The Gateless Barrier

Produced by Delphine Lettau, David Clarke, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made a...

Finding it unlikely that his uncle would ask for him before evening, and that consequently he had plenty of time at his disposal, Laurence embarked after breakfast upon a survey...

"You interest me extremely," he said. "I am obliged to you. But I must not presume upon your complaisance. You have supplied me with sufficient subjects of meditation for to-nig...

"I think I am at liberty to tell you, because the incident took its rise in your uncle, the elder Mr. Rivers', refusal to receive me. You see it is known how often I have been r...

"A sin is heinous, not in itself, but in relation to the level of virtue habitually maintained by whoso commits it. And so, even were I not disabled, were I still capable of car...

He checked his horse, and waited, looking at the place again,--at its dark, feathery yew-trees, its narrow mounds, ranged decently in line--on the surface of which the spring gr...

The view was very noble. Southward the fall of the ground was sufficiently abrupt to exclude all middle distance, with the result that the rough grasses, withered bents and sorr...

Once more--"The weather recently has been continuously wet and stormy. Dudley reports great destruction of timber in the park. I have been unable to leave the house, and have sp...

For some minutes Laurence remained in the same position before the library fireplace, while the rush and wail of the storm without offered marked contrast to the silence and clo...

"I become very abject," he said at last. "I procrastinate and risk letting slip the opportunity still permitted me. For in my abjection, I own I clutch at straws, miserably anxi...

And thereupon he stopped abruptly, for his elder brother had come upon them unperceived--Dudley, thin and tall, clothed in sad-coloured, brown-grey coat and vest, the locks of h...

For this was to be a night of abstinence, so the young man had decided, from the dear sight of his fairy-lady and the delight of her miraculously recovered speech. He had a duty...

And his environment lent itself to these practices and experiments. The household had settled back into its accustomed decorum and regularity. It asked no questions, it obeyed i...

"Ah, me! ah, me! my love," she cried, "then I fear indeed all must needs be lost. For to cross this threshold is to force some barrier which I have neither the strength or the r...

Behind the ample, wide-ranging, wooden house--spotless in its purity of white paint, dignified by its ranges of dark-green, slatted shutters, its grey-brown, shingled roofs, and...

"Then Louise had grounds for her assertions," she said, still with that deadly calm. "I thought it unworthy to listen. I forbade her to write or speak to me upon the subject. I--"