The Sorrows of Satan or, The Strange Experience of One Geoffrey Tempest, Millionaire: A Romance

"Lucio! ... Lucio!" she whispered, and her whisper sounded through the long gallery like the hiss of a snake--"Say what you will--say all you will of me,--you can say nothing th...

We concluded our wedding-tour rather sooner than we had at first intended, and returned to England and Willowsmere Court, about the middle of August. I had a vague notion stirri...

I had no time to reply, as just then the carriage stopped, and we alighted at the palace. Through the intervention of the high Court official who presented us, we got a good pla...

"You shall not be deceived in me,"--she said, pausing a moment and eyeing me sombrely--"If you marry me, you must do so with a full realization of the choice you make. For with...

"Ah now I see we shall flounder in the quicksands of theory if we go any further"--he said--"You forget, my dear fellow, that nobody can decide as to what _is_ vice, or what _is...

"Yes,--it is this,--it is beyond me altogether." And I spoke with some bitterness. "Quite beyond me. I could not write it now,--I wonder I could write it then. Lucio, I daresay...

"Do you really!" he exclaimed--"How wise of you!--good Geoffrey Tempest, how very wise of you! But you are wrong. There never was a being created who was less impulsive, or more...

"Stop there!" she said quickly, her eyes flashing as she spoke--"My ideas have been repugnant to you, you say? What have _you_ done, you as my husband, to change those ideas? Ha...

"Accepted ideals are generally mistaken ones,"--he observed, watching me narrowly--"An accepted ideal of Divinity in some church pictures is an old man's face set in a triangle....

"By heaven, a veritable new Venus and reluctant Adonis!" I cried deliriously--"A poet should be here to immortalize so touching a scene! Go--go!"--and I motioned her away with a...

"Ay, ay indeed!" said Morgeson soothingly--"Or perhaps you _thought_ you felt, which is another very curious phase of the literary temperament. You see, to convince people at al...

She waved her hand to us as we left her and turned the corner of the lane,--and for some minutes we walked on slowly in absolute silence. Then at last Sibyl spoke--

"I think not;"--responded Mr Ellis half interrogatively, still caressing his fingers--"I think our client did not use the phrase 'sold to the devil' as a figure of speech merely...

"Sorrow!" he echoed, interrupting her and springing to his feet with an impassioned gesture--"Woman,--genius,--angel, whatever you are, do not speak of _one_ sorrow for me! I ha...

"Is it impossible to convince you of the truth?" asked Mavis solemnly,--"Are you so diseased in your spiritual perceptions as not to _know_, beyond a doubt, that this world is b...

After that evening I became a regular and welcome visitor at Lord Elton's house, and was soon on terms of the most friendly intimacy with all the members of his family, includin...

She made no answer, as just then the curtain went up again, disclosing the unclean 'lady' of the piece, "having a good time all round" on board a luxurious yacht. During the unn...

"Are you too blind to see that I am?" he answered, his accents vibrating with intense melancholy--"Can you think I am happy? Does the smile I wear,--the disguising smile men put...

"With pleasure!" I replied--"But first of all, you must allow me to explain matters a little. You have heard a good deal about my affairs from my friend John Carrington, and I k...

"'Temporary insanity'"--repeated Lucio again, as if speaking to himself--"all remorse, despair, outraged honour, wasted love, together with the scientific modern theory of Reaso...

I laughed as I read the absurd signature, though my eyes were dim with something like tears. 'Boffles' was the nickname given to my friend by several of our college companions,...

I made no answer,--I thought I knew to what she alluded; but alas!--I did not know how deeply the 'seeds of corruption' had been sown in her own nature, or what a harvest they w...

I have been staring dreamily and in a sort of stupefaction at the little poison-flask in my hand. _It is quite empty now._ I have swallowed every drop of the liquid it contained...

We bowed; the lