text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 1.djvu/437

 resembled his own, when a gruff cry from within of "Who the devil's that?" or "What do you want here?" caused him to steal away, on tiptoe, with a perfectly marvellous celerity. He was reduced to the verge of despair, when an open door attracted his attention. He peeped in. Right at last! There were the two beds, whose situation he perfectly remembered, and the fire still burning. His candle, not a long one when he first received it, had flickered away in the drafts of air through which he had passed, and sank into the socket as he closed the door after him. "No matter," said Mr. Pickwick, "I can undress myself just as well by the light of the fire."

The bedsteads stood one on each side of the door; and on the inner side of each was a little path, terminating in a rush-bottomed chair, just wide enough to admit of a person's getting into, or out of bed, on that side, if he or she thought proper. Having carefully drawn the curtains of his bed on the outside. Mr. Pickwick sat down on the rush-bottomed chair, and leisurely divested himself of his shoes and gaiters. He then took off and folded up his coat, waistcoat, and neckcloth, and slowly drawing on his tasseled night-cap, secured it firmly on his head, by tying beneath his chin the strings which he always had attached to that article of dress. It was at this moment that the absurdity of his recent bewilderment struck upon his mind. Throwing himself back in the rush-bottomed chair, Mr. Pickwick laughed to himself so heartily, that it would have been quite delightful to any man of well-constituted mind to have watched the smiles that expanded his amiable features as they shone forth from beneath the night-cap.

"It is the best idea," said Mr. Pickwick to himself, smiling till he almost cracked the night-cap strings: "It is the best idea, my losing myself in this place, and wandering about those staircases, that I ever heard of. Droll, droll, very droll." Here Mr. Pickwick smiled again, a broader smile than before, and was about to continue the process of undressing, in the


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 1.djvu/436

 dingy counting-house of Dodson and Fogg. From Dodson and Fogg's it flew off at a tangent, to the very centre of the history of the queer client; and then it came back to the Great White Horse at Ipswich, with sufficient clearness to convince Mr. Pickwick that he was falling asleep. So he roused himself, and began to undress, when he recollected he had left his watch on the table down stairs.

Now, this watch was a special favourite with Mr. Pickwick, having been carried about, beneath the shadow of his waist- coat, for a greater number of years than we feel called upon to state at present. The possibility of going to sleep, unless it were ticking gently beneath his pillow, or in the watch- pocket over his head, had never entered Mr. Pickwick's brain. So as it was pretty late now, and he was unwilling to ring his bell at that hour of the night, he slipped on his coat, of which he had just divested himself, and taking the japanned candlestick in his hand, walked quietly down stairs.

The more stairs Mr. Pickwick went down, the more stairs there seemed to be to descend, and again and again, when Mr. Pickwick got into some narrow passage, and began to congratulate himself on having gained the ground-floor, did another flight of stairs appear before his astonished eyes. At last he reached a stone hall, which he remembered to have seen when he entered the house. Passage after passage did he explore; room after room did he peep into; at length, as he was on the point of giving up the search in despair, he opened the door of the identical room in which he had spent the evening, and beheld his missing property on the table.

Mr. Pickwick seized the watch in triumph, and proceeded to re-trace his steps to his bed-chamber. If his progress downward had be attended with difficulties and uncertainty, his journey back was infinitely more perplexing. Rows of doors, garnished with boots of every shape, make, and size, branched off in every possible direction. A dozen times did he softly turn the handle of some bed-room door which

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 1.djvu/432

 "With pleasure," replied Mr. Pickwick. "I am not quite certain whether I have any friends here or not, though. Is there any gentleman of the name of Tupman here, waiter?"

A corpulent man, with a fortnight's napkin under his arm, and coeval stockings on his legs, slowly desisted from his occupation of staring down the street, on this question being put to him by Mr. Pickwick; and, after minutely inspecting that gentleman's appearance, from the crown of his hat to the lowest button of his gaiters, replied emphatically:

"No."

"Nor any gentleman of the name of Snodgrass?" inquired Mr. Pickwick.

"No!"

"Nor Winkle?"

"No."

"My friends have not arrived to-day, sir," said Mr. Pickwick."We will dine alone, then. Shew us a private room, waiter."

On this request being preferred, the corpulent man condescended to order the boots to bring in the gentleman's luggage; and preceding them down a long dark passage, ushered them into a large badly-furnished apartment, with a dirty grate, in which a small fire was making a wretched attempt to be cheerful, but was fast sinking beneath the dispiriting influence of the place. After the lapse of an hour, a bit of fish and a steak were served up to the travellers, and when the dinner was cleared away, Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Peter Magnus drew their chairs up to the fire, and having ordered a bottle of the worst possible port wine, at the highest possible price, for the good of the house, drank brandy and water for their own.

Mr. Peter Magnus was naturally of a very communicative disposition, and the brandy and water operated with wonderful effect in warming into life the deepest hidden secrets of his bosom. After sundry accounts of himself, his family, his connexions, his friends, his jokes, his business, and his brothers (most talkative men have a great deal to say about their


text:
Page:The lay of the Nibelungs; (IA nibelungslay00hortrich).pdf/469

XXXVIII.]

Now all this while did Wolfhart stride up and down again,

And with his sword unresting he hew’d at Gunther’s men.

A third time he the journey had made along the hall,

And many were the warriors doom’d by his hand to fall.

Then Giselher the lordly to Wolfhart loudly spake:

“Woe! that so fierce a foeman ’twas e’er my luck to make!

O noble knight and gallant, now turn thyself to me,

I’ll do my best to end it: it may no longer be.”

To Giselher, in fighting, then Wolfhart turn’d him round,

And each upon the other made many a gaping wound:

With such a mighty onset against the king he dash’d,

The blood beneath his footsteps above his head was splash’d.

With swift and deadly sword-strokes the son of Uté fair

Gave greeting unto Wolfhart, the gallant hero, there.

How strong the thane soever, he was not to be saved:

So young a king could never more boldly have behaved.

He struck a blow at Wolfhart, cleaving the hauberk good,

And over him and downwards, gush’d from the wound the blood:

Unto the death he wounded that man of Dietrich’s own;

None but a very warrior to do the like had known.

As soon as gallant Wolfhart was of the wound aware,

He let his shield slip downwards; but higher in the air

A weapon strong he wielded: it was a keen one too;

Wherewith through helm and hauberk the hero Giselher slew.


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 1.djvu/431

 part of the day. Topics of conversation were never wanting, for even when any pause occurred in Mr. Weller's loquacity, it was abundantly supplied by the desire evinced by Mr. Magnus to make himself acquainted with the whole of the personal history of his fellow-travellers, and his loudly-expressed anxiety at every stage, respecting the safety and well-being of the two bags, the leather hat-box, and the brown-paper parcel.

In the main street of Ipswich, on the left-hand side of the way, a short distance after you have passed through the open space fronting the Town Hall, stands an inn known far and wide by the appellation of The Great White Horse, rendered the more conspicuous by a stone statue of some rampacious animal with flowing mane and tail, distantly resembling an insane cart-horse, which is elevated above the principal door. The Great White Horse is famous in the neighbourhood, in the same degree as a prize ox, or county paper-chronicled turnip, or unwieldy pig—for its enormous size. Never were such labyrinths of uncarpeted passages, such clusters of mouldy, ill-lighted rooms, such huge numbers of small dens for eating or sleeping in, beneath any one roof, as are collected together between the four walls of the Great White Horse at Ipswich.

It was at the door of this overgrown tavern that the London coach stopped, at the same hour every evening; and it was from this same London coach, that Mr. Pickwick, Sam Weller, and Mr. Peter Magnus dismounted, on the particular evening to which this chapter of our history bears reference.

"Do you stop here, sir?" inquired Mr. Peter Magnus, when the striped bag, and the red bag, and the brown-paper parcel, and the leather hat-box, had all been deposited in the passage.

"Do you stop here, sir?"

"I do," said Mr. Pickwick.

"Dear me," said Mr. Magnus, "I never knew anything like these extraordinary coincidences. Why, I stop here too. I hope we dine together?"


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 1.djvu/425

 "What do you think them women does t'other day," continued Mr. Weller, after a short pause, during which he had significantly struck the side of his nose with his fore-finger some half-dozen times. "What do you think they does, t'other day, Sammy?"

"Don't know," replied Sammy, "what?"

"Goes and gets up a grand tea drinkin' for a feller they calls their shepherd," said Mr. Weller. "I was a standing starin' in at the pictur shop down at our place, when I sees a little bill about it; 'tickets half-a-crown. All applications to be made to the committee. Secretary, Mrs. Weller;' and when I got home there was the committee a sittin' in our back parlour. Fourteen women; I wish you could ha' heard 'em, Sammy. There they was, a passin' resolutions, and wotin' supplies, and all sorts o' games. Well, what with your mother-in-law a worrying me to go, and what with my looking for'ard to seein' some queer starts if I did, I put my name down for a ticket; at six o'clock on the Friday evenin' I dresses myself out wery smart, and off I goes with the old 'ooman, and up we walks into a fust floor where there was tea things for thirty, and a whole lot o' women as begins whisperin' at one another, and lookin' at me, as if they'd never seen a rayther stout gen'lm'n of eight-and-fifty afore. By and bye, there comes a great bustle down stairs, and a lanky chap with a red nose and a white neckcloth rushes up, and sings out, 'Here's the shepherd a coming to wisit his faithful flock;' and in comes a fat chap in black, vith a great white face, a smilin' avay like clockwork. Such goin's on, Sammy! The kiss of peace,' says the shepherd; and then he kissed the women all round, and ven he'd done, the man vith the red nose began. I was just a thinkin' whether I hadn't better begin too—'specially as there was a wery nice lady a sittin' next me—ven in comes the tea, and your mother-in-law, as had been makin' the kettle bile down stairs. At it they went, tooth and 'nail. Such a precious loud hymn, Sammy, while the tea was a brewing; such a grace, such eatin' and drinkin'! I


text:
Page:The Sense of the Past (London, W. Collins Sons & Co., 1917).djvu/23

 on her nerves and her senses, that might win from her a second surrender. Strange he had always thought it that her first had been, against all the likelihoods, Townsend Coyne, so queer though so clever, so damaged, to the extent even of considerably looking it, yet somehow so little touching in proportion, and so suggestive of experience, or at least of overstrained and ambiguous knowledges, by the large expense of it all, as who should say, rather than by equivalents accruing in the way of wisdom or grace. Ralph reflected as to this, at the same time, that in the case of a relation of that intimacy, really of that obscurity, nothing was appreciable from outside; this was the commonest wisdom of life—little indeed as it governed the general pretence of observation that no one but the given man and the given woman could possibly know the truth, or indeed any of the conditions, of the state of their being so closely bound. It didn't matter now therefore that the conditions of the Coynes had put him a question impossible to answer; the answer was Aurora's own, for whatever future application, whatever determination of her further conduct: she had been admirable and inscrutable—that was the only clearness; though indeed with it one might at a stretch inwardly remark that if the future did owe her amends she probably saw them as numerous.

Could she have shown him, at any rate, in a 9


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 1.djvu/418

 "'Name any sum,' said the stranger, his hand trembling so violently with excitement, that he could scarcely hold the pen he seized as he spoke; 'Any sum, and it is yours. Don't be afraid to name it, man. I shall not think it dear, if you gain my object."

"The attorney named a large sum, at hazard, as the advance he should require to secure himself against the possibility of loss; but more with the view of ascertaining how far his client was really disposed to go, than with any idea that he would comply with the demand. The stranger wrote a cheque upon his banker, for the whole amount, and left him.

"The draft was duly honoured, and the attorney, finding that his strange client might be safely relied upon, commenced his work in earnest. For more than two years afterwards, Mr. Heyling would sit whole days together, in the office, poring over the papers as they accumulated, and reading again and again, his eyes gleaming with joy, the letters of remonstrance, the prayers for a little delay, the representations of the certain ruin in which the opposite party must be involved, which poured in, as suit after suit, and process after process, was commenced. To all applications for a brief indulgence, there was but one reply—the money must be paid. Land, house, furniture, each in its turn, was taken under some one of the numerous executions which were issued; and the old man himself would have been immured in prison had he not escaped the vigilance of the officers, and fled.

"The implacable animosity of Heyling, so far from being satiated by the success of his persecution, increased a hundredfold with the ruin he inflicted. On being informed of the old man's flight, his fury was unbounded. He gnashed his teeth with rage, tore the hair from his head, and assailed with horrid imprecations the men who had been entrusted with the writ. He was only restored to comparative calmness by repeated assurances of the certainty of discovering the fugitive. Agents were sent in quest of him, in all directions; every


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 1.djvu/415

 sometimes until night had completely closed in, and the long shadows of the frowning cliffs above his head, cast a thick black darkness on every object near him.

"He was seated here, one calm evening in his old position, now and then raising his head to watch the flight of a seagull, or carry his eye along the glorious crimson path, which, commencing in the middle of the ocean, seemed to lead to its very verge where the sun was setting, when the profound stillness of the spot was broken by a loud cry for help; he listened, doubtful of his having heard aright, when the cry was repeated with even greater vehemence than before, and starting to his feet, he hastened in the direction whence it proceeded.

"The tale told itself at once: some scattered garments lay on the beach; a human head was just visible above the waves at a little distance from the shore; and an old man, wringing his hands in agony, was running to and fro, shrieking for assistance. The invalid, whose strength was now sufficiently restored, threw off his coat, and rushed towards the sea, with the intention of plunging in, and dragging the drowning man a-shore.

"'Hasten here, sir, in God's name; help, help, sir, for the love of Heaven. He is my son, sir, my only son!' said the old man, frantically, as he advanced to meet him. 'My only son, sir, and he is dying before his father's eyes!'

"At the first word the old man uttered, the stranger checked himself in his career, and, folding his arms, stood perfectly motionless.

"'Great God!' exclaimed the old man, recoiling. 'Heyling!?

"The stranger smiled, and was silent.

"'Heyling!" said the old man, wildly: 'My boy, Heyling, my dear boy, look, look!' gasping for breath, the miserable father pointed to the spot where the young man was struggling for life.

"'Hark!" said the old man. 'He cries once more. He is alive yet. Heyling, save him, save him!"


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 1.djvu/414

 It was he again! He wound his arms round the old man's body, and held him back. He struggled, and shrieked for water, for but one drop of water to save his life! But he held the old man firmly, and watched his agonies with greedy eyes; and when his lifeless head fell forward on his bosom, he rolled the corpse from him with his feet.

"When the fever left him, and consciousness returned, he awoke to find himself rich and free: to hear that the parent who would have let him die in gaol—would! who had let those who were far dearer to him than his own existence, die of want and sickness of heart that medicine cannot cure-had been found dead on his bed of down. He had had all the heart to leave his son a beggar, but proud even of his health and strength, had put off the act till it was too late, and now might gnash his teeth in the other world, at the thought of the wealth his remissness had left him. He awoke to this, and he awoke to more. To recollect the purpose for which he lived, and to remember that his enemy was his wife's own father—the man who had cast him into prison, and who, when his daughter and her child sued at his feet for mercy, had spurned them from his door. Oh, how he cursed the weakness that prevented him from being up, and active, in his scheme of vengeance!

"He caused himself to be carried from the scene of his loss and misery, and conveyed to a quiet residence on the sea-coast; not in the hope of recovering his peace of mind or happiness, for both were fled for ever; but to restore his prostrate energies, and meditate on his darling object. And here, some evil spirit cast in his way the opportunity for his first, most horrible revenge.

"It was summer time; and wrapped in his gloomy thoughts, he would issue from his solitary lodgings early in the evening, and wandering along a narrow path beneath the cliffs, to a wild and lonely spot that had struck his fancy in his ramblings, seat himself on some fallen fragment of the rock, and burying his face in his hands, remain there for hours—-


text:
Page:The lay of the Nibelungs; (IA nibelungslay00hortrich).pdf/470

392

So had they one another to cruel death fordone,

And then of Dietrich’s lieges there lived but one alone.

When Hildebrand the ancient beheld how Wolfhart fell,

I trow, until his ending, such grief he ne’er could tell.

The men-at-arms of Gunther were dead now everyone,

As likewise those of Dietrich; and Hildebrand had gone

Unto the place where Wolfhart was lying in the blood:

Within his arms he folded that warrior brave and good.

Fain would he from the chamber have borne him bodily,

But he was all too weighty, he e’en must let him lie.

The dying man uplifted his eyes amid the blood,

And saw well that his kinsman would help him if he could.

“My well-belovéd uncle,” the dying one then said,

“At this time it avails not to give me any aid.

Now ware you well of Hagen! ay, take my words for good;

For in his heart he nurses an ever cruel mood.

“If after death my kinsfolk for me should mourning be,

Unto my next and dearest I bid you say for me

That they for me must weep not: need for it is there none,

Here lie I slain in honour, by kingly hands fordone.

“So throughly here, moreover, have I avenged my life,

That cause indeed for wailing hath many a good knight’s wife:

If anyone should ask you so may you answer plain,

A good five score are lying whom I myself have slain.”


text:
Page:The Sense of the Past (London, W. Collins Sons & Co., 1917).djvu/24

 burst of confidence, this compensating vision, he would have liked exceedingly to see it, even at whatever cost to his own pride; but she nursed it now, at least to begin with, in silence, only signing faintly, to his embarrassment, with her grand thick-braided head. What this most suggested to him was that if at twenty-two she had married a condemned consumptive she wouldn't now, at thirty, marry a mere thinker—which was what Ralph amusedly knew himself to pass for in New York, where the character indeed is held almost as much in honour as that of the dervish in the East and where once, at his door, it had been all but set down to him as professional by the man calling about the Census or the Directory. Aurora Coyne's backers, her ancestor and her late husband's, as Park Avenue so often termed grandparents and parents, were members of the local Chamber of Commerce, but he himself should more fitly have been a Malatesta or a Sforza: then she might have been contracted to a despot or a condottiere. Within the quarter of an hour he had completely lowered his crest. "I see, I see," he said, "I'm even less possible to you than I feared; and heaven knows I hadn't sinned by presumption." She continued to say little in reply—so little that, to ease positively for herself the awkwardness of so few attenuations, he risked expressing her view, risked even, for charity, making her contradict him. He imputed to her 10


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 1.djvu/413

 whirlpool which the sinking wreck occasioned, arose a shriek so loud and shrill—the death-cry of a hundred drowning creatures, blended into one fierce yell—that it rung far above the war-cry of the elements, and echoed, and re-echoed till it seemed to pierce air, sky, and ocean. But what was that—that old grey-head that rose above the water's surface, and with looks of agony, and screams for aid, buffeted with the waves! One look, and he had sprung from the vessel's side, and with vigorous strokes was swimming towards it. He reached it; he was close upon it. They were his features. The old man saw him coming, and vainly strove to elude his grasp. But he clasped him tight, and dragged him beneath the water. Down, down with him, fifty fathoms down; his struggles grew fainter and fainter, until they wholly ceased. He was dead; he had killed him, and had kept his oath.

"He was traversing the scorching sands of a mighty desert, barefoot and alone. The sand choked and blinded him; its fine thin grains entered the very pores of his skin, and irritated him almost to madness. Gigantic masses of the same material, carried forward by the wind, and shone through, by the burning sun, stalked in the distance like pillars of living fire. The bones of men, who had perished in the dreary waste, lay scattered at his feet; a fearful light fell on everything around; so far as the eye could reach, nothing but objects of dread and horror presented themselves. Vainly striving to utter a cry of terror, with his tongue cleaving to his mouth, he rushed madly forward. Armed with supernatural strength, he waded through the sand, until exhausted with fatigue and thirst, he fell senseless on the earth. What fragrant coolness revived him; what gushing sound was that? Water! It was indeed a well; and the clear fresh stream was running at his feet. He drank deeply of it, and throwing his aching limbs upon the bank, sunk into a delicious trance. The sound of approaching footsteps roused him. An old grey-headed man tottered forward to slake his burning thirst.


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 1.djvu/412

 from the prison, without delay. He received the communication with perfect calmness, and acquiesced in its propriety. Nearly all the inmates of the prison had assembled to witness its removal; they fell back on either side when the widower appeared; he walked hurriedly forward, and stationed himself, alone, in a little railed area close to the lodge gate, from whence the crowd, with an instinctive feeling of delicacy, had retired. The rude coffin was borne slowly forward on men's shoulders. A dead silence pervaded the throng, broken only by the audible lamentations of the women, and the shuffling steps of the bearers on the stone pavement. They reached the spot where the bereaved husband stood: and stopped. He laid his hand upon the coffin, and mechanically adjusting the pall with which it was covered, motioned them onward. The turnkeys in the prison lobby took off their hats as it passed through, and in another moment the heavy gate closed behind it. He looked vacantly upon the crowd, and fell heavily to the ground.

"Although for many weeks after this, he was watched, night and day, in the wildest ravings of fever, neither the consciousness of his loss, nor the recollection of the vow he had made, ever left him for a moment. Scenes changed before his eyes, place succeeded place, and event followed event, in all the hurry of delirium; but they were all connected in some way with the great object of his mind. He was sailing over a boundless expanse of sea, with a blood-red sky above, and the angry waters, lashed into fury beneath, boiling and eddying up, on every side. There was another vessel before them, toiling and labouring in the howling storm: her canvas fluttering in ribbons from the mast, and her deck thronged with figures who were lashed to the sides, over which huge waves every instant burst, sweeping away some devoted creatures into the foaming sea. Onward they bore, amidst the roaring mass of water, with a speed and force which nothing could resist; and striking the stern of the foremost vessel. crushed her, beneath their keel. From the huge


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 1.djvu/409

 give vent to the tears that blinded her; for no expression of interest or amusement lighted up his thin and sickly face. His recollections were few enough, but they were all of one kind: all connected with the poverty and misery of his parents. Hour after hour had he sat on his mother's knee, and with childish sympathy watched the tears that stole down her face, and then crept quietly away into some dark corner, and sobbed himself to sleep. The hard realities of the world, with many of its worst privations—hunger and thirst, and cold and want—had all come home to him, from the first dawnings of reason; and though the form of childhood was there, its light heart, its merry laugh, and sparkling eyes, were wanting.

"The father and mother looked on upon this, and upon each other, with thoughts of agony they dared not breathe in words. The healthy, strong-made man, who could have borne almost any fatigue of active exertion, was wasting beneath the close confinement and unhealthy atmosphere of a crowded prison. The slight and delicate woman was sinking beneath the combined effects of bodily and mental illness. The child's young heart was breaking.

"Winter came, and with it weeks of cold and heavy rain. The poor girl had removed to a wretched apartment close to the spot of her husband's imprisonment; and though the change had been rendered necessary by their increasing poverty, she was happier now, for she was nearer him. For two months, she and her little companion watched the opening of the gate as usual. One day she failed to come, for the first time. Another morning arrived, and she came alone. The child was dead.

"They little know, who coldly talk of the poor man's bereavements, as a happy release from pain to the departed, and a merciful relief from expense to the survivor—they little know, I say, what the agony of those bereavements is. A silent look of affection and regard when all other eyes are turned coldly away—the consciousness that we possess the


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 1.djvu/408

 340 THE PICKWICK CLUB. resound in it from morn to midnight, but the streets around are mean and close; poverty and debauchery lie festering in the crowded alleys; want and misfortune are pent up in the narrow prison; an air of gloom and dreariness seems, in my eyes at least, to hang about the scene, and to impart to it a squalid and sickly hue.

"Many eyes, that have long since been closed in the grave, have looked round upon that scene lightly enough, when entering the gate of the old Marshalsea Prison for the first time for despair seldom comes with the first severe shock of misfortune. A man has confidence in untried friends, he remembers the many offers of service so freely made by his boon companions when he wanted them not; he has hope—the hope of happy inexperience—and however he may bend beneath the first shock, it springs up in his bosom, and flourishes there for a brief space, until it droops beneath the blight of disappointment and neglect. How soon have those same eyes, deeply sunken in the head, glared from faces wasted with famine, and sallow from confinement, in days when it was no figure of speech to say that debtors rotted in prison, with no hope of release, and no prospect of liberty! The atrocity in its full extent no longer exists, but there is enough of it left to give rise to occurrences that make the heart bleed.

"Twenty years ago, that pavement was worn with the footsteps of a mother and child, who, day by day, so surely as the morning came, presented themselves at the prison gate; often after a night of restless misery and anxious thoughts, were they there, a full hour too soon, and then the young mother turning meekly away, would lead the child to the old bridge, and raising him in her arms to show him the glistening water, tinted with the light of the morning's sun, and stirring with all the bustling preparations for business and pleasure that the river presented at that early hour, endeavour to interest his thoughts in the objects before him. But she would quickly set him down, and hiding her face in her shawl,


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 1.djvu/406

 possession with the greatest pleasure; but I should like to ask you one question, if you will allow me.' 'Say on,' said the apparition, sternly. Well,' said the tenant, I don't apply the observation personally to you, because it is equally applicable to most of the ghosts I ever heard of; but it does appear to me somewhat inconsistent, that when you have an opportunity of visiting the fairest spots of earth—for I suppose space is nothing to you—you should always return exactly to the very places where you have been most miserable." 'Egad, that's very true; I never thought of that before,' said the ghost. You see, sir,' pursued the tenant, 'this is a very uncomfortable room. From the appearance of that press, I should be disposed to say that it is not wholly free from bugs; and I really think you might find much more comfortable quarters: to say nothing of the climate of London, which is extremely disagreeable.' 'You are very right, sir,' said the ghost, politely, it never struck me till now; I'll try change of air directly.' In fact, he began to vanish as he spoke: his legs, indeed, had quite disappeared. And if, sir,' said the tenant, calling after him, 'if you would have the goodness to suggest to the other ladies and gentlemen who are now engaged in haunting old empty houses, that they might be much more comfortable elsewhere, you will confer a very great benefit on society.' 'I will,' replied the ghost; 'we must be dull fellows, very dull fellows, indeed; I can't imagine how we can have been so stupid.' With these words, the spirit disappeared; and what is rather remarkable," added the old man, with a shrewd look round the table, "he never came back again."

"That ain't bad, if it's true," said the man in the Mosaic studs, lighting a fresh cigar.

"If!" exclaimed the old man, with a look of excessive contempt. "I suppose," he added, turning to Lowten, "he'll say next, that my story about the queer client we had, when I was in an attorney's office, is not true, either—I shouldn't wonder."


text:
Page:The Necromancer, or, The Tale of the Black Forest Vol. 2.djvu/70

 "You know," my brave companions, "that this rascal here," (pointing at me) "is the servant of the wretch who has dared to watch in our Castle with armed numbers. The daring scoundrel and his two associates are punished; famine and thirst have seized their victims with merciless fangs, tormenting them with excruciating pains, with agony and black despair; on our next nocturnal visit to the Castle, we shall see them lifeless on the ground. You know how the daring fools have been vexed, teazed and tormented by Father Francis. It was glorious sun, we have been amused with their foolish credulity, and are now amply avenged on these bold disturbers of our nocturnal assembly."

"The villagers are not yet punished," continued he, "for having assisted them, but they shall not escape their doom. Our future safety demands the destruction of the village, and its environs, but, tell me, what shall we do with that fellow there?


text:
Page:The lay of the Nibelungs; (IA nibelungslay00hortrich).pdf/471

XXXVIII.]

Meanwhile had Hagen likewise upon the minstrel thought,

Whom Hildebrand the valiant unto his end had brought.

Then spake he to the warrior: “My loss thou shalt requite,

For here thou hast bereft us of many a goodly knight.”

He struck a blow at Hildebrand, such that one might have told

The hissing sound of Balmung, the sword that Hagen bold

From Siegfried’s self had taken when he that hero slew;

The blow the old man parried: ay! he was valiant too.

The warrior of Dietrich against the Tronian knight

His weapon broad uplifted, that keenly too could smite,

To wound the man of Gunther yet might he not prevail.

Then once again smote Hagen through well-wrought coat of mail.

Now when the old Sir Hildebrand was of the wound aware,

More evil yet he dreaded from Hagen’s hand to bear.

His shield the man of Dietrich threw back behind his head,

And, desperately wounded, the chief from Hagen fled.

Of all the knightly warriors remain’d there but a pair,—

Save Gunther’s self and Hagen none others living were.

Old Hildebrand all bleeding in flight had safety sought,

And when he came to Dietrich a woeful tale he brought.

He saw his master sitting with visage woe-begone,—

The prince was yet more sorry when he his tale had done;

Upon the bloody hauberk of Hildebrand look’d he,

And sought of him his tidings in all anxiety.


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 1.djvu/405

 ore to break up your old carcase, than it would ever be worth afterwards, I'd have a fire out of you in less than no time.' He had hardly spoken the words, when a sound resembling a faint groan, appeared to issue from the interior of the case. It startled him at first, but thinking, on a moment's reflection, that it must be some young fellow in the next chamber, who had been dining out, he put his feet on the fender, and raised the poker to stir the fire. At that moment, the sound was repeated: and one of the glass doors slowly opening, disclosed a pale and emaciated figure in soiled and worn apparel, standing erect in the press. The figure was tall and thin, and the countenance expressive of care and anxiety; but there was something in the hue of the skin, and gaunt and unearthly appearance of the whole form, which no being of this world was ever seen to wear. 'Who are you?' said the new tenant, turning very pale: poising the poker in his hand, however, and taking a very decent aim at the countenance of the figure. Who are you?' 'Don't throw that poker at me,' replied the form; 'If you hurled it with ever so sure an aim, it would pass through me, without resistance, and expend its force on the wood behind. I am a spirit.' And, pray, what do you want here?' faltered the In this room,' replied the apparition, 'my worldly ruin was worked, and I and my children beggared. In this press, the papers in a long, long suit, which accumulated for years, were deposited. In this room, when I had died of grief, and long-deferred hope, two wily harpies divided the wealth for which I had contested during a wretched existence, and of which, at last, not one farthing was left for my unhappy descendants. I terrified them from the spot, and since that day have prowled by night—the only period at which I can re-visit the earth—about the scenes of my long-protracted misery. This apartment is mine: leave it to me.' 'If you insist upon making your appearance here,' said the tenant, who had had time to collect his presence of mind during this prosy statement of the ghost's, 'I shall give up


text: Page:Poems Allen.djvu/167

title: Page:Poems Allen.djvu/167


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 1.djvu/403

 "The benchers determined to have his door broken open, as he hadn't paid any rent for two years. So they did. Forced the lock; and a very dusty skeleton in a blue coat, black knee-shorts, and silks, fell forward in the arms of the porter who opened the door. Queer, that. Rather, perhaps?" The little old man put his head more on one side, and rubbed his hands with unspeakable glee.

"I know another case," said the little old man, when his chuckles had in some degree subsided. "It occurred in Clifford's Inn. Tenant of a top set—bad character—shut himself up in his bed-room closet, and took a dose of arsenic. The steward thought he had run away; opened the door, and put a bill up. Another man came, took the chambers, furnished them, and went to live there. Somehow or other he couldn't sleep—always restless and uncomfortable. 'Odd,' says he. I'll make the other room my bed-chamber, and this my sitting-room.' He made the change, and slept very well at night, but suddenly found that, somehow, he couldn't read in the evening: he got nervous and uncomfortable, and used to be always snuffing his candles and staring about him. 'I can't make this out,' said he, when he came home from the play one night, and was drinking a glass of cold grog, with his back to the wall, in order that he mightn't be able to fancy there was any one behind him—'I can't make it out,' said he; and just then his eyes rested on the little closet that had been always locked up, and a shudder ran through his whole frame from top to toe. I have felt this strange feeling before,' said he, I cannot help thinking there's something wrong about that closet.' He made a strong effort, plucked up his courage, shivered the lock with a blow or two of the poker, opened the door, and there, sure enough, standing bolt upright in the corner, was the last tenant, with a little bottle clasped firmly in his hand, and his face—well! As the little old man concluded, he looked round on the attentive faces of his wondering auditory with a smile of grim delight.


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 1.djvu/400

 "By Jove," said the chairman, whispering across the table to Mr. Pickwick, "you have hit upon something that one of us, at least, would talk upon for ever. You'll draw old Jack Bamber out; he was never heard to talk about anything else but the Inns, and he has lived alone in them till he's half crazy."

The individual to whom Lowten alluded, was a little yellow high-shouldered man, whose countenance, from his habit of stooping forward when silent, Mr. Pickwick had not observed before. He wondered though, when the old man raised his shrivelled face, and bent his.grey eye upon him, with a keen inquiring look, that such remarkable features could have escaped his attention for a moment. There was a fixed grim smile perpetually on his countenance; he leant his chin on a long skinny hand, with nails of extraordinary length; and as he inclined his head to one side, and looked keenly out from beneath his ragged grey eyebrows, there was a strange, wild slyness in his leer, quite repulsive to behold.

This was the figure that now started forward, and burst into an animated torrent of words. As this chapter has been a long one, however, and as the old man was a remarkable personage, it will be more respectful to him, and more convenient to us, to let him speak for himself in a fresh one.


text:
Page:The Necromancer, or, The Tale of the Black Forest Vol. 2.djvu/71

 He is well fed, and seems not to be without strength, my advice is to make him our companion."

"We will, we will," roared the whole troop.

Then their terrible leader resumed, "he must give us to night a specimen of his dexterity."

"He shall, he shall," was the universal cry. I trembled like a wretched culprit who hears his sentence pronounced, when the speaker addressed me thus:

"Fellow! thou hast heard what an honor we have conferred on thee, we expect that thou wilt be faithful to us, oaths are as little valued among robbers, as they are in hell, and a hand-stroke will satisfy us, give me thy right hand as a token of unshaken fidelity."


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 1.djvu/377

 mysterious and unaccountable thing that was ever heard of. For a lame man to have got upon his legs without any previous notice, and walked off, would have been most extraordinary; but when it came to his wheeling a heavy barrow before him, by way of amusement, it grew positively miraculous. They searched every nook and corner round, together and separately; they shouted, whistled, laughed, called—and all with the same result. Mr. Pickwick was not to be found. After some hours of fruitless search, they arrived at the unwelcome conclusion that they must go home without him.

Meanwhile Mr. Pickwick had been wheeled to the Pound, and safely deposited therein, fast asleep in the wheelbarrow, to the immeasurable delight and satisfaction, not only of all the boys in the village, but three-fourths of the whole population, who had gathered round, in expectation of his waking. If their most intense gratification had been excited by seeing him wheeled in, how many hundredfold was their joy increased when, after a few indistinct cries of "Sam!" he sat up in the barrow, and gazed with indescribable astonishment on the faces before him.

A general shout was of course the signal of his having woke up; and his involuntary inquiry of "What's the matter?" occasioned another, louder than the first, if possible.

"Here's a game!" roared the populace.

"Where am I?" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick.

"In the Pound," replied the mob.

"How came I here? What was I doing? Where was I brought from?"

"Boldwig! Captain Boldwig!" was the only reply.

"Let me out," cried Mr. Pickwick. Where's my servant? Where are my friends?"

"You an't got no friends. Hurrah!" Then there came a turnip, then a potato, and then an egg: with a few other little tokens of the playful disposition of the many-headed.

How long this scene might have lasted, or how much Mr. Pickwick might have suffered, no one can tell, had not a


text:
Page:The lay of the Nibelungs; (IA nibelungslay00hortrich).pdf/472

394

“Now tell me, Master Hildebrand, why are ye in this state,

And reeking with your life-blood? or who hath done you that?

I ween that in the palace you with the guests have fought:

So strictly I forbade it that ye in nowise ought.”

Unto his lord he answer’d: “’Twas Hagen did it all!

He set on me and gave me this wound within the hall,

E’en as I from the warrior to turn myself began.

And hither from that devil barely with life I ran!”

Then he of Bern made answer: “Ye are but served aright!

Seeing that ye had heard me swear friendship with the knight,

And then ye break the peace-pledge granted to him by me:

Would it not ever shame me your life should forfeit be.”

“Now be ye not so wrathful, my good Lord Dietrich, pray!

On me and on my kinsfolk the loss too hard doth weigh.

We purposed from the palace to carry Rüdeger;

To grant it all unwilling King Gunther’s liegemen were.”

“Now woe upon such tidings! is Rüdeger then dead?

This is the greatest sorrow that e’er I sufferéd.

The noble Gotelinda is child of aunt of mine.

Ay! woe for the poor orphans who at Bechlaren pine.”

His death weigh’d sorely on him, with ruth and sorrow great.

He fell to bitter weeping; sad was the hero’s strait:

“Woe for my trusty helpmate who now is lost to me!

Ay! of King Etzel’s liegeman the like I ne’er shall see.


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 1.djvu/344

 Nathaniel Pipkin standing bolt upright inside, and shaking with apprehension from head to foot. Bless us! what an appalling look old Lobbs gave him, as he dragged him out by the collar, and held him at arm's length.

"'Why, what the devil do you want here?" said old Lobbs, in a fearful voice.

"Nathaniel Pipkin could make no reply, so old Lobbs shook him backwards and forwards, for two or three minutes, by way of arranging his ideas for him. had odw "'What do you want here?' roared Lobbs, 'I suppose you have come after my daughter, now?'

"Old Lobbs merely said this as a sneer: for he did not believe that mortal presumption could have carried Nathaniel Pipkin so far. What was his indignation, when that poor man replied:

"'Yes, I did, Mr. Lobbs. I did come after your daughter. I love her, Mr. Lobbs."

"'Why, you snivelling, wry-faced, puny villain,' gasped old Lobbs, paralysed by the atrocious confession; 'what do you mean by that? Say this to my face! Damme, I'll throttle you!"

"It is by no means improbable that old Lobbs would have carried this threat into execution, in the excess of his rage, if his arm had not been stayed by a very unexpected apparition, to wit, the male cousin, who, stepping out of his closet, and walking up to old Lobbs, said:

"'I cannot allow this harmless person, sir, who has been asked here, in some girlish frolic, to take upon himself, in a very noble manner, the fault (if fault it is) which I am guilty of, and am ready to avow. I love your daughter, sir; and I am here for the purpose of meeting her.' of meeting her.'

"Old Lobbs opened his eyes very wide at this, but not wider than Nathaniel Pipkin.

"'You did?' said Lobbs: at last finding breath to speak.

"'I did."

"'And I forbade you this house, long ago.'


text:
Page:The Necromancer, or, The Tale of the Black Forest Vol. 2.djvu/72

 Trembling did I obey his stern command, and he bade me to take courage, to abandon all fear, and to follow him. The torches were extinguished, the robbers began to converse in an unintelligible accent, the horns were sounded, the whole troop set spurs to their horses, rushing over the fields like a midnight tempest; I felt myself seized by the arm, and my horse pulled by the bridle after them. After a short ride the voice of the terrible leader ordered us to halt.

"Here," said he to me, "is a gun and a whistle! The former thou art to use in case of necessity, and the latter as soon as a waggon or a coach passes the road."

This said, he rode away, but methought I heard another horseman not far from me.

Now I began to consult with myself what I should do, whether I should betray the innocent traveller, or suffer him to escape: My mind shrunk back from the horrid idea of


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 1.djvu/404

 "What strange things these are you tell us of, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, minutely scanning the old man's countenance, by the aid of his glasses.

"Strange!" said the little old man. "Nonsense; you think them strange, because you know nothing about it. They are funny, but not uncommon."

"Funny!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, involuntarily.

"Yes, funny, are they not?" replied the little old man, with a diabolical leer; and then, without pausing for an answer, he continued:

"I knew another man—let me see—forty years ago now—who took an old, damp, rotten set of chambers, in one of the most ancient Inns, that had been shut up and empty for years and years before. There were lots of old women's stories about the place, and it certainly was very far from being a cheerful one; but he was poor, and the rooms were cheap, and that would have been quite a sufficient reason for him, if they had been ten times worse than they really were. He was obliged to take some mouldering fixtures that were on the place, and, among the rest, was a great lumbering wooden press for papers, with large glass doors, and a green curtain inside; a pretty useless thing for him, for he had no papers to put in it; and as to his clothes, he carried them about with him, and that wasn't very hard work, either. Well, he had moved in all his furniture—it wasn't quite a truck-full—and had sprinkled it about the room, so as to make the four chairs look as much like a dozen as possible, and was sitting down before the fire at night, drinking the first glass of two gallons of whiskey he had ordered on credit, wondering whether it would ever be paid for, and if so, in how many years' time, when his eyes encountered the glass doors of the wooden press. 'Ah,' says he. If I hadn't been obliged to take that ugly article at the old broker's valuation, I might have got something comfortable for the money. I'll tell you what it is, old fellow,' he said, speaking aloud to the press, having nothing else to speak to: 'If it wouldn't cost


text:
Page:The lay of the Nibelungs; (IA nibelungslay00hortrich).pdf/473

XXXVIII.]

