I only want to spend the rest of my days here in peace and bring up Sue to a more tranquil life than I have ever had. I have a little money, so that I shall not be a burden to you, and I will work from morning to night at any task you set me."
"I will talk to the Family," said Eldress Abby gravely; "but there are a good many things to settle before we can say yee to all you ask."
"Let me confess everything freely and fully," pleaded Susanna, "and if you think I'm to blame, I will go away at once."
"Nay, this is no time for that. It is our duty to receive all and try all; then if you should be gathered in, you would unburden your heart to God through the Sister appointed to receive your confession."
(1)"Yea" is always thus pronounced by the Shakers.
"And we came once again, mother and I, and spent the afternoon with you, and went strawberrying in the pasture,adidas jeremy scott."
"Yee, yee, so we did; I hope your mother continues in health."
"She died the very next year," Susanna answered in a trembling voice, for the time of explanation was near at hand and her heart failed her.
"Won't you come into the sittingroom and rest a while? You must be tired walking from the deepot."
"No, thank you, not just yet. I'll step into the front entry a minute,jeremy scott adidas wings.--Sue, run and sit in that rocking-chair on the porch and watch the cows going into the big barn.--Do you remember, Eldress Abby, the second time I came, how you sat me down in the kitchen with a bowl of wild strawberries to hull for supper? They were very small and ripe; I did my best, for I never meant to be careless, but the bowl slipped and fell, my legs were too short to reach the floor, and I could n't make a lap, so in trying to pick up the berries I spilled juice on nay dress, and on the white apron you had tied on for me. Then my fingers were stained and wet and the hulls kept falling in with the soft berries, and when you came in and saw me you held up your hands and said, 'Dear, dear! you _have_ made a mess of your work,adidas jeremy scott wings!' Oh, Eldress Abby, they've come back to me all day, those words. I've tried hard to be good, but somehow I've made just such a mess of my life as I made of hulling the berries. The bowl is broken, I have n't much fruit to show, and I am all stained and draggled. I should n't have come to Albion on the five o'clock train--that was an accident; I meant to come at noon, when you could turn me away if you wanted to."
"Nay, that is not the Shaker habit," remonstrated Abby. "You and the child can sleep in one of the spare chambers at the Office Building and be welcome."
"But I want much more than that," said Susanna, tearfully. "I want to come and live here, where there is no marrying nor giving in marriage. I am so tired with my disappointments and discouragements and failures that it is no use to try any longer. I am Mrs. Hathaway, and Sue is my child, but I have left my husband for good and all, and I only want to spend the rest of my days here in peace and bring up Sue to a more tranquil life than I have ever had. I have a little money, so that I shall not be a burden to you, and I will work from morning to night at any task you set me."
"I will talk to the Family," said Eldress Abby gravely; "but there are a good many things to settle before we can say yee to all you ask."
"Let me confess everything freely and fully," pleaded Susanna, "and if you think I'm to blame, I will go away at once."
"Nay, this is no time for that. It is our duty to receive all and try all; then if you should be gathered in, you would unburden your heart to God through the Sister appointed to receive your confession."
added their quota to my cup of pleasure by being distinctly frigid
They, too, added their quota to my cup of pleasure by being distinctly frigid.
Ascending to the gallery I found another compliment awaiting me. Tom Blake was fast asleep. The quality of Blake's intellect was in inverse ratio to that of Mrs. Goodwin. Neither of them appreciated the stuff that suited so well the tastes of the million; and it was consequently quite consistent that while Mrs. Goodwin dozed in spirit Tom Blake should snore in reality.
With Hatton and Price I did not come into contact. I noticed, however, that they wore an expression of relief at the enthusiastic reception my play had received,fake uggs boots.
But an encounter with Kit and Malim was altogether charming,jeremy scott wings. They had had some slight quarrel on the way to the theatre, and had found a means of reconciliation in their mutual emotion at the pathos of the first act's finale. They were now sitting hand in hand telling each other how sorry they were. They congratulated me warmly.
* * * * *
A couple of hours more, and the curtain had fallen.
The roar, the frenzied scene, the picture of a vast audience, half-mad with excitement--how it all comes back to me.
And now, as I sit in this quiet smoking-room of a St,adidas jeremy scott wings. Peter's Port hotel, I hear again the shout of "Author!" I see myself again stepping forward from the wings,chanel 2.55 bags. That short appearance of mine, that brief speech behind the footlights fixed my future....
* * * * *
"James Orlebar Cloyster, the plutocratic playwright, to Margaret, only daughter of the late Eugene Grandison Goodwin, LL.D."
The End
Ascending to the gallery I found another compliment awaiting me. Tom Blake was fast asleep. The quality of Blake's intellect was in inverse ratio to that of Mrs. Goodwin. Neither of them appreciated the stuff that suited so well the tastes of the million; and it was consequently quite consistent that while Mrs. Goodwin dozed in spirit Tom Blake should snore in reality.
With Hatton and Price I did not come into contact. I noticed, however, that they wore an expression of relief at the enthusiastic reception my play had received,fake uggs boots.
But an encounter with Kit and Malim was altogether charming,jeremy scott wings. They had had some slight quarrel on the way to the theatre, and had found a means of reconciliation in their mutual emotion at the pathos of the first act's finale. They were now sitting hand in hand telling each other how sorry they were. They congratulated me warmly.
* * * * *
A couple of hours more, and the curtain had fallen.
The roar, the frenzied scene, the picture of a vast audience, half-mad with excitement--how it all comes back to me.
And now, as I sit in this quiet smoking-room of a St,adidas jeremy scott wings. Peter's Port hotel, I hear again the shout of "Author!" I see myself again stepping forward from the wings,chanel 2.55 bags. That short appearance of mine, that brief speech behind the footlights fixed my future....
* * * * *
"James Orlebar Cloyster, the plutocratic playwright, to Margaret, only daughter of the late Eugene Grandison Goodwin, LL.D."
The End
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Do you suppose
"Do you suppose, my friend,fake uggs boots, that she suspected the feather of the birds you flock with?"
Beverly took it lightly. "Hang it, old boy, of course everybody can't be as nice as I am!" But he took it less lightly before it was over.
We stood chatting apart, he and I, while Bohm and Charley and Kitty and Gazza walked across the street to the window of a shop, where old furniture was for sale at a high price; and it grew clearer to me what Beverly had innocently brought upon Mrs. Weguelin, and how he had brought it. The little quiet, particular lady had been pleased with his visit, and pleased with him. His good manners, his good appearance, his good English-trained voice, all these things must have been extremely to her taste; and then--more important than they--did she not know about his people? She had inquired, he told me, with interest about two of his uncles, whom she had last seen in 1858. "She's awfully the right sort," said Beverly. Yes, I saw well how that visit must have gone: the gentle old lady reviving in Beverly's presence, and for the sake of being civil to him, some memories of her girlhood, some meetings with those uncles, some dances with them; and generally shedding from her talk and manner the charm of some sweet old melody--and Beverly, the facile, the appreciative, sitting there with her at a correct, deferential angle on his chair, admirably sympathetic and in good form, and playing the old school. (He had no thought to deceive her; the old school was his by right, and genuinely in his blood, he took to it like a duck to the water.) How should Mrs. Weguelin divine that he also took to the nouveau jeu to the tune of Bohm and Charley and Kitty and Gazza? And so, to show him some attention, and because she couldn't ask him to a meal, why, she would take him over the old church, her colonial forefathers'; she would tell him the little legends about them; he was precisely the young man to appreciate such things--and she would be pleased if he would also bring the friends with whom he was travelling.
I looked across the street at Bohm and Charley and Kitty and Gazza. They were now staring about them in all their perfection of stare: small Charley in a sleek slate-colored suit, as neat as any little barber; Bohm, massive, portentous, his strong shoes and gloves the chief note in his dress,chanel bags cheap, and about his whole firm frame a heavy mechanical strength, a look as of something that did something rapidly and accurately when set going--cut or cracked or ground or smashed something better and faster than it had ever been cut or cracked or ground or smashed before, and would take your arms and legs off if you didn't stand well back from it; it was only in Bohm's eye and lips that you saw he wasn't made entirely of brass and iron, that champagne and shoulders decolletes received a punctual share of his valuable time. And there was Kitty, too, just the wife for Bohm, so soon as she could divorce her husband, to whom she had united herself before discovering that all she married him for, his old Knickerbocker name, was no longer in the slightest degree necessary for social acceptance; while she could feed people, her trough would be well thronged. Kitty was neat, Kitty was trig,chanel classic bags, Kitty was what Beverly would call "swagger "; her skilful tailor-made clothes sheathed her closely and gave her the excellent appearance of a well-folded English umbrella,jeremy scott wings; it was in her hat that she had gone wrong--a beautiful hat in itself, one which would have wholly become Hortense; but for poor Kitty it didn't do at all. Yes, she was a well folded English umbrella, only the umbrella had for its handle the head of a bulldog or the leg of a ballet-dancer. And these were the Replacers whom Beverly's clear-sighted eyes saw swarming round the temple of his civilization, pushing down the aisles, climbing over the backs of the benches, walking over each other's bodies, and seizing those front seats which his family had sat in since New York had been New York; and so the wise fellow very prudently took every step that would insure the Replacers' inviting him to occupy one of his own chairs. I had almost forgotten little Gazza, the Italian nobleman, who sold old furniture to new Americans. Gazza was not looking at the old furniture of Kings Port, which must have filled his Vatican soul with contempt; he was strolling back and forth in the street, with his head in the air, humming, now loudly, now softly "La-la, la-la, E quando a la predica in chiesa siederia, la-la-la-la;" and I thought to myself that, were I the Pope, I should kick him into the Tiber.
Beverly took it lightly. "Hang it, old boy, of course everybody can't be as nice as I am!" But he took it less lightly before it was over.
We stood chatting apart, he and I, while Bohm and Charley and Kitty and Gazza walked across the street to the window of a shop, where old furniture was for sale at a high price; and it grew clearer to me what Beverly had innocently brought upon Mrs. Weguelin, and how he had brought it. The little quiet, particular lady had been pleased with his visit, and pleased with him. His good manners, his good appearance, his good English-trained voice, all these things must have been extremely to her taste; and then--more important than they--did she not know about his people? She had inquired, he told me, with interest about two of his uncles, whom she had last seen in 1858. "She's awfully the right sort," said Beverly. Yes, I saw well how that visit must have gone: the gentle old lady reviving in Beverly's presence, and for the sake of being civil to him, some memories of her girlhood, some meetings with those uncles, some dances with them; and generally shedding from her talk and manner the charm of some sweet old melody--and Beverly, the facile, the appreciative, sitting there with her at a correct, deferential angle on his chair, admirably sympathetic and in good form, and playing the old school. (He had no thought to deceive her; the old school was his by right, and genuinely in his blood, he took to it like a duck to the water.) How should Mrs. Weguelin divine that he also took to the nouveau jeu to the tune of Bohm and Charley and Kitty and Gazza? And so, to show him some attention, and because she couldn't ask him to a meal, why, she would take him over the old church, her colonial forefathers'; she would tell him the little legends about them; he was precisely the young man to appreciate such things--and she would be pleased if he would also bring the friends with whom he was travelling.
I looked across the street at Bohm and Charley and Kitty and Gazza. They were now staring about them in all their perfection of stare: small Charley in a sleek slate-colored suit, as neat as any little barber; Bohm, massive, portentous, his strong shoes and gloves the chief note in his dress,chanel bags cheap, and about his whole firm frame a heavy mechanical strength, a look as of something that did something rapidly and accurately when set going--cut or cracked or ground or smashed something better and faster than it had ever been cut or cracked or ground or smashed before, and would take your arms and legs off if you didn't stand well back from it; it was only in Bohm's eye and lips that you saw he wasn't made entirely of brass and iron, that champagne and shoulders decolletes received a punctual share of his valuable time. And there was Kitty, too, just the wife for Bohm, so soon as she could divorce her husband, to whom she had united herself before discovering that all she married him for, his old Knickerbocker name, was no longer in the slightest degree necessary for social acceptance; while she could feed people, her trough would be well thronged. Kitty was neat, Kitty was trig,chanel classic bags, Kitty was what Beverly would call "swagger "; her skilful tailor-made clothes sheathed her closely and gave her the excellent appearance of a well-folded English umbrella,jeremy scott wings; it was in her hat that she had gone wrong--a beautiful hat in itself, one which would have wholly become Hortense; but for poor Kitty it didn't do at all. Yes, she was a well folded English umbrella, only the umbrella had for its handle the head of a bulldog or the leg of a ballet-dancer. And these were the Replacers whom Beverly's clear-sighted eyes saw swarming round the temple of his civilization, pushing down the aisles, climbing over the backs of the benches, walking over each other's bodies, and seizing those front seats which his family had sat in since New York had been New York; and so the wise fellow very prudently took every step that would insure the Replacers' inviting him to occupy one of his own chairs. I had almost forgotten little Gazza, the Italian nobleman, who sold old furniture to new Americans. Gazza was not looking at the old furniture of Kings Port, which must have filled his Vatican soul with contempt; he was strolling back and forth in the street, with his head in the air, humming, now loudly, now softly "La-la, la-la, E quando a la predica in chiesa siederia, la-la-la-la;" and I thought to myself that, were I the Pope, I should kick him into the Tiber.
Sir Godfrey took out his grandfather's sun-dial
Sir Godfrey took out his grandfather's sun-dial, and held it to the lamp. "Bless my soul," he exclaimed; "it's twenty-two o'clock." (That's ten at night nowadays, young people, and much too late for you to be down-stairs, any of you,chanel wallet.)
"Get to your bed at once," continued Sir Godfrey, "or you'll never be dressed in time for Chapel on Christmas morning."
So Elaine went to her room, and took off her clothes, and hung up her stocking at the foot of the bed. Did she go to sleep? Not she. She laid with eyes and ears wide open. And now alone here in the dark, where she had nothing to do but wait, she found her heart beating in answer to her anxious and expectant thoughts. She heard the wind come blustering from far off across the silent country. Then a snore from Mistletoe in the next room made her jump. Twice a bar of moonlight fell along the floor, wavering and weak,cheap jeremy scott adidas wings, then sank out, and the pat of the snow-flakes began again. After a while came a step through the halls to her door, and stopped. She could scarcely listen, so hard she was breathing. Was her father going to turn the key in her door, after all,chanel 2.55 bags? No such thought was any longer in his mind. She shut her eyes quickly as he entered. His candle shone upon her quiet head, that was nearly buried out of sight; then laughter shook him to see the stocking, and he went softly out. He had put on his bed-room slippers; but, as he intended to make a visit to the cellar before retiring, it seemed a prudent thing to wear his steel breast-plate; and over this he had slipped his quilted red silk dressing-gown, for it was a very cold night.
[Illustration: GEOFFREY GOETH TO MEET THE DRAGON]
Was there a sound away off somewhere out-of-doors? No. He descended heavily through the sleeping house,Home Page. When the candle burned upright and clear yellow, his gait was steady; but he started many times at corners where its flame bobbed and flattened and shrunk to a blue, sickly rag half torn from the wick. "Ouf! Mort d'aieul!" he would mutter. "But I must count my wine to-night." And so he came down into the wide cellars, and trod tiptoe among the big round tuns. With a wooden mallet he tapped them, and shook his head to hear the hollow humming that their emptiness gave forth. No oath came from him at all, for the matter was too grievous. The darkness that filled everywhere save just next to the candle, pressed harder and harder upon him. He looked at the door which led from inside here out into the night, and it was comfortable to know how thick were the panels and how stout the bolts and hinges.
"I can hold my own against any man, and have jousted fairly in my time," he thought to himself, and touched his sword. "But--um!" The notion of meeting a fiery dragon in combat spoke loudly to the better part of his valour. Suddenly a great rat crossed his foot. Ice and fire went from his stomach all through him, and he sprang on a wooden stool, and then found he was shaking. Soon he got down, with sweaty hands.
"Am I getting a coward?" he asked aloud. He seized the mallet that had fallen, and struck a good knock against the nearest hogshead. Ah--ha! This one, at least, was full. He twisted the wooden stop and drank what came, from the hollow of his hand. It was cowslip wine. Ragingly he spluttered and gulped, and then kicked the bins with all his might. While he was stooping to rub his toe, who should march in but Miss Elaine, dressed and ready for young Geoffrey. But she caught sight of her father in time, and stepped back into the passage in a flutter. Good heavens! This would never do. Geoffrey might be knocking at the cellar-door at any moment. Her papa must be got away at once.
"Get to your bed at once," continued Sir Godfrey, "or you'll never be dressed in time for Chapel on Christmas morning."
So Elaine went to her room, and took off her clothes, and hung up her stocking at the foot of the bed. Did she go to sleep? Not she. She laid with eyes and ears wide open. And now alone here in the dark, where she had nothing to do but wait, she found her heart beating in answer to her anxious and expectant thoughts. She heard the wind come blustering from far off across the silent country. Then a snore from Mistletoe in the next room made her jump. Twice a bar of moonlight fell along the floor, wavering and weak,cheap jeremy scott adidas wings, then sank out, and the pat of the snow-flakes began again. After a while came a step through the halls to her door, and stopped. She could scarcely listen, so hard she was breathing. Was her father going to turn the key in her door, after all,chanel 2.55 bags? No such thought was any longer in his mind. She shut her eyes quickly as he entered. His candle shone upon her quiet head, that was nearly buried out of sight; then laughter shook him to see the stocking, and he went softly out. He had put on his bed-room slippers; but, as he intended to make a visit to the cellar before retiring, it seemed a prudent thing to wear his steel breast-plate; and over this he had slipped his quilted red silk dressing-gown, for it was a very cold night.
[Illustration: GEOFFREY GOETH TO MEET THE DRAGON]
Was there a sound away off somewhere out-of-doors? No. He descended heavily through the sleeping house,Home Page. When the candle burned upright and clear yellow, his gait was steady; but he started many times at corners where its flame bobbed and flattened and shrunk to a blue, sickly rag half torn from the wick. "Ouf! Mort d'aieul!" he would mutter. "But I must count my wine to-night." And so he came down into the wide cellars, and trod tiptoe among the big round tuns. With a wooden mallet he tapped them, and shook his head to hear the hollow humming that their emptiness gave forth. No oath came from him at all, for the matter was too grievous. The darkness that filled everywhere save just next to the candle, pressed harder and harder upon him. He looked at the door which led from inside here out into the night, and it was comfortable to know how thick were the panels and how stout the bolts and hinges.
"I can hold my own against any man, and have jousted fairly in my time," he thought to himself, and touched his sword. "But--um!" The notion of meeting a fiery dragon in combat spoke loudly to the better part of his valour. Suddenly a great rat crossed his foot. Ice and fire went from his stomach all through him, and he sprang on a wooden stool, and then found he was shaking. Soon he got down, with sweaty hands.
"Am I getting a coward?" he asked aloud. He seized the mallet that had fallen, and struck a good knock against the nearest hogshead. Ah--ha! This one, at least, was full. He twisted the wooden stop and drank what came, from the hollow of his hand. It was cowslip wine. Ragingly he spluttered and gulped, and then kicked the bins with all his might. While he was stooping to rub his toe, who should march in but Miss Elaine, dressed and ready for young Geoffrey. But she caught sight of her father in time, and stepped back into the passage in a flutter. Good heavens! This would never do. Geoffrey might be knocking at the cellar-door at any moment. Her papa must be got away at once.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
At first I called my Second Limitation
"At first I called my Second Limitation, Sex. But from the outset I meant more than mere sexual desire, lust and lustful imaginings, more than personal reactions to beauty and spirited living, more even than what is called love,Link. On the one hand I had in mind many appetites that are not sexual yet turn to bodily pleasure, and on the other there are elements of pride arising out of sex and passing into other regions, all the elements of rivalry for example, that have strained my first definition to the utmost. And I see now that this Second Limitation as I first imagined it spreads out without any definite boundary, to include one's rivalries with old schoolfellows, for example, one's generosities to beggars and dependents, one's desire to avenge an injured friend, one's point of honour, one's regard for the good opinion of an aunt and one's concern for the health of a pet cat. All these things may enrich, but they may also impede and limit the aristocratic scheme. I thought for a time I would call this ill-defined and miscellaneous wilderness of limitation the Personal Life. But at last I have decided to divide this vast territory of difficulties into two subdivisions and make one of these Indulgence, meaning thereby pleasurable indulgence of sense or feeling, and the other a great mass of self-regarding motives that will go with a little stretching under the heading of Jealousy. I admit motives are continually playing across the boundary of these two divisions, I should find it difficult to argue a case for my classification, but in practice these two groupings have a quite definite meaning for me. There is pride in the latter group of impulses and not in the former; the former are always a little apologetic. Fear, Indulgence, Jealousy, these are the First Three Limitations of the soul of man. And the greatest of these is Jealousy, because it can use pride. Over them the Life Aristocratic, as I conceive it, marches to its end. It saves itself for the truth rather than sacrifices itself romantically for a friend. It justifies vivisection if thereby knowledge is won for ever. It upholds that Brutus who killed his sons. It forbids devotion to women,cheap jordans, courts of love and all such decay of the chivalrous idea. And it resigns--so many things that no common Man of Spirit will resign,retro jordans. Its intention transcends these things. Over all the world it would maintain justice, order, a noble peace, and it would do this without indignation, without resentment, without mawkish tenderness or individualized enthusiasm or any queen of beauty. It is of a cold austere quality, commanding sometimes admiration but having small hold upon the affections of men. So that it is among its foremost distinctions that its heart is steeled,jordans...."
There this odd fragment ended and White was left to resume the interrupted autobiography.
2
What moods, what passions, what nights of despair and gathering storms of anger, what sudden cruelties and amazing tendernesses are buried and hidden and implied in every love story! What a waste is there of exquisite things! So each spring sees a million glorious beginnings, a sunlit heaven in every opening leaf, warm perfection in every stirring egg, hope and fear and beauty beyond computation in every forest tree; and in the autumn before the snows come they have all gone, of all that incalculable abundance of life, of all that hope and adventure, excitement and deliciousness, there is scarcely more to be found than a soiled twig, a dirty seed, a dead leaf, black mould or a rotting feather....
There this odd fragment ended and White was left to resume the interrupted autobiography.
2
What moods, what passions, what nights of despair and gathering storms of anger, what sudden cruelties and amazing tendernesses are buried and hidden and implied in every love story! What a waste is there of exquisite things! So each spring sees a million glorious beginnings, a sunlit heaven in every opening leaf, warm perfection in every stirring egg, hope and fear and beauty beyond computation in every forest tree; and in the autumn before the snows come they have all gone, of all that incalculable abundance of life, of all that hope and adventure, excitement and deliciousness, there is scarcely more to be found than a soiled twig, a dirty seed, a dead leaf, black mould or a rotting feather....
He was now seated in a worn office chair before a littered desk
He was now seated in a worn office chair before a littered desk. In the close air hung the smell of stale cigars and the clear fragrance of pine.
"What is it, Dennis?" he asked the first of the men,cheap retro jordan.
"I've been out," replied the lumberman. "Have you got anything for me, Mr. Daly?"
The mill-owner laughed.
"I guess so. Report to Shearer,chanel classic bags. Did you vote for the right man, Denny?"
The lumberman grinned sheepishly. "I don't know, sir. I didn't get that far."
"Better let it alone. I suppose you and Bill want to come back, too?" he added, turning to the next two in the line. "All right, report to Tim. Do you want work?" he inquired of the last of the quartette, a big bashful man with the shoulders of a Hercules.
"Yes, sir," answered the latter uncomfortably.
"What do you do?"
"I'm a cant-hook man, sir."
"Where have you worked?"
"I had a job with Morgan & Stebbins on the Clear River last winter."
"All right, we need cant-hook men. Report at 'seven,' and if they don't want you there, go to 'thirteen.'"
Daly looked directly at the man with an air of finality. The lumberman still lingered uneasily, twisting his cap in his hands.
"Anything you want?" asked Daly at last.
"Yes, sir," blurted the big man. "If I come down here and tell you I want three days off and fifty dollars to bury my mother, I wish you'd tell me to go to hell! I buried her three times last winter!"
Daly chuckled a little.
"All right, Bub," said he,chanel bags cheap, "to hell it is."
The man went out. Daly turned to Thorpe with the last flickers of amusement in his eyes.
"What can I do for you?" he inquired in a little crisper tones. Thorpe felt that he was not treated with the same careless familiarity, because, potentially, he might be more of a force to deal with. He underwent, too, the man's keen scrutiny, and knew that every detail of his appearance had found its comment in the other's experienced brain.
"I am looking for work," Thorpe replied.
"What kind of work?"
"Any kind, so I can learn something about the lumber business."
The older man studied him keenly for a few moments.
"Have you had any other business experience?"
"None."
"What have you been doing?"
"Nothing."
The lumberman's eyes hardened.
"We are a very busy firm here," he said with a certain deliberation; "we do not carry a big force of men in any one department, and each of those men has to fill his place and slop some over the sides. We do not pretend or attempt to teach here. If you want to be a lumberman, you must learn the lumber business more directly than through the windows of a bookkeeper's office. Go into the woods. Learn a few first principles. Find out the difference between Norway and white pine, anyway."
Daly, being what is termed a self-made man, entertained a prejudice against youths of the leisure class. He did not believe in their earnestness of purpose,chanel wallet, their capacity for knowledge, nor their perseverance in anything. That a man of twenty-six should be looking for his first situation was incomprehensible to him. He made no effort to conceal his prejudice, because the class to which the young man had belonged enjoyed his hearty contempt.
"What is it, Dennis?" he asked the first of the men,cheap retro jordan.
"I've been out," replied the lumberman. "Have you got anything for me, Mr. Daly?"
The mill-owner laughed.
"I guess so. Report to Shearer,chanel classic bags. Did you vote for the right man, Denny?"
The lumberman grinned sheepishly. "I don't know, sir. I didn't get that far."
"Better let it alone. I suppose you and Bill want to come back, too?" he added, turning to the next two in the line. "All right, report to Tim. Do you want work?" he inquired of the last of the quartette, a big bashful man with the shoulders of a Hercules.
"Yes, sir," answered the latter uncomfortably.
"What do you do?"
"I'm a cant-hook man, sir."
"Where have you worked?"
"I had a job with Morgan & Stebbins on the Clear River last winter."
"All right, we need cant-hook men. Report at 'seven,' and if they don't want you there, go to 'thirteen.'"
Daly looked directly at the man with an air of finality. The lumberman still lingered uneasily, twisting his cap in his hands.
"Anything you want?" asked Daly at last.
"Yes, sir," blurted the big man. "If I come down here and tell you I want three days off and fifty dollars to bury my mother, I wish you'd tell me to go to hell! I buried her three times last winter!"
Daly chuckled a little.
"All right, Bub," said he,chanel bags cheap, "to hell it is."
The man went out. Daly turned to Thorpe with the last flickers of amusement in his eyes.
"What can I do for you?" he inquired in a little crisper tones. Thorpe felt that he was not treated with the same careless familiarity, because, potentially, he might be more of a force to deal with. He underwent, too, the man's keen scrutiny, and knew that every detail of his appearance had found its comment in the other's experienced brain.
"I am looking for work," Thorpe replied.
"What kind of work?"
"Any kind, so I can learn something about the lumber business."
The older man studied him keenly for a few moments.
"Have you had any other business experience?"
"None."
"What have you been doing?"
"Nothing."
The lumberman's eyes hardened.
"We are a very busy firm here," he said with a certain deliberation; "we do not carry a big force of men in any one department, and each of those men has to fill his place and slop some over the sides. We do not pretend or attempt to teach here. If you want to be a lumberman, you must learn the lumber business more directly than through the windows of a bookkeeper's office. Go into the woods. Learn a few first principles. Find out the difference between Norway and white pine, anyway."
Daly, being what is termed a self-made man, entertained a prejudice against youths of the leisure class. He did not believe in their earnestness of purpose,chanel wallet, their capacity for knowledge, nor their perseverance in anything. That a man of twenty-six should be looking for his first situation was incomprehensible to him. He made no effort to conceal his prejudice, because the class to which the young man had belonged enjoyed his hearty contempt.
Never mind
"Never mind, mother," said Roy. "Rex and I will pitch in and help."
And they did, they and Eva and Jess. Rex was just carrying a tray of dishes into the pantry when he heard a louder voice than usual coming from one of the tables.
He looked around. He saw Jess, flushed to her hair, standing behind a young man who had come in with one of the regular guests, and whom he had not noticed before.
"Come now, I'll give you a nice tip if you'll do it for me," Rex heard the fellow say.
He thought he recognized the voice. He put his tray down and hurried to his sister's side.
She had started to walk away, but the man had caught her by the dress and held her fast.
"He wants me to go to the saloon across the street and bring him a bottle of beer," said Jess.
Rex stooped quickly and disengaged the fellow's hand with no gentle touch,chanel bags cheap. In doing so he looked him straight in the face. It was Ashby Stout.
"Great Scott, it's little Pell,jordans for sale," exclaimed Stout. Then he added quickly: "Look here, youngster, what right have you to send that girl away from here?"
"A brother's right," replied Rex promptly.
"Whew!" whistled Stout under his breath, and he turned to Driscoll, the friend with whom he had come in. "Say, Sammy," he whispered, "what position does this chap hold in the place?"
"He's the manager's son," was the reply.
Having accomplished his purpose Rex went on, took up his tray and carried it into the pantry. His eyes still flashed from anger.
"Jess," he said, going up to his sister, "you must not go into that dining room again."
"But I'll have to," she replied, "I've got lots of orders to fill."
"Never mind. I'll attend to yours and mine, too. I'm not going to have that ruffian ogling you,jordans, I know who he is."
"You do? Who is he?"
"Never mind. It is enough that I know everything bad about him and nothing good. Give me your orders."
And Jess complied. Of course this compelled Rex to wait on Stout. But he gritted his teeth and went through with the process in dignified silence, taking no notice of the attempt Stout made to draw him into conversation.
When dinner was over and Rex was back in his place behind the desk, making up accounts, Stout strolled in, a cigarette between his lips.
He affected to be examining the register for a little while,Link, then suddenly looked up to remark: "I say, Pell, that's a deuced pretty sister of yours."
I won't say that Rex did right, I can't say that he did wrong, but on the instant and without a word he leaned forward and hit J. Ashby Stout a blow on the chin that sent him staggering backward over a chair that stood just behind him.
There happened to be no one else in the office just at that moment. So Mr. Stout was obliged to pick himself up, which he did, muttering wrathfully under his breath, while Rex, very white, went on with his work.
"If you're not a coward, sir, you'll come out here and give me satisfaction for that insult, sir."
So spoke Mr. Stout. Rex closed his books and came out in front of the desk.
"I allow no one to speak of my sister in that tone," he said.
"And I allow no one to strike me," blustered Mr. Stout, launching out a blow directly at Rex's face.
And they did, they and Eva and Jess. Rex was just carrying a tray of dishes into the pantry when he heard a louder voice than usual coming from one of the tables.
He looked around. He saw Jess, flushed to her hair, standing behind a young man who had come in with one of the regular guests, and whom he had not noticed before.
"Come now, I'll give you a nice tip if you'll do it for me," Rex heard the fellow say.
He thought he recognized the voice. He put his tray down and hurried to his sister's side.
She had started to walk away, but the man had caught her by the dress and held her fast.
"He wants me to go to the saloon across the street and bring him a bottle of beer," said Jess.
Rex stooped quickly and disengaged the fellow's hand with no gentle touch,chanel bags cheap. In doing so he looked him straight in the face. It was Ashby Stout.
"Great Scott, it's little Pell,jordans for sale," exclaimed Stout. Then he added quickly: "Look here, youngster, what right have you to send that girl away from here?"
"A brother's right," replied Rex promptly.
"Whew!" whistled Stout under his breath, and he turned to Driscoll, the friend with whom he had come in. "Say, Sammy," he whispered, "what position does this chap hold in the place?"
"He's the manager's son," was the reply.
Having accomplished his purpose Rex went on, took up his tray and carried it into the pantry. His eyes still flashed from anger.
"Jess," he said, going up to his sister, "you must not go into that dining room again."
"But I'll have to," she replied, "I've got lots of orders to fill."
"Never mind. I'll attend to yours and mine, too. I'm not going to have that ruffian ogling you,jordans, I know who he is."
"You do? Who is he?"
"Never mind. It is enough that I know everything bad about him and nothing good. Give me your orders."
And Jess complied. Of course this compelled Rex to wait on Stout. But he gritted his teeth and went through with the process in dignified silence, taking no notice of the attempt Stout made to draw him into conversation.
When dinner was over and Rex was back in his place behind the desk, making up accounts, Stout strolled in, a cigarette between his lips.
He affected to be examining the register for a little while,Link, then suddenly looked up to remark: "I say, Pell, that's a deuced pretty sister of yours."
I won't say that Rex did right, I can't say that he did wrong, but on the instant and without a word he leaned forward and hit J. Ashby Stout a blow on the chin that sent him staggering backward over a chair that stood just behind him.
There happened to be no one else in the office just at that moment. So Mr. Stout was obliged to pick himself up, which he did, muttering wrathfully under his breath, while Rex, very white, went on with his work.
"If you're not a coward, sir, you'll come out here and give me satisfaction for that insult, sir."
So spoke Mr. Stout. Rex closed his books and came out in front of the desk.
"I allow no one to speak of my sister in that tone," he said.
"And I allow no one to strike me," blustered Mr. Stout, launching out a blow directly at Rex's face.
By the time he got his stream to spurting again
By the time he got his stream to spurting again, Bert had the other fire completely out, so that only a little steam came from the pile of blackened embers.
"We win!" cried Cole Bishop.
"Yes, I guess you do," assented Mr. Bergman, who was the umpire. "I'll have to award you the decision. Now, Bert, fill your tank again, and get ready for the real contest, which will take place in about an hour."
"I'm glad you won, Bert," said Vincent, generously, coming over, and shaking hands with the young chief.
"Thanks. You see I thought the blaze was smouldering under the wood, and I was ready for it."
"I'll be, next time. I hope you win the trumpet."
"Well, so do I, for the sake of Lakeville. But these other departments have had more practice than we have."
All the members of the Lakeville fire corps turned in to help get Bert's engine ready for the main contest of the day. The tank was refilled with soda water, and a new bottle of sulphuric acid put in the holder, for a supply of the chemicals had been brought along for that purpose.
The other companies were also preparing for the contest. The Jamesville crowd had an engine just like these which Mr. Bergman had purchased for Lakeville. The machines from Northville Centre and Weedsport were different, but worked on the same principle.
"Are you all ready?" asked Mr. Bergman, when the four companies were lined up on the edge of the wood, ready for the race to the shacks. The various chiefs answered that they were. The word was given to fire the sheds, and soon four clouds of black smoke were ascending to the sky, while the flames began to roar.
"Don't start until I give the word," cautioned Mr. Bergman. "I want the fires to get a good headway."
Anxiously the members of the four companies stood lined up, ready for the signal. Grouped around them was a big throng.
"Be ready to jump, boys," cautioned Bert, in a low voice to his lads. "But be careful not to stumble."
"We're all ready," replied Cole, looking back at the line of boys who grasped the rope.
The flames were crackling more loudly. Greater clouds of smoke from the burning oil rolled into the air. The heat from the blazing shacks could be felt some distance away.
"Why doesn't he give the word?" asked Tom Donnell, impatiently.
Members of the other companies were inquiring the same thing. Mr. Bergman stood with his watch in his hand. He looked at the four fires. Then he called:
"Get ready!"
The boys tightened their grip on the rope. They leaned forward, prepared to spring at the command.
"Go!" shouted the umpire, and the four companies were off as one.
Over the open field they dragged the engines, the big wheels rumbling like subdued thunder. The crowd began to cheer, men and boys calling to their favorite companies to beat in the race.
Nearer and nearer to the blazing shacks came the fire-fighters. The company from Northville Centre was slightly in the lead, for their engine was lighter, and there were a score of men on the rope. Next came the Lakeville lads, while those from Weedsport were in the rear.
Suddenly there sounded a crash, and Bert, turning his head, saw the foremost of the Weedsport men stumble. An instant later the engine, striking a rut, overturned, dragging the whole company down.
"We win!" cried Cole Bishop.
"Yes, I guess you do," assented Mr. Bergman, who was the umpire. "I'll have to award you the decision. Now, Bert, fill your tank again, and get ready for the real contest, which will take place in about an hour."
"I'm glad you won, Bert," said Vincent, generously, coming over, and shaking hands with the young chief.
"Thanks. You see I thought the blaze was smouldering under the wood, and I was ready for it."
"I'll be, next time. I hope you win the trumpet."
"Well, so do I, for the sake of Lakeville. But these other departments have had more practice than we have."
All the members of the Lakeville fire corps turned in to help get Bert's engine ready for the main contest of the day. The tank was refilled with soda water, and a new bottle of sulphuric acid put in the holder, for a supply of the chemicals had been brought along for that purpose.
The other companies were also preparing for the contest. The Jamesville crowd had an engine just like these which Mr. Bergman had purchased for Lakeville. The machines from Northville Centre and Weedsport were different, but worked on the same principle.
"Are you all ready?" asked Mr. Bergman, when the four companies were lined up on the edge of the wood, ready for the race to the shacks. The various chiefs answered that they were. The word was given to fire the sheds, and soon four clouds of black smoke were ascending to the sky, while the flames began to roar.
"Don't start until I give the word," cautioned Mr. Bergman. "I want the fires to get a good headway."
Anxiously the members of the four companies stood lined up, ready for the signal. Grouped around them was a big throng.
"Be ready to jump, boys," cautioned Bert, in a low voice to his lads. "But be careful not to stumble."
"We're all ready," replied Cole, looking back at the line of boys who grasped the rope.
The flames were crackling more loudly. Greater clouds of smoke from the burning oil rolled into the air. The heat from the blazing shacks could be felt some distance away.
"Why doesn't he give the word?" asked Tom Donnell, impatiently.
Members of the other companies were inquiring the same thing. Mr. Bergman stood with his watch in his hand. He looked at the four fires. Then he called:
"Get ready!"
The boys tightened their grip on the rope. They leaned forward, prepared to spring at the command.
"Go!" shouted the umpire, and the four companies were off as one.
Over the open field they dragged the engines, the big wheels rumbling like subdued thunder. The crowd began to cheer, men and boys calling to their favorite companies to beat in the race.
Nearer and nearer to the blazing shacks came the fire-fighters. The company from Northville Centre was slightly in the lead, for their engine was lighter, and there were a score of men on the rope. Next came the Lakeville lads, while those from Weedsport were in the rear.
Suddenly there sounded a crash, and Bert, turning his head, saw the foremost of the Weedsport men stumble. An instant later the engine, striking a rut, overturned, dragging the whole company down.
You dear thing
"You dear thing!" said Jack, with his hand on her head, smoothing her glossy hair and pushing it back from her forehead, to make her look more intellectual--a thing which she hated. "Yes, dear, I was a brute to go off at all."
"But you wanted to comeback?" And there was a wistful look in her eyes.
"Indeed I did," he answered, fervently, as he leaned over the hammock to kiss the sweet eyes into content; and he was quite honest in the expression of a desire that was nearly forty-eight hours old, and by a singular mental reaction seemed to have been always present with him.
"It was so good of you to telegraph me before I could see the newspaper."
"Of course I knew the account would be greatly exaggerated;" and he made light of the whole affair, knowing that the facts would still be capable of shocking her, giving a comic picture of the Major's seafaring qualities, and Carmen's and Miss Tavish's chaff of the gallant old beau.
Even with this light sketching of the event she could not avoid a retrospective pang of apprehension, and the tightened grasp of his hand was as if she were holding him fast from that and all other peril.
The days went by in content, on the whole, shaded a little by anxiety and made grave by a new interest. It could not well be but that the prospect of the near future, with its increase of responsibility, should create a little uneasiness in Jack's mind as to his own career. Of this future they talked much, and in Jack's attitude towards her Edith saw, for the first time since her marriage, a lever of suggestion, and it came naturally in the contemplation of their future life that she should encourage his discontent at having no occupation. Facing, in this waiting-time of quiet, certain responsibilities, it was impressed upon him that the collecting of bric-a-brac was scarcely an occupation, and that idling in clubs and studios and dangling about at the beck of society women was scarcely a career that could save him from ultimate ennui. To be sure, he had plenty of comrades, young fellows of fortune, who never intended to do anything except to use it for their personal satisfaction; but they did not seem to be of much account except in the little circle that they ornamented. Speaking of one of them one day, Father Damon had said that it seemed a pity a fellow of such family and capacity and fortune should go to the devil merely for the lack of an object in life. In this closer communion with Edith, whose ideas he began to comprehend, Jack dimly apprehended this view, and for the moment impulsively accepted it.
"I'm half sorry," he said one day, "that I didn't go in for a profession. But it is late now. Law, medicine, engineering, architecture, would take years of study."
"There was Armstrong," Edith suggested, "who studied law after he was married."
"But it looks sort of silly for a fellow who has a wife to go to school, unless," said Jack, with a laugh, "he goes to school to his wife. Then there's politics. You wouldn't like to see me in that."
"I rather think, Jack"--she spoke musingly--"if I were a man I should go into politics."
"But you wanted to comeback?" And there was a wistful look in her eyes.
"Indeed I did," he answered, fervently, as he leaned over the hammock to kiss the sweet eyes into content; and he was quite honest in the expression of a desire that was nearly forty-eight hours old, and by a singular mental reaction seemed to have been always present with him.
"It was so good of you to telegraph me before I could see the newspaper."
"Of course I knew the account would be greatly exaggerated;" and he made light of the whole affair, knowing that the facts would still be capable of shocking her, giving a comic picture of the Major's seafaring qualities, and Carmen's and Miss Tavish's chaff of the gallant old beau.
Even with this light sketching of the event she could not avoid a retrospective pang of apprehension, and the tightened grasp of his hand was as if she were holding him fast from that and all other peril.
The days went by in content, on the whole, shaded a little by anxiety and made grave by a new interest. It could not well be but that the prospect of the near future, with its increase of responsibility, should create a little uneasiness in Jack's mind as to his own career. Of this future they talked much, and in Jack's attitude towards her Edith saw, for the first time since her marriage, a lever of suggestion, and it came naturally in the contemplation of their future life that she should encourage his discontent at having no occupation. Facing, in this waiting-time of quiet, certain responsibilities, it was impressed upon him that the collecting of bric-a-brac was scarcely an occupation, and that idling in clubs and studios and dangling about at the beck of society women was scarcely a career that could save him from ultimate ennui. To be sure, he had plenty of comrades, young fellows of fortune, who never intended to do anything except to use it for their personal satisfaction; but they did not seem to be of much account except in the little circle that they ornamented. Speaking of one of them one day, Father Damon had said that it seemed a pity a fellow of such family and capacity and fortune should go to the devil merely for the lack of an object in life. In this closer communion with Edith, whose ideas he began to comprehend, Jack dimly apprehended this view, and for the moment impulsively accepted it.
"I'm half sorry," he said one day, "that I didn't go in for a profession. But it is late now. Law, medicine, engineering, architecture, would take years of study."
"There was Armstrong," Edith suggested, "who studied law after he was married."
"But it looks sort of silly for a fellow who has a wife to go to school, unless," said Jack, with a laugh, "he goes to school to his wife. Then there's politics. You wouldn't like to see me in that."
"I rather think, Jack"--she spoke musingly--"if I were a man I should go into politics."
