Alas! A Novel

Jim refrains from saying how likely this culmination of his friend's woes has appeared to him, since it would have been the height of the illogical for the Le Marchants to have...

"Oh, gentle Proteus, Love's a mighty lord, And hath so humbled me that I confess There is no grief to his correction Nor to his service no such joy on earth. Now no discourse ex...

The sun rides high, as Burgoyne issues into the open air, and beats, blinding hot, upon the great stone flags that pave the Florentine streets, and seem to have a peculiar power...

Though "February Fill-dyke" was never and nowhere truer to her name than this year, and in Algiers--coming laden with wet days to make the green Sahel, if possible, greener than...

"Cressid, I love thee in so strained a purity, That the blest gods--as angry at my fancy, More bright in zeal than the devotion which Cold lips blow to their deities--take thee...

This last clause is not always true. For example, there is very little sighing in the farewells made to Mrs. Byng by the two young men who see her off at the Florence Railway St...

The latest waking impression left on Jim's fancy is that it is the golden rule of Elizabeth Le Marchant's life to comply with any and every request that is made to her; moreover...

"It was a chosen plot of fertile land, Amongst wide waves set like a little nest, As if it had by Nature's cunning hand Been choycely picked out from all the rest, And laid fort...

"After all," says Mrs. Le Marchant presently, rallying a little, her naturally buoyant temperament--that temperament which she has transmitted with such curious fidelity to her...

The next morning proves the truth of Miss Strutt's words that "we are not so green here in Algiers for nothing." The weather changes some time after dark has fallen. A mighty wi...

"And therein sat a lady fresh and fayre, Making sweet solace to herself alone. Sometimes she sang as lowd as lark in ayre, Sometimes she laught, as mery as Pope Joan."

One of the reasons, though not the sole or even the main one, of Burgoyne's visit to Algiers is that the Wilson family are wintering there. And yet he dreads the meeting with th...

A new day has awaked, and Firenze, fresh-washed after yesterday's rain, smelling through all her streets of lilies, laughs up, wistaria-hung, to a fleckless sky. If poor Amelia...

One would have thought that Jim had been in some measure prepared for the just-fallen blow, both by the overheard fragments of Mr. Greenock's conversation with the Devonshire cl...

The Byngs are gone, having got off just within the time first suggested by the sick man's mother. But, after all, he has to be carried on board the _Eugene Perrere_. Since his i...

"True, be it said, whatever man it said, That love with gall and honey doth abound; But if the one be with the other way'd, For every dram of honey therein found A pound of gall...

There are few things more trying to an active-minded person than to sit occupationless, vaguely waiting. At first, it is true, the keenness of Jim's alarm prevents his feeling t...

"Tous les hommes se haissent naturellement. Je mets en fait que s'ils savaient exactement ce qu'ils disent, les uns des autres, il n'y aurait pas quatre amis dans le monde."

There is always something in the nature of a mountain in a night that is interposed between us and either any promised pleasure or any threatened pain. In the case of pleasure,...

"Tell me now in what hidden way is Lady Flora the lovely Roman? Where is Hipparchia, and where is Thais? Neither of them the fairer woman. Where is Echo beheld of no one, Only h...

Not, indeed, that there is much dash about the Florentine cab-horses--saddest among God's many sad creatures--with not a sound leg among them, with staring coats and starting ri...

So that night Jim does not see Amelia. After all, as Cecilia says, it is better to be on the safe side, and to-morrow she will be brighter, and he can sit by her, and tell her l...

"I am going to turn the tables on you," says Amelia next morning to her lover, after the usual endearments, which of late he has been conscientiously anxious not to scant or slu...

There are few things more difficult than when one's mind is full of the interests, cares, and sorrows of one set of friends, to have to empty it suddenly of them, and refill it...

Notre Dame d'Afrique--Lady of Africa--is an ugly lady, homely and black; and the church that is dedicated to her is ugly too--new and mock-Moorish; but, like many another ugly l...

It is past seven o'clock by the time that the party breaks up at the door of the Anglo-Americain, and the dusk is gaining even upon the red west that, in the upper sky, is insen...

It is partly remorse at having snubbed her, and partly perversity, which dictates this sentence on Jim's part. The perversity is, perhaps, the predominating element in his motiv...

"If you will allow me, I shall have the pleasure of reading aloud to you some passages from 'Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings,' by Charles Dickens. I do not know much about the book mys...

There are no tears in Byng's eyes as he asks this question next morning--asks it of his friend, as the latter sits in the Fumoir, with an English paper in his hands, and a good...

There is no particular mirth in Burgoyne's mind as he mounts the stone stairs of the house which announces itself as 12 bis, in the commonplace new square of the Piazza d'Azegli...

A reconciliation is seldom effected without some price being paid for it. Jim's with Elizabeth, if it can be called such, is bought at the cost of a small sacrifice of principle...

It was to German flowers that the above hest was addressed. If they obey it, with how much more alacrity do the Italian ones comply with its glad command. It is a week later, an...

It is, perhaps, fortunate for Amelia that she cannot see the expression of the face which looks out above her prostrate head into space, with a blankness equal to what has been...

Presently they pass into the still, cloistered garden, in whose unmown grass-squares gray-blue flowers are blowing, beside whose walks pale pink peonies are flushing, and round...

"There are no more by-path meadows where you may innocently linger, but the road lies long and straight and dusty to the grave. You may think you had a conscience and believed i...

It would seem natural that, after so long a separation, Burgoyne should dine and spend the evening with his betrothed; but such is not the case. For this, however, he is not to...

Six weeks have passed since Burgoyne's eye followed his quondam friends down Mesopotamia, and he is not in Oxford now. He left it, indeed, twenty-four hours after the rencounter...

It is five o'clock, the hour fixed for the expedition to Certosa, and in the _entresol_ of 12 bis, Piazza d'Azeglio, Mrs. and Miss Le Marchant are sitting--hatted, gloved, and _...

The return drive, as it is quicker, being all downhill, so is it a more silent one than that to the villa had been. Byng, indeed, is as gaily willing to be fondled by Cecilia as...

Elizabeth's feeble tap at Byng's door is instantly answered by the nurse, who, opening it smilingly to admit her, the next moment, evidently in accordance with directions receiv...

Two days later she is called upon to perform the task she has undertaken. Probably she has spent those two days, and also the appertaining nights, in bracing her mind to it, for...

There is no greater fiction than that for time to go quickly implies that it must needs go pleasantly. Jim has seldom spent a more disagreeable period than the hours which follo...

In a ripe civilization such as ours there are formulas provided to meet the requirements of every exigency that may possibly arise; but amongst them there is not one which teach...

Jim turns his head at her speech, and at once recognises in the figure hastening towards them the porter of the Anglo-Americain hotel. The man looks strangely, and carries a sli...