“Now must ye, Master Hildebrand, tell me the story true.

Which of the warriors was it who him so foully slew?”

“That did the stalwart Gernot by strength of arm,” he said:

“By Rüdeger’s hand the hero is also lying dead.”

To Hildebrand then spake he: “Now let my liegemen know

That they must straightway arm them, for thither will I go;

And bid them bring me hither my shirt of shining mail.

From the Burgundian heroes myself I’ll have the tale.”

Then Hildebrand made answer: “Who shall now go with thee?

None others hast thou living but what thou here dost see;

I am thine only liegeman; the others all are dead.”

He shudder’d at these tidings— in sooth, there was good need,

For never such great sorrow he in this world had known.

He spake: “And if my liegemen are truly dead and gone,

Then am I God-forsaken, I, Dietrich, wretched wight!

Erewhile a noble sovran and full of power and might.”

“How could such thing have happen’d?” spake Dietrich once again,

“These far-renownéd heroes,— that all of them are slain

By men with fighting weary, in sore necessity!

But for mine evil fortune, death still afar would be.

“Seeing my doom avails not to ward from me this ill,

Now tell me, of the guest-folk are any living still?”

Then Master Hildebrand answer’d: “God knoweth, only twain—

Hagen to wit, and Gunther the noble king—remain.”


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 1.djvu/226

 known the truth. I could have screamed with ecstasy when I dined alone with some fine roaring fellow, to think how pale he would have turned, and how fast he would have run, if he had known that the dear friend who sat close to him, sharpening a bright glittering knife, was a madman with all the power, and half the will, to plunge it in his heart. Oh, it was a merry life!

"Riches became mine, wealth poured in upon me, and I rioted in pleasures enhanced a thousandfold to me by the consciousness of my well-kept secret. I inherited an estate. The law—the eagle-eyed law itself—had been deceived, and had handed over disputed thousands to a madman's hands. Where was the wit of the sharp-sighted men of sound mind? Where the dexterity of the lawyers, eager to discover a flaw? The madman's cunning had over-reached them all.

"I had money. How I was courted! I spent it profusely. How I was praised! How those three proud overbearing brothers humbled themselves before me! The old white-headed father, too—such deference—such respect—such devoted friendship—he worshipped me! The old man had a daughter, and the young men a sister; and all the five were poor. I was rich; and when I married the girl, I saw a smile of triumph play upon the faces of her needy relatives, as they thought of their well-planned scheme, and their fine prize. It was for me to smile. To smile! To laugh outright, and tear my hair, and roll upon the ground with shrieks of merriment. They little thought they had married her to a madman.

"Stay. If they had known it, would they have saved her? A sister's happiness against her husband's gold. The lightest feather I blow into the air, against the gay chain that ornaments my body!

"In one thing I was deceived with all my cunning. If I had not been mad—for though we madmen are sharp-witted enough, we get bewildered sometimes—I should have known that the girl would rather have been placed, stiff and cold


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 1.djvu/277

 "You'll very likely ask me why, as Tom Smart had been pretty well blown already, he expressed this wish to be submitted to the same process again. I can't say—all I know is, that Tom Smart said so—or at least he always told my uncle he said so, and it's just the same thing.

""Blow me,' says Tom Smart; and the mare neighed as if she were precisely of the same opinion.

"'Cheer up, old girl,' said Tom, patting the bay mare on the neck with the end of his whip. It won't do pushing on, such a night as this; the first house we come to we'll put up at, so the faster you go the sooner it's over. Soho, old girl—gently—gently.'

"Whether the vixenish mare was sufficiently well acquainted with the tones of Tom's voice to comprehend his meaning, or whether she found it colder standing still than moving on, of course I can't say. But I can say that Tom had no sooner finished speaking, than she pricked up her ears, and started forward at a speed which made the clay-coloured gig rattle till you would have supposed every one of the red spokes were going to fly out on the turf of Marlborough Downs; and even Tom, whip as he was, couldn't stop or check her pace, until she drew up, of her own accord, before a road-side inn on the right-hand side of the way, about half a quarter of a mile from the end of the Downs.

"Tom cast a hasty glance at the upper part of the house as he threw the reins to the hostler, and stuck the whip in the box. It was a strange old place, built of a kind of shingle, inlaid, as it were, with cross-beams, with gabled-topped windows projecting completely over the pathway, and a low door with a dark porch, and a couple of steep steps leading down into the house, instead of the modern fashion of half a dozen shallow ones leading up to it. It was a comfortable-looking place though, for there was a strong cheerful light in the bar-window, which shed a bright ray across the road, and even lighted up the hedge on the other side; and there was a red flickering light in the opposite window, one moment but


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 1.djvu/475

 Once more was a joint reply returned; and, though the words were inaudible, Sam saw by the motion of the two pairs of lips that they had uttered the magic word "Pickwick."

This was enough. In another minute Mr. Weller had made his way through the crowd, stopped the chairmen, and confronted the portly Grummer.

"Hallo, old gen'l'm'n!" said Sam. "Who have you got in this here conwayance?"

"Stand back," said Mr. Grummer, whose dignity, like the dignity of a great many other men, had been wondrously augmented by a little popularity.

"Knock him down, if he don't," said Mr. Dubbley.

"I'm wery much obliged to you, old gen'l'm'n," replied Sam, "for consulting my conwenience, and I'm still more obliged to the other gen'l'm'n, who looks as if he'd just escaped from a giant's carrywan, for his wery 'ansome suggestion; but I should perfer your givin' me a answer to my question, if it's all the same to you.—How are you, sir?" This last observation was addressed with a patronising air to Mr. Pickwick, who was peeping through the front window.

Mr. Grummer, perfectly speechless with indignation, dragged the truncheon with the brass crown from its particular pocket, and flourished it before Sam's eyes.

"Ah," said Sam, "it's wery pretty, 'specially the crown, which is uncommon like the real one.

"Stand back!" said the outraged Mr. Grummer. By way of adding force to the command, he thrust the brass emblem of royalty into Sam's neckcloth with one hand, and seized Sam's collar with the other: a compliment which Mr. Weller returned by knocking him down out of hand: having previously, with the utmost consideration, knocked down a chairman for him to lie upon.

Whether Mr. Winkle was seized with a temporary attack of that species of insanity which originates in a sense of injury, or animated by this display of Mr. Weller's valour, is uncertain; but certain it is, that he no sooner saw Mr.


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 1.djvu/495

 who took his meals in the wash-house, immediately responded. Mr. Weller was in the height of his attentions to the pretty house-maid; Mr. Muzzle was busy doing the honours of the table; and the cook had just paused to laugh, in the very act of raising a huge morsel to her lips; when the kitchen-door opened, and in walked Mr. Job Trotter.

We have said in walked Mr. Job Trotter, but the statement is not distinguished by our usual scrupulous adherence to fact. The door opened and Mr. Trotter appeared. He would have walked in, and was in the very act of doing so, indeed, when catching sight of Mr. Weller, he involuntarily shrank back a pace or two, and stood gazing on the unexpected scene before him, perfectly motionless with amazement and terror.

"Here he is!" said Sam, rising with great glee. "Why we were that wery moment a speaking o' you. How are you? Where have you been? Come in."

Laying his hand on the mulberry collar of the unresisting Job, Mr. Weller dragged him into the kitchen; and, locking the door, handed the key to Mr. Muzzle, who very coolly battoned it up in a side-pocket.

"Well, here's a game!' cried Sam. "Only think o' my master havin' the pleasure o' meeting your'n, up stairs, and me havin' the joy o' meetin' you down here. How are yor gettin' on, and how is the chandlery bis'ness likely to do? Well, I am so glad to see you. How happy you look. It's quite a treat to see you; ain't it, Mr. Muzzle?"

"Quite," said Mr. Muzzle.

"So cheerful he is!" said Sam.

"In such good spirits!" said Muzzle.

"And so glad to see us—that makes it so much more comfortable," said Sam. "Sit down; sit down."

Mr. Trotter suffered himself to be forced into a chair by the fireside. He cast his small eyes, first on Mr. Weller, and then on Mr. Muzzle, but said nothing.

"Well, now," said Sam, "afore these here ladies, I should jest like to ask you, as a sort of curiosity, wether you don't


text:
Page:The Necromancer, or, The Tale of the Black Forest Vol. 2.djvu/73

 becoming accessary to the destruction of a fellow creature, but how could I avoid it if I would not myself fall a victim to the cruelty of my infernal companions? Life is the sweetest gift of heaven, and not easy to be parted with.

While I was in deliberation with myself, what course to take, I heard the rattling of a coach within a little distance from me, and a violent trembling seized my limbs: The coach came nearer and my trembling increased. Without knowing what I was about, I was going to apply the whistle to my lips, my hand trembled, a sudden stupor seized me, the whistle dropped to the ground, and the coach passed by in full speed; at the same time I heard somebody whistle behind me, soon after the report of three guns, accompanied with cries and lamentations, struck my ear; a female voice was praying for mercy, loud acclamations filled the air, and soon after all was hushed in profound silence.


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 1.djvu/532

 "Mother," said Wardle, "Mr. Pickwick. You recollect him?"

"Never mind," replied the old lady with great dignity. "Don't trouble Mr. Pickwick about an old creetur like me. Nobody cares about me now, and it's very nat'ral they shouldn't." Here the old lady tossed her head, and smoothed down her lavender-coloured silk dress, with trembling hands.

"Come, come, ma'am," said Mr. Pickwick, "I can't let you cut an old friend in this way. I have come down expressly to have a long talk, and another rubber with you; and we'll show these boys and girls how to dance a minuet, before they're eight-and-forty hours older."

The old lady was rapidly giving way, but she did not like to do it all at once; so she only said, "Ah! I can't hear him!"

"Nonsense, mother," said Wardle. "Come, come, don't be cross, there's a good soul. Recollect Bella; come, you must keep her spirits up, poor girl."