Chapter 4 The German Air-Fleet 1 Of all the productions of the human imagination that make the world
Chapter 4 The German Air-Fleet
1
Of all the productions of the human imagination that make the world in which Mr. Bert Smallways lived confusingly wonderful, there was none quite so strange, so headlong and disturbing, so noisy and persuasive and dangerous, as the modernisations of patriotism produced by imperial and international politics. In the soul of all men is a liking for kind, a pride in one's own atmosphere, a tenderness for one's Mother speech and one's familiar land. Before the coming of the Scientific Age this group of gentle and noble emotions had been a fine factor in the equipment of every worthy human being, a fine factor that had its less amiable aspect in a usually harmless hostility to strange people, and a usually harmless detraction of strange lands. But with the wild rush of change in the pace, scope, materials, scale, and possibilities of human life that then occurred, the old boundaries, the old seclusions and separations were violently broken down. All the old settled mental habits and traditions of men found themselves not simply confronted by new conditions, but by constantly renewed and changing new conditions. They had no chance of adapting themselves. They were annihilated or perverted or inflamed beyond recognition.
Bert Smallways' grandfather, in the days when Bun Hill was a village under the sway of Sir Peter Bone's parent, had "known his place" to the uttermost farthing, touched his hat to his betters, despised and condescended to his inferiors, and hadn't changed an idea from the cradle to the grave. He was Kentish and English, and that meant hops, beer, dog-rose's, and the sort of sunshine that was best in the world. Newspapers and politics and visits to "Lunnon" weren't for the likes of him. Then came the change. These earlier chapters have given an idea of what happened to Bun Hill, and how the flood of novel things had poured over its devoted rusticity. Bert Smallways was only one of countless millions in Europe and America and Asia who, instead of being born rooted in the soil, were born struggling in a torrent they never clearly understood. All the faiths of their fathers had been taken by surprise, and startled into the strangest forms and reactions. Particularly did the fine old tradition of patriotism get perverted and distorted in the rush of the new times. Instead of the sturdy establishment in prejudice of Bert's grandfather, to whom the word "Frenchified" was the ultimate term of contempt, there flowed through Bert's brain a squittering succession of thinly violent ideas about German competition, about the Yellow Danger, about the Black Peril, about the White Man's Burthen--that is to say, Bert's preposterous right to muddle further the naturally very muddled politics of the entirely similar little cads to himself (except for a smear of brown) who smoked cigarettes and rode bicycles in Buluwayo, Kingston (Jamaica), or Bombay. These were Bert's "Subject Races," and he was ready to die--by proxy in the person of any one who cared to enlist--to maintain his hold upon that right. It kept him awake at nights to think that he might lose it.
1
Of all the productions of the human imagination that make the world in which Mr. Bert Smallways lived confusingly wonderful, there was none quite so strange, so headlong and disturbing, so noisy and persuasive and dangerous, as the modernisations of patriotism produced by imperial and international politics. In the soul of all men is a liking for kind, a pride in one's own atmosphere, a tenderness for one's Mother speech and one's familiar land. Before the coming of the Scientific Age this group of gentle and noble emotions had been a fine factor in the equipment of every worthy human being, a fine factor that had its less amiable aspect in a usually harmless hostility to strange people, and a usually harmless detraction of strange lands. But with the wild rush of change in the pace, scope, materials, scale, and possibilities of human life that then occurred, the old boundaries, the old seclusions and separations were violently broken down. All the old settled mental habits and traditions of men found themselves not simply confronted by new conditions, but by constantly renewed and changing new conditions. They had no chance of adapting themselves. They were annihilated or perverted or inflamed beyond recognition.
Bert Smallways' grandfather, in the days when Bun Hill was a village under the sway of Sir Peter Bone's parent, had "known his place" to the uttermost farthing, touched his hat to his betters, despised and condescended to his inferiors, and hadn't changed an idea from the cradle to the grave. He was Kentish and English, and that meant hops, beer, dog-rose's, and the sort of sunshine that was best in the world. Newspapers and politics and visits to "Lunnon" weren't for the likes of him. Then came the change. These earlier chapters have given an idea of what happened to Bun Hill, and how the flood of novel things had poured over its devoted rusticity. Bert Smallways was only one of countless millions in Europe and America and Asia who, instead of being born rooted in the soil, were born struggling in a torrent they never clearly understood. All the faiths of their fathers had been taken by surprise, and startled into the strangest forms and reactions. Particularly did the fine old tradition of patriotism get perverted and distorted in the rush of the new times. Instead of the sturdy establishment in prejudice of Bert's grandfather, to whom the word "Frenchified" was the ultimate term of contempt, there flowed through Bert's brain a squittering succession of thinly violent ideas about German competition, about the Yellow Danger, about the Black Peril, about the White Man's Burthen--that is to say, Bert's preposterous right to muddle further the naturally very muddled politics of the entirely similar little cads to himself (except for a smear of brown) who smoked cigarettes and rode bicycles in Buluwayo, Kingston (Jamaica), or Bombay. These were Bert's "Subject Races," and he was ready to die--by proxy in the person of any one who cared to enlist--to maintain his hold upon that right. It kept him awake at nights to think that he might lose it.
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Jim and Dud
Jim and Dud, sturdy fellows that they were, had somewhat recovered their equilibrium and were dozing fitfully; but little Freddy was still white and wretched; and poor Brother Bart, all the ruddy glow gone from his face, lay with his hands clasping his Rosary, very sick indeed.
"Say your prayers as well as ye can, laddie,chanel wallet," he moaned to that small sufferer. "The Lord be merciful to us both if we're not to see the morning light!--Ah, are ye back, Dan Dolan?" as his eyes fell upon the wandering sheep of his flock standing beside him. "May God forgive ye for this night's work! It was the looking for ye that killed me entirely."
"O Brother Bart,air jordans for sale, no, you're not as bad as that!" said Dan,cheap moncler jackets, remorsefully; "but I'm down here now to take care of you and Freddy, and you see if I don't do it right."
And Dan, who in the old days of Tabby and the blue teapot had watched with and waited on Aunt Winnie through many a night of pain, proved as good as his word. It was as close and hot and stuffy as he had foreseen; the big boat plunged and rolled so that it was hard to keep his footing; at times he himself grew so sick that he could scarcely steady his helping hand, but he never gave up his job. He bathed poor Brother Bart's aching head with all a woman's tenderness; bandaged Freddy's throbbing temples with the cold compress that sent him off to sleep; made dizzy forays into unknown domestic departments for cracked ice and soda water; shocked Brother Bart out of what he believed his last agony by reporting everyone on the boat in "the same fix."
"We'll be in smooth water, the men say, by morning; and then you'll be all right, Brother Bart. Let me bathe your head some more, and try to go to sleep."
And when at last Brother Bart did fall asleep in the grey glimmer of the early dawn, it was a very pale, shaking, dizzy Dan that crept out on the open deck beyond the staterooms for a breath of fresh air. He could not have climbed to forbidden heights now even if he would. But they were in smooth waters, and the boat was pushing onto a sandy point, where a branch railroad came down to the shore. A dozen or more passengers were preparing to land; among them was Mr. Wirt, with a gun slung to his shoulder, a knapsack on his back, and his two great tawny dogs pulling in their leashes impatiently,--all evidently ready for a summer in the wilds.
Dan felt too weak and sick for conversation until Mr. Wirt's eye fell upon the pale, trembling boy, who, with head bared to the morning breeze, was clinging weakly to an awning post.
"Why, hello, my lad!" said the gentleman. "What's the matter. I thought you were all right when I saw you last up above."
"I was," answered Dan, grimly. "But I came down, and, jing! I've had a night of it,jordans, with Brother Bart and Freddy both dead sick on my hands."
"And you nursed them all night?" (There was an odd tremor in the speaker's voice.) "Are they better this morning?"
"Yes," answered Dan. "They are all right now, sleeping like tops; but they had a tough time. It was lucky I gave up and came down to look after them."
