The Tragic Comedians, Complete

summer's morning sunlight, his warmth striking instantly through her blood dispersed any hesitating strangeness that sometimes gathers during absences,

him, and feeling in his bright presence not the faintest chill of the fit of shyness, she took her bravery of heart for a sign that she had reached his level, and might own

see a photo

ed those features of the budless grey woman. The eyelids in such scrutinies reveal the cr

uring. He named a grandmaternal date

templation of those disenchanting

head, still eyeing earth as her hand stretched forth the

as a woman fair to see in the days twenty years back, thou

ttle. For the first time since they had come together she had a clear advantage, and as it was likely to be a rar

he said,

I cannot feel rivalry,'

g head provoked him to defend the baroness f

olled' her

, by Lavater! You were young-and daringly adventurous; she was c

aised the girl, as of course she dese

that it is just a little-a trifle different. The fact is, I cannot kill the past, and I would not. It would try me sharply to break the tie connecting us, were it possible to break it. I am bound to her by gratitude. She is old now; and were she twice that age, I should retain my feeling for her. You raise your eyes, Clotilde! Well, when I was much younger I found this lady in desperate ill-fortune, and she honoured me with her confidence. Young man though I was, I defended her; I stopped at no measure to defend her: against a powerful husband, remember-the most unscrupulous of foes, who sought to rob her of every right she possessed. And what I did then I again w

had said all that cou

of these trees among its well-robed fellows fronting them was all lichen-smitten. From the low sweeping

screeching, mildish, childish epistle to her, and you shall read

ou in a day. En avant! contre les canons! A run to Lake Leman brings us to them in the afternoon. I shall see you in

a portion of money would be

besotted public, that judges of the merit of the work by the standard of its taste: avaunt! And journalism for money is Egyptian bondage. No slavery is comparable to the chains of h

rself,' said Clotilde. 'I would ra

tree. It was the sole tree of the host clad thus in scurf bearing a semblan

ll not be poor in renown!' he resum

to be Sigismund Alvan'

y restored and in his own upper element, expansive after the humiliating contraction of his man's vanity under the glances of a girl. 'Do you take me for one who could be content with the part of second? I will work and do battle unceasingly, but I will have too the prize of battle to clasp it, savour it

and I lift them, as I did a persecuted lady in my boyhood. I am the soldier of justice against the army of the unjust. But I claim my reward. If I live to fight, I live also to enjoy. I will have my station. I win it not only because I serve, but because also I have seen, have seen ahead,

ave some earnest on his

hem moving on the lines of the law of things. I am no empty theorizer, no phantasmal speculator; I am the man of science in politics. When my system is grasped by the people, there is but a step to the realization of it. One step. It will be taken in my time, or acknowledged later. I stand for index to the p

plendid lover could crave for, 'that you never look down, you neve

funereal tree again. All roads lead to Rome, and ours appears to c

ay: a salted ebon moss when seen closely; the small grey particles giving a sick shimmer

e on it by moonlight, after a scene with his mistress, or tales of her! By the way and by the way, my fair darling, let me never think of your wearing this kind of garb for me, should I be

ng and blighted was not more impressive in sunlight: and then he looked from the tree to his true love's

your baroness?'

uite sound. Have no fear! I guarantee it; I know her to the roots. She desires my welfare, she does my behests. If I am bound to her by gratitude, so, and in a greater degree, is she to me. The utmost she

the tree b

cannot light it. That tree stands for Death blooming. We think it sinister, but down there it is a homely tree. Down there! When do we go? The shudder in that tree is the air exchanging between Life and Death-the ghosts going and coming: it's on the border line. I just felt the creep. I think you did. T

sh as she does in the ph

s for some amount of manlike strength. And she is one; man's brain, woman's heart. I thought her unique till I heard of you. And how do I stand between you two? She has the only fault you can charge me with; she is before me in time, as I am before you. Shall I spoil you as she spoilt me? No, no! Obedience to a boy is the recognition of the heir-apparent, and I respect the salique law as much as I love my love. I do not offer obedience to a girl, but succour, support. You will not rule me, but you will invigorate, and if you are petted, you shall not be spoilt. Do not expect me to show like that undertakerly tree till my years are one hundred. Even then it will be dangerous to repose beneath my branches in the belief that I am sapless because I have changed colour. We Jews have

friends, all men of eminence, and

ian. Yes, if I were other than for legality:-if it

ew with Ironsides,' she

is for kingcraft to mask his viziercraft-and save him the labour of patiently attempting oratory and persuasion, which accomplishment he does not possess:-it is not in iron. We think the more precious metal will beat him when the broader conflict comes. But such an adversary is not to be underrated. I do not underrate him: and certainly not he me. Had he been born with the gifts of patience and a fluent tongue, and not a petty noble, he might have been for the people, as knowing them the greater power. He sees that their knowledge of their power must eventually come to them. In the meantime his party is forcible enough to assure him he is not fighting a losing game at present: and he is, no doubt, by lineage and his traditions monarchical. He is curiously simple, not really cynical. His apparent cynicism is sheer irritability. His contemptuous phrases are directed against obstacles: against things, persons, nations that oppose him or cannot serve his turn against his king, if his king is restive; but he respects his king: against your friends' country, because there is no fixing it to a line of policy, and it seems to have collapsed; but he likes that country the best in Europe after his own. He is nearest to contempt in his treatment of his dupes and tools, who are dropped out of his mind when he has quite squeezed them for his occasion; to be taken up again when they are of use to him. Hence he will have no following. But let me die to-morrow, the party I have created survives. In him you see the dam, in me the stream. Judge, then, wh

refore, as they walked side by side, and she saw their triumphant pair of figures in her fancy, natural that she should instantly take the step to prepare her for becoming his Republican Princess. She walked an equal with the great of the earth, by virtue of her being the mate of the greatest of the great; she trod on some, and she thrilled gratefully to the man who

follow her thither, and name the hotel where he was to be found, the hour when he was to arrive. 'Am I

of a State department,'

eep you waitin

r the action opens the better fo

s in my blood. Come. I shall send word to your hotel when you are to appe

to know me. You know that if I were to exercise my will firmly now-it would not waver if I called it forth-I co

She looked half imploringly, biting

less than resolved after I have poured my influence into your veins? The other day on the heights-had you consented then? Well! it would have been very well, but not so well. We two have a future, and are bound to make the

e and well-formed expression of the pretty impulse. But wiser is it always that the star in the ascendant should not address the one waning. Hardly can a word be uttered without grossly wounding. She would not do it to a younger rival: the letter strikes on the recipient's age! She babbles of a friendship: she plays at childish ninny! The display of her ingenuous happiness causes femini

his opinion of their sex. The particular maxim he cherished was, to stake everything on his making a favourable first impression: after which single figure, he said, all your empty naughts count with women for hundreds, thousands, millions: noblest virtues are but sickly units. He would have stared like any Philistine at the tale of their capacity to advance to a likeness unto men in their fight with the world. Women for him were objects to be chased, the politician's relax

of letter, and quite humb

knows already that this

for the

I am certain you will prevail; you must; you cannot be resisted; I stand to witness to the fact,' she sighed in a languor: 'only, my people are hard to manage. I see more clearly now, that I have imposed on them; and they have given away by a sort of compact so long as I did nothing decisive. That I see. But, then again, have I not your spirit in me now? What has ever resisted you?-Then, as

ble for me to conceive it

emind him of his appointment to be with her on the morrow, and herself that she would not long stand alone. She did not doubt of her courage whi