The good old lady heard this, for her lip quivered as her son said it. But age has its little infirmities of temper, and she was not quite brought round yet. So, she smoothed down the lavender-coloured dress again, and turning to Mr. Pickwick said, "Ah, Mr. Pickwick, young people was very different, when I was a girl."

"No doubt of that, ma'am," said Mr. Pickwick, "and that's the reason why I would make much of the few that have any traces of the old stock,"—and saying this, Mr. Pickwick gently pulled Bella towards him, and bestowing a kiss upon her forehead, bade her sit down on the little stool at her grandmother's feet. Whether the expression of her countenance, as it was raised towards the old lady's face, called up a thought of old times, or whether the old lady was touched by Mr. Pickwick's affectionate good nature, or whatever was the cause, she was fairly melted; so she threw herself on her grand-daughter's neck, and all the little ill-humour evaporated in a gush of silent tears.


text:
Page:Celtic Stories by Edward Thomas.djvu/15

 'Certainly not!' said Cathbad.

'Brat!' said Conachoor in anger, 'then thou art a liar!'

'Be not angry, O King,' said Cohoolin, 'it was Cathbad who put this into my head, though he did not mean to do so. I was playing just now when I overheard him teaching magic, and one of his pupils asked what to-day was good for, and Cathbad answered that the lad who took arms this day would make a name above all others in Ireland, but that his life would be short. Then I came to you.'

'Yes, yes!' said Cathbad, 'it is true. Thou hast taken arms, Cohoolin, and thou shalt be famous above all men, and thou shalt run thy course very swiftly.'

'I care little,' said Cohoolin, 'if I run it in one day if the memory of it shall last.'

'Well,' said Cathbad, 'mount thy chariot, Cohoolin, the course begins.'

A chariot was brought for Cohoolin, and he drove it so as to try it. He started furiously, with whip-strokes like flints cracking in a fire. He made the chariot curve like a snake and twist suddenly like a snipe. He stopped dead, and overthrew the chariot in fragments. Many other chariots were brought, and either at the start, or in mid-career, or at the mad stopping, he destroyed them all. Turning to Conachoor he laughed, saying:

'O Conachoor, these chariots were not meant for me.'

'Jubar, son of Riangabar!' cried Conachoor, and his charioteer answered:

'I am here!'

'Yoke my chariot for Cohoolin!'

Then Cohoolin mounted the king's chariot and took the reins from the charioteer and drove in all manner of courses. No two were the same, and all were as


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 1.djvu/535

 he threw over her neck a rich gold watch and chain, which no mortal eyes but the jeweller's had ever beheld before. Then, the old church bell rang as gaily as it could, and they all returned to breakfast.

"Vere does the mince pies go, young opium eater?" said Mr. Weller to the fat boy, as he assisted in laying out such articles of consumption as had not been duly arranged on the previous night.

The fat boy pointed to the destination of the pies.

"Wery good," said Sam, "stick a bit o' Christmas in 'em. T'other dish opposite. There; now we look compact and comfortable, as the father said ven he cut his little boy's head off, to cure him o' squintin'."

As Mr. Weller made the comparison, he fell back a step or two, to give full effect to it, and surveyed the preparations with the utmost satisfaction.

"Wardle," said Mr. Pickwick, almost as soon as they were all seated, "a glass of wine, in honour of this happy occasion!"

"I shall be delighted, my boy," said Wardle. "Joe—damn that boy, he's gone to sleep."

"No, I ain't, sir," replied the fat boy, starting up from a remote corner, where, like the patron saint of fat boys—the immortal Horner—he had been devouring a Christmas pie: though not with the coolness and deliberation which characterised that young gentleman's proceedings.

"Fill Mr. Pickwick's glass."

"Yes, sir."

The fat boy filled Mr. Pickwick's glass, and then retired behind his master's chair, from whence he watched the play of the knives and forks, and the progress of the choice morsels from the dishes to the mouths of the company, with a kind of dark and gloomy joy that was most impressive.

"God bless you, old fellow!" said Mr. Pickwick.

"Same to you, my boy," replied Wardle; and they pledged each other, heartily.


text:
Page:The lay of the Nibelungs; (IA nibelungslay00hortrich).pdf/474

396

“Dear Wolfhart, woe betide me! if thou from me art torn,

Too quickly may I rue me that ever I was born!

And Siegestab and Wolfwin, and none the less Wolfbrand.

Who now shall help my journey back to the Amelungs’ land?

Helfrich the ever gallant, and have they laid him low?

And Gerebart and Wichart,— how weep for them enow?

Of all my joy and pleasure the ending is this day:

Fain would I die for sorrow— alas that no man may!”

Then for himself Lord Dietrich sought out a suit to wear,

And Master Hildebrand help’d him to don his fighting gear.

So sore was the lamenting made by the stalwart man,

That all the house to echo with his loud voice began.

But quickly he recover’d a fitting hero’s mood,

And grimly was his armour donn’d by that warrior good.

A shield compact right firmly he carried in his hand;—

Then straightway forth he sallied with Master Hildebrand.

Spake Hagen, lord of Tronjé: “I see there, drawing nigh,

The noble warrior Dietrich; for that great injury

That here hath him befallen, he will upon us set.

This day ’twill be discover’d who doth the honours get.


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 1.djvu/537

 "Ladies and gentlemen," said Mr. Pickwick, suddenly rising.

"Hear, hear! Hear, hear! Hear, hear!" cried Mr. Weller, in the excitement of his feelings.

"Call in all the servants," cried old Wardle, interposing to prevent the public rebuke which Mr. Weller would otherwise most indubitably have received from his master. "Give them a glass of wine each, to drink the toast in. Now, Pickwick."

Amidst the silence of the company, the whispering of the women servants, and the awkward embarrassment of the men, Mr. Pickwick proceeded.

"Ladies and gentlemen-no, I won't say ladies and gentlemen, I'll call you my friends, my dear friends, if the ladies will allow me to take so great a liberty"

Here Mr. Pickwick was interrupted by immense applause from the ladies, echoed by the gentlemen, during which the owner of the eyes was distinctly heard to state that she could kiss that dear Mr. Pickwick. Whereupon Mr. Winkle gallantly inquired if it couldn't be done by deputy: to which the young lady with the black eyes replied, "Go away"—and accompanied the request with a look which said as plainly as a look could do"if you can."

"My dear friends," resumed Mr. Pickwick, "I am going to propose the health of the bride and bridegroom—God bless 'em (cheers and tears). My young friend, Trundle, I believe to be a very excellent and manly fellow; and his wife I know to be a very amiable and lovely girl, well qualified to transfer to another sphere of action the happiness which for twenty years she has diffused around her, in her father's house. (Here, the fat boy burst forth into stentorian blubberings, and was led forth by the coat collar, by Mr. Weller.) I wish," added Mr. Pickwick, "I wish I was young enough to be her sister's husband (cheers), but, failing that, I am happy to be old enough to be her father; for, being so, I shall not be suspected of any latent designs when I say, that I admire, esteem, and love them both (cheers and sobs). The bride's father, our good friend there, is a noble person,


text: The Lay of the Nibelungs/Chapter 38

title: The Lay of the Nibelungs/Chapter 38


text:
Page:Celtic Stories by Edward Thomas.djvu/16

 fantastical as the flying of a pewit in March. At last he made the horses gallop as straight as an arrow up to a stone wall, and then, having stopped them dead, lashed them over the wall itself.

'That will do very well, O Conachoor!' he said, 'this is a chariot in all ways suitable to me.'

The charioteer stepped down and said:

'That may be true, Cohoolin, but I doubt if thou art suitable to the chariot or to the horses. Come, let the horses go now into the meadows.'

'It is early yet, good Jubar. Let us away and drive round the plain of Emania.'

'Another time, perhaps; but the horses ought now to be grazing.'

'It is too early. I must go, and on my way I will see my companions.'

So Cohoolin drove to the green where the boys were playing.

'Do not go away from us, Cohoolin!' said the youngest.

'Give me a ride!' said one.

'Whose chariot is this?' asked another.

'Where are you going?' asked several.

'Thou hast taken arms to-day, Cohoolin,' said the oldest, 'O that it had been any other day!'

'But it is my day,' said Cohoolin, 'I chose it and it was chosen for me. Farewell.'

The boy band wished him triumph and safety, and though Jubar again asked him to let the horses be unharnessed he drove away.

They came at length into a broad track that could be seen running with a bold curve far away, and Cohoolin asked whither it went. 'To the Look-out Ford,' answered Jubar. At that ford every day and night stood one of the chiefs of Ulster, keeping watch and


text:
Page:Trustee Act 1925 (UKPGA Geo5-15-16-19 qp).pdf/11

 [15 7.—(1) A trustee may, unless expressly prohibited by the instrument creating the trust, retain or invest in securities payable to bearer which, if not so payable, would have been authorised investments:

Provided that securities to bearer retained or taken as an investment by a trustee (not being a trust corporation) shall, until sold, be deposited by him for safe custody and collection of income with a banker or banking company.

A direction that investments shall be retained or made in the name of a trustee shall not, for the purposes of this subsection, be deemed to be such an express prohibition as aforesaid.

(2) A trustee shall not be responsible for any loss incurred by reason of such deposit, and any sum payable in respect of such deposit and collection shall be paid out of the income of the trust property.

8.—(1) A trustee lending money on the security of any property on which he can properly lend shall not be chargeable with breach of trust by reason only of the proportion borne by the amount of the loan to the value of the property at the time when the loan was made, if it appears to the court—
 * (a) that in making the loan the trustee was acting upon a report as to the value of the property made by a person whom he reasonably believed

to be an able practical surveyor or valuer instructed.and employed independently of any owner of the property, whether such surveyor or valuer carried on business in the locality where the property is situate or elsewhere; and
 * (b) that the amount of the loan does not exceed two third parts of the value of the property as stated in the report; and
 * (c) that the loan was made under the advice of the surveyor or valuer expressed in the report.

(2) A trustee lending money on the security of any leasehold property shall not be chargeable with breach of trust only upon the ground that in making such loan he dispensed either wholly or partly with the production or investigation of the lessor’s title.

7


text:
Page:The Sense of the Past (London, W. Collins Sons & Co., 1917).djvu/25

 not quite a wish to dismiss him wounded, yet making her care enough to contradict him would a little diminish his defeat. "The one kind of man you could really fancy would be some big adventurer. You'll marry the day you meet one of your own proportions and general grand style, a filibuster or a buccaneer. You might do with a great soldier—all the more that there are some such about; yet even that is not the exact note. You won't of course confess to it, but he should have a shade of the ruffian. It's a pity there are no more pirates—you'd have doted on Paul Jones. The adventurer isn't enough—your ideal's the desperado. I too, however, in my way, am desperate. But I'm too intellectual."

"You know," she presently replied, "how clever I've always thought you."

"Well then you see how clever I am. I've put my finger straight on the place. You can't deny it. I see you as you are, and you don't see me; so that after all I've in a manner the advantage."

She spoke always but after little intervals; yet not as if to show she had taken one's words in, for his at least were never directly met. "I haven't waited till now to feel that you'd never be happy with me. I'm quite too stupid."

"That's but a way of saying that I'm quite too small. What need have I, all the same, of anyone else's wit?" 11


text: Page:Joan of Arc - Southey (1796).djvu/337


text:
Page:Trustee Act 1925 (UKPGA Geo5-15-16-19 qp).pdf/12

 [ (3) A trustee shall not be chargeable with breach of trust only upon the ground that in effecting the purchase, or in lending money upon the security, of any property he has accepted a shorter title than the title which a purchaser is, in the absence of a special contract, entitled to require, if in the opinion of the court the title accepted be such as a person acting with prudence and caution would have accepted.

(4) This section applies to transfers of existing securities as well as to new securities and to investments made before as well as after the commencement of this Act.

9.—(1) Where a trustee improperly advances trust money on a mortgage security which would at the time of the investment be a proper investment in all respects for a smaller sum than is actually advanced thereon, the security shall be deemed an authorised investment for the smaller sum, and the trustee shall only be liable to make good the sum advanced in excess thereof with interest.

(2) This section applies to investments made before as well as after the commencement of this Act.

10.—(1) Trustees lending money on the security of any property on which they can lawfully lend may contract that such money shall not be called in during any period not exceeding seven years from the time when the loan was made, provided interest be paid within a specified time not exceeding thirty days after every half-yearly or other day on which it becomes due, and provided there be no breach of any covenant by the mortgagor contained in the instrument of mortgage or charge for the maintenance and protection of the property.

(2) On a sale of land for an estate in fee simple or for a term having at least five hundred years to run by trustees or by a tenant for life or statutory owner, the trustees, or the tenant for life or statutory owner on behalf of the trustees of the settlement, may, where the proceeds are liable to be invested, contract that the payment of any part, not exceeding two-thirds, of the purchase money shall be secured by a charge by way of legal mortgage or a mortgage by demise or subdemise for a term of at least five hundred years (less a nominal reversion when by sub-demise), of the land sold, with or

8


text:
Page:Trustee Act 1925 (UKPGA Geo5-15-16-19 qp).pdf/13

 [15 without the security of any other property, such charge or mortgage, if any buildings are comprised in the mortgage, to contain a covenant by the mortgagor to keep them insured against loss or damage by fire to the full value thereof.

The trustees shall not be bound to obtain any report as to the value of the land or other property to be comprised in such charge or mortgage, or any advice as to the making of the loan, and shall not be liable for any loss which may be incurred by reason only of the security being insufficient at the date of the charge or mortgage; and the trustees of the settlement shall be bound to give effect to such contract made by the tenant for life or statutory owner.

(3) Where any securities of a company are subject to a trust, the trustees may concur in any scheme or arrangement—
 * (a) for the reconstruction of the company;
 * (b) for the sale of all or any part of the property and undertaking of the company to another company;
 * (c) for the amalgamation of the company with another company;
 * (d) for the release, modification, or variation of any rights, privileges or liabilities attached to the securities or any of them;

in like manner as if they were entitled to such securities beficially, with power to accept any securities of any denomination or description of the reconstructed or purchasing or new company in lieu of or in exchange for all or any of the first-mentioned securities; and the trustees shall not be responsible for any loss occasioned by any act or thing so done in good faith, and may retain any securities so accepted as aforesaid for any period for which they could have properly retained the original securities.

(4) If any conditional or preferential right to subscribe for any securities in any company is offered to trustees in respect of any holding in such company, they may as to all or any of such securities, either exercise such right and apply capital money subject to the trust in payment of the consideration, or renounce such right, or assign for the best consideration that can be reasonably obtained the benefit of such right or the title thereto to

9


text:
Page:Poems Allen.djvu/168

156

title: Page:Poems Allen.djvu/168


text:
Page:Trustee Act 1925 (UKPGA Geo5-15-16-19 qp).pdf/14

 [ any person, including any beneficiary under the trust, without being responsible for any loss occasioned by any act or thing so done by them in good faith:

Provided that the consideration for any such assignment shall be held as capital money of the trust.

(5) The powers conferred by this section shall be exercisable subject to the consent of any person whose consent to a change of investment is required by law or by the instrument, if any, creating the trust.

(6) Where the loan referred to in subsection (1), or the sale referred to in subsection (2), of this section is made under the order of the court, the powers conferred by those subsections respectively shall apply only if and as far as the court may by order direct.

11.—(1) Trustees may, pending the negotiation and preparation of any mortgage or charge, or during any other time while an investment is being sought to for, pay any trust money into a bank to a deposit or other account, and all interest, if any, payable in respect thereof shall be applied as income.

(2) Trustees may apply capital money subject to a trust in payment of the calls on any shares subject to the same trust.

General Powers.

12.—(1) Where a trust for sale or a power of sale of property is vested in a trustee, he may sell or concur with any other person in selling all or any part of the property, either subject to prior charges or not, and either together or in lots, by public auction or by private contract, subject to any such conditions respecting title or evidence of title or other matter as the trustee thinks fit, with power to vary any contract for sale, and to buy in at any auction, or to rescind any contract for sale and to re-sell, without being answerable for any loss.

(2) A trust or power to sell or dispose of land includes a trust or power to sell or dispose of part thereof, whether the division is horizontal, vertical, or made in any other way.

10


text:
Page:Celtic Stories by Edward Thomas.djvu/17

 ready to answer the challenge of any foreign champion wishing to cross. Now Conall the Victorious was at the ford and Cohoolin asked him to give up his place for the day, but he would not because Cohoolin was too young. Furthermore, when he said that he would go to Loch Echtra to find an opponent Conall offered to join him as a protector, and persisted in coming, though against Cohoolin's will. Cohoolin started first, but the other's chariot soon drew up with him. Then Cohoolin picked up a stone that was just a fistful, and hurled it with all his might at Conall's chariot yoke. Conall was thrown out, and angrily asked him:

'What is that for?'

'Oh, I was testing my aim.'

'That is it, is it? Well, bad luck to thee and thy aim, and I will not move another step to help thee whatever happens.'

'That is just as I wish.'

When they reached Loch Echtra, Jubar said:

'Turn back now, O Cohoolin, for the carving has begun in Conachoor's hall, and it will soon be too late for me to get a mouthful even by the usual scramble with the jesters and messengers of the king.'

Cohoolin answered:

'Oh, then drive on, Jubar.'

But when they came in sight of a mountain he asked its name, and what was the meaning of the white cairn upon its crest. The mountain was pleasant to his eyes that afternoon, and he bade Jubar drive that way and kept him to it in spite of his sulkiness. When they reached the cairn Cohoolin mounted it, and looking about him pointed to a peak here and a long ridge there, and here a fort and there a plain, and he asked their names and Jubar told him. Cohoolin thanked him, but suddenly


text: Page:Constitution of India (9 Sep 2020).pdf/2


text:
Page:Trustee Act 1925 (UKPGA Geo5-15-16-19 qp).pdf/15

 [15 (3) This section does not enable an express power to sell settled land to be exercised where the power is not vested in the tenant for life or statutory owner.

13.—(1) No sale made by a trustee shall be impeached by any beneficiary upon the ground that any of the conditions subject to which the sale was made may have been unnecessarily depreciatory, unless it also appears that the consideration for the sale was thereby rendered inadequate.

(2) No sale made by a trustee shall, after the execution of the conveyance, be impeached as against the purchaser upon the ground that any of the conditions subject to which the sale was made may have been unnecessarily depreciatory, unless it appears that the purchaser was acting in collusion with the trustee at the time when the contract for sale was made.

(3) No purchaser, upon any sale made by a trustee, shall be at liberty to make any objection against the title upon any of the grounds aforesaid.

(4) This section applies to sales made before or after the commencement of this Act.

14.—(1) The receipt in writing of a trustee for any money, securities, or other personal property or effects payable, transferable, or deliverable to him under any trust or power shall be a sufficient discharge to the person paying, transferring, or delivering the same and shall effectually exonerate him from seeing to the application or being answerable for any loss or misapplication thereof.

(2) This section does not, except where the trustee is a trust corporation, enable a sole trustee to give a valid receipt for—
 * (a) the proceeds of sale or other capital money arising under a disposition on trust for sale of land;
 * (b) capital money arising under the Settled Land Act, 1925.

(3) This section applies notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the instrument, if any, creating the trust.

11


text:
Page:Poems Allen.djvu/169

Rh

title: Page:Poems Allen.djvu/169


text:
Page:Trustee Act 1925 (UKPGA Geo5-15-16-19 qp).pdf/16

 [ 15. A personal representative, or two or more trustees acting together, or, subject to the restrictions imposed in regard to receipts by a sole trustee not being a trust corporation, a sole acting trustee where by the instrument, if any, creating the trust, or by statute, a sole trustee is authorised to execute the trusts and powers reposed in him, may, if and as he or they think fit—
 * (a) accept any property, real or personal, before the time at which it is made transferable or payable; or
 * (b) sever and apportion any blended trust funds. or property; or
 * (c) pay or allow any debt or claim on any evidence that he or they think sufficient; or
 * (d) accept any composition or any security, real or personal, for any debt or for any property, real or personal, claimed; or
 * (e) allow any time of payment of any debt; or
 * (f) compromise, compound, abandon, submit to arbitration, or otherwise settle any debt, account, claim, or thing whatever relating to the testator’s or intestate’s estate or to the trust;

and for any of those purposes may enter into, give, execute, and do such agreements, instruments of composition or arrangement, releases, and other things as to him or them seem expedient, without being responsible for any loss occasioned by any act or thing so done by him or them in good faith,

16.—(1) Where trustees are authorised by the instrument, if any, creating the trust or by law to pay or apply capital money subject to the trust for any purpose or in any manner, they shall have and shall be deemed always to have had power to raise the money required by sale, conversion, calling in, or mortgage of all or any part of the trust property for the time being in possession.

(2) This section applies notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in the instrument, if any, creating the trust, but does not apply to trustees of property held for charitable purposes, or to trustees of a settlement for the purposes of the Settled Land Act, 1925, not being also the statutory owners.

12


text: Page:Poems Allen.djvu/170

title: Page:Poems Allen.djvu/170


text: Page:Poems Allen.djvu/171

title: Page:Poems Allen.djvu/171


text:
Page:Plays by Jacinto Benavente - Third series (IA playstranslatedf03benauoft).pdf/15

If Lope de Vega, the Monster and Phœnix of Genius, is the most prolific of writers for the theatre, Jacinto Benavente may be accounted the most various and most baffling. A brilliant sophistication conceals and disguises the depth of his human feeling, mellowed by an experience which is at once highly idealized and of almost pedestrian common sense, presenting to the casual reader an enigma quite impossible of solution. The drama of the unconscious mind is, however, essentially a drama of contradictions. To have developed this subtle and most subjective of psychologic dramas among a people as crassly unmetaphysical as the Spaniards, who, through their picaresque tradition, have been parents of modern realism, is a stroke of subconscious humor as apposite as unexpected.

It has been said that the new theatre is constant only in its inconstancy. It has been pictured as unstable. Protean, presenting through its diversity the aspects of the work of several distinct individuals. Undoubtedly the consensus of critical opinion must be accepted as just, certainly in the superficial sphere, yet variety can never be inexhaustible. If criticism is to stop here, already its function has been abdicated. Art derives its richness from principles, from whose vigor its life is renewed. The richer, the more vital it is, the deeper its roots must be caught. Benavente's theatre, is not a theatre of change, it is a theatre of equivocation, of underlying realities as opposed to a world of appearances. His plays are so suggestive, so validly disparate because they are more profoundly conceived than other plays, more intimately born of the spirit. His drama is double in focus, moving upon double planes, poised between the objective vii


text:
Page:Plays by Jacinto Benavente - Third series (IA playstranslatedf03benauoft).pdf/16

 and the subjective, between the conscious and the unconscious and unexplored. This is both its history and its explanation. It is all embracing and comprehensive for the reason that it is based upon a recognition of the irreducible dualism of life, and unfolds through a triple series of dualities—a double characterization, a double ideation, and a double plot or action, which are its distinguishing characteristics. The utter absence of sensational or disproportionately salient features renders it imperative that such dramas should be approached with a clear appreciation of their fundamentally subjective quality in order that the absolute unity of their conception and purpose may not escape the reader's mind in his attention to the trivial and the accidental.

The first article in Benavente's dramatic creed is the maintenance of the integrity of the objective world, an apparent respect for fact in itself. An external story is not only present in his plays, but, except in fantasy, it appears as self-sustaining and self-sufficient, provided with adequate motivation, constituting by every rule of the familiar theatre, a complete play. When the nature of the theme will permit, the story is decked out with all the apparatus and parade of mere external drama, upon which a dialogue has been imposed so sparkling and vivacious, so fertile in poetic and philosophic suggestion, that it challenges comparison because of its superficial virtues alone with the masterpieces of the objective stage. Although the logic of fact may be purely illusory, nevertheless it is the truth by which men live, coloring and conventionalizing the daily routine. Truth which is apparent to the senses, cannot habitually be questioned directly by the playwright. Benavente differs, therefore, from other dramatists of the unconscious primarily in the absolute inviolability of his external plot. The foreground, boldly and carefully elaborated, serves as a screen behind which the subjective drama is developed, but to accept the outward story at its face value, failing sedulously to perceive that it is but one of the pivots upon which the action turns, is an error so inviting that, in season and out, it has proved the undoing of a majority of the students of the Benaventian theatre.


text:
Page:Celtic Stories by Edward Thomas.djvu/18

 stopped him when he mentioned the fort of the sons of Nechtan, asking eagerly:

'Are those Nechtan's sons of whom men say that they have slain more men of Ulster than are now alive?'

'They are.'

'Then drive to the fort.'

On a green in front of the fort was a stone pillar, with an inscription saying that no man entering the green might leave it without challenging one of the men of the fort. After reading this Cohoolin put his arms round the stone and loosened it and heaved it into the water close by. 'It is no better there than where it was,' said Jubar. But Cohoolin bade him spread out the chariot coverings for a bed, and he threw himself down and slept.

As Jubar expected, one of the men of the fort came out—Foill, the son of Nechtan.

'Whose horses are these?' he asked.

'Conachoor's piebalds.'

'So I thought. Who brought them to these borders?'

'A slip of a boy who has taken arms this day and is showing what he can do.'

'Bad luck to him, and if he was fit for battle he should never go back alive.'

'But he is not fit, he is a boy,' said Jubar in kindness.

At this Cohoolin leapt to his feet with a blush and said:

'I am fit for battle.'

'I do not think so,' sneered Foill.

'Then thou shalt learn the truth. Go fetch thy weapons. I do not slay charioteers, messengers, or people of that sort, or those without weapons.' While Foill ran to arm himself Jubar told Cohoolin that this


text:
Page:Poems Allen.djvu/172

160

title: Page:Poems Allen.djvu/172


text:
Page:Poems Allen.djvu/173

Rh

title: Page:Poems Allen.djvu/173


text:
Page:Celtic Stories by Edward Thomas.djvu/19

 man could not be wounded by point of spear or edge of sword. Cohoolin scoffed at the warning: he knew what to do. He took a ball of iron and threw it at the approaching warrior. It struck him in the middle of the forehead and broke in and out again behind, so that the air went through where the brain had been. Cohoolin cut off his head and kept it.

Now a second son of Nechtan, named Tuachell, came out.

'Thou needest not boast,' he said.

'I do not boast of killing one man,' retorted Cohoolin

'Then thou wilt never boast, for thou shalt die by this hand,' said Tuachell.

'Get thy weapons,' said Cohoolin.

Tuachell went away rapidly. Jubar was anxious: he told Cohoolin that if Tuachell was not slain by the first blow he would never be slain. The boy took Conachoor's spear called the Venomous, and at the first approach of Tuachell pierced him through with it so that he died.

At this Fainnle, the youngest of Nechtan's sons, came out.

'Thou hast been fighting with simpletons,' he said, and asked Cohoolin to come away from the ford to the deep water.

'Be careful,' said Jubar, 'this is Fainnle the Swallow, called so because of his swiftness in the water.'

'But I also have swum in the water, in the river at Emania,' said Cohoolin.

Fainnle and Cohoolin walked into the ford, and when they could no longer walk they began to wrestle. Cohoolin did not trouble to drown his foe, but cut off his head and let the body drift down stream. After that, Cohoolin and Jubar harried the fort and set fire


text:
Page:Constitution of India (9 Sep 2020).pdf/3

This edition of the Constitution of India reproduces the text of the Constitution of India as amended by Parliament from time to time. All amendments made by Parliament up to and including the Constitution (One Hundred and Fourth Amendment) Act, 2019 are incorporated in this edition. The foot notes below the text indicate the Constitution Amendment Acts by which such amendments have been made.

The Constitution (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Order, 2019 has been provided in APPENDIX - I for reference.

The text of the constitutional amendments relating to the Constitution (Forty-fourth Amendment) Act, 1978 and the Constitution (Eighty-eighth Amendment) Act, 2003, which have not yet come into force, have been provided in the text at the appropriate places or otherwise in the footnote. The text of these amendments have been provided in APPENDIX - II and APPENDIX - III for reference.

The Constitution (One Hundredth Amendment) Act, 2015 containing details of acquired and transferred territories between the Governments of India and Bangladesh has been provided in APPENDIX - IV.

New Delhi; 9th September, 2020.

Dr. G. Narayana Raju, Secretary to the Government of India.


text: Page:Poems Allen.djvu/174

title: Page:Poems Allen.djvu/174


text: Page:Poems Allen.djvu/175

title: Page:Poems Allen.djvu/175


text:
Page:Celtic Stories by Edward Thomas.djvu/20

 to it and took away with them the three heads of Nechtan's sons.

On their way towards Emania they saw a herd of what Cohoolin thought were very restless cattle. They were the wild deer of that country. The boy was eager to catch them, but the fat chariot horses could not come up with the wild deer. So he dismounted, and ran down two of the great stags and fastened them unhurt to his chariot. Further on they saw a flock of wild swans. Cohoolin asked if they were tame swans or wild, and, learning that they were wild, wanted to know whether it would be more creditable to bring them back dead or alive. 'Any one may bring them back dead,' said Jubar. So Cohoolin fitted a small stone into his sling and hurled it and entangled eight of the swans together. At another cast he caught twice as many, and he fastened all of them to his chariot.

Under the full moon Cohoolin drove into the palace courts with the heads of the sons of Nechtan bumping on his chariot sides, the deer racing at the back, and the swans flying behind them. The calling of the swans, with their long trumpet necks, awakened the palace, and the king's messenger called out:

'Behold a warrior coming in his chariot, O King. He is alone. He is beautiful and terrible to see, and the bleeding heads of his enemies hang on his chariot. Stags of the mountain follow behind and white birds fly after him, because they must.'

By this Conachoor knew that Cohoolin had returned from his first day's adventure, and had shown himself worthy of the sword, the spear, the shield, and the chariot. 'Old Morann was right,' thought the king, 'when he prophesied at the boy's birth that the praise of him should be on the lips of kings, warriors, and


text:
Page:Celtic Stories by Edward Thomas.djvu/21

 bards. Would that we could keep him for ever to guard our fords and lead our armies. But I should not be surprised if Cathbad was right also when he said that his course would be swift and soon to end; for never before was there a young warrior who did deeds like these on his first day.'


text: Celtic Stories/The Boyhood of Cohoolin

title: Celtic Stories/The Boyhood of Cohoolin


text:
Page:Poems Allen.djvu/176

164

title: Page:Poems Allen.djvu/176