"Say your prayers as well as ye can, laddie,chanel wallet," he moaned to that small sufferer. "The Lord be merciful to us both if we're not to see the morning light!--Ah, are ye back, Dan Dolan?" as his eyes fell upon the wandering sheep of his flock standing beside him. "May God forgive ye for this night's work! It was the looking for ye that killed me entirely."
"O Brother Bart,air jordans for sale, no, you're not as bad as that!" said Dan,cheap moncler jackets, remorsefully; "but I'm down here now to take care of you and Freddy, and you see if I don't do it right."
And Dan, who in the old days of Tabby and the blue teapot had watched with and waited on Aunt Winnie through many a night of pain, proved as good as his word. It was as close and hot and stuffy as he had foreseen; the big boat plunged and rolled so that it was hard to keep his footing; at times he himself grew so sick that he could scarcely steady his helping hand, but he never gave up his job. He bathed poor Brother Bart's aching head with all a woman's tenderness; bandaged Freddy's throbbing temples with the cold compress that sent him off to sleep; made dizzy forays into unknown domestic departments for cracked ice and soda water; shocked Brother Bart out of what he believed his last agony by reporting everyone on the boat in "the same fix."
"We'll be in smooth water, the men say, by morning; and then you'll be all right, Brother Bart. Let me bathe your head some more, and try to go to sleep."
And when at last Brother Bart did fall asleep in the grey glimmer of the early dawn, it was a very pale, shaking, dizzy Dan that crept out on the open deck beyond the staterooms for a breath of fresh air. He could not have climbed to forbidden heights now even if he would. But they were in smooth waters, and the boat was pushing onto a sandy point, where a branch railroad came down to the shore. A dozen or more passengers were preparing to land; among them was Mr. Wirt, with a gun slung to his shoulder, a knapsack on his back, and his two great tawny dogs pulling in their leashes impatiently,--all evidently ready for a summer in the wilds.
Dan felt too weak and sick for conversation until Mr. Wirt's eye fell upon the pale, trembling boy, who, with head bared to the morning breeze, was clinging weakly to an awning post.
"Why, hello, my lad!" said the gentleman. "What's the matter. I thought you were all right when I saw you last up above."
"I was," answered Dan, grimly. "But I came down, and, jing! I've had a night of it,jordans, with Brother Bart and Freddy both dead sick on my hands."
"And you nursed them all night?" (There was an odd tremor in the speaker's voice.) "Are they better this morning?"
"Yes," answered Dan. "They are all right now, sleeping like tops; but they had a tough time. It was lucky I gave up and came down to look after them."
“It is right for us to learn all this
“It is right for us to learn all this,” they declared, “for, who knows, perhaps in future incarnations we may become inhabitants of these places.”
But though the time passed thus in comfort and indeed, compared to many of our experiences, in luxury, oh! our hearts were hungry, for in them burned the consuming fire of our quest,replica chanel handbags. We felt that we were on the threshold — yes, we knew it, we knew it, and yet our wretched physical limitations made it impossible for us to advance by a single step. On the desert beneath fell the snow, moreover great winds arose suddenly that drove those snows like dust, piling them in heaps as high as trees, beneath which any unfortunate traveller would be buried. Here we must wait, there was nothing else to be done,jordans for sale.
One alleviation we found, and only one. In a ruined room of the monastery was a library of many volumes, placed there, doubtless, by the monks who were massacred in times bygone. These had been more or less cared for and re-arranged by their successors, who gave us liberty to examine them as often as we pleased. Truly it was a strange collection, and I should imagine of priceless value, for among them were to be found Buddhistic, Sivaistic and Shamanistic writings that we had never before seen or heard of, together with the lives of a multitude of Bodhisatvas,air jordans for sale, or distinguished saints, written in various tongues, some of which we did not understand.
What proved more interesting to us, however, was a diary in many tomes that for generations had been kept by the Khubilghans or abbots of the old Lamasery, in which every event of importance was recorded in great detail. Turning over the pages of one of the last volumes of this diary, written apparently about two hundred and fifty years earlier, and shortly before the destruction of the monastery, we came upon an entry of which the following — for I can only quote from memory — is the substance —
“In the summer of this year, after a very great sandstorm, a brother (the name was given, but I forget it) found in the desert a man of the people who dwell beyond the Far Mountains,fake chanel bags, of whom rumours have reached this Lamasery from time to time. He was living, but beside him were the bodies of two of his companions who had been overwhelmed by sand and thirst. He was very fierce looking. He refused to say how he came into the desert, telling us only that he had followed the road known to the ancients before communication between his people and the outer world ceased. We gathered, however, that his brethren with whom he fled had committed some crime for which they had been condemned to die, and that he had accompanied them in their flight. He told us that there was a fine country beyond the mountains, fertile, but plagued with droughts and earthquakes, which latter, indeed, we often feel here.
“The people of that country were, he said, warlike and very numerous but followed agriculture. They had always lived there, though ruled by Khans who were descendants of the Greek king called Alexander, who conquered much country to the south-west of us. This may be true, as our records tell us that about two thousand years ago an army sent by that invader penetrated to these parts, though of his being with them nothing is said.
But though the time passed thus in comfort and indeed, compared to many of our experiences, in luxury, oh! our hearts were hungry, for in them burned the consuming fire of our quest,replica chanel handbags. We felt that we were on the threshold — yes, we knew it, we knew it, and yet our wretched physical limitations made it impossible for us to advance by a single step. On the desert beneath fell the snow, moreover great winds arose suddenly that drove those snows like dust, piling them in heaps as high as trees, beneath which any unfortunate traveller would be buried. Here we must wait, there was nothing else to be done,jordans for sale.
One alleviation we found, and only one. In a ruined room of the monastery was a library of many volumes, placed there, doubtless, by the monks who were massacred in times bygone. These had been more or less cared for and re-arranged by their successors, who gave us liberty to examine them as often as we pleased. Truly it was a strange collection, and I should imagine of priceless value, for among them were to be found Buddhistic, Sivaistic and Shamanistic writings that we had never before seen or heard of, together with the lives of a multitude of Bodhisatvas,air jordans for sale, or distinguished saints, written in various tongues, some of which we did not understand.
What proved more interesting to us, however, was a diary in many tomes that for generations had been kept by the Khubilghans or abbots of the old Lamasery, in which every event of importance was recorded in great detail. Turning over the pages of one of the last volumes of this diary, written apparently about two hundred and fifty years earlier, and shortly before the destruction of the monastery, we came upon an entry of which the following — for I can only quote from memory — is the substance —
“In the summer of this year, after a very great sandstorm, a brother (the name was given, but I forget it) found in the desert a man of the people who dwell beyond the Far Mountains,fake chanel bags, of whom rumours have reached this Lamasery from time to time. He was living, but beside him were the bodies of two of his companions who had been overwhelmed by sand and thirst. He was very fierce looking. He refused to say how he came into the desert, telling us only that he had followed the road known to the ancients before communication between his people and the outer world ceased. We gathered, however, that his brethren with whom he fled had committed some crime for which they had been condemned to die, and that he had accompanied them in their flight. He told us that there was a fine country beyond the mountains, fertile, but plagued with droughts and earthquakes, which latter, indeed, we often feel here.
“The people of that country were, he said, warlike and very numerous but followed agriculture. They had always lived there, though ruled by Khans who were descendants of the Greek king called Alexander, who conquered much country to the south-west of us. This may be true, as our records tell us that about two thousand years ago an army sent by that invader penetrated to these parts, though of his being with them nothing is said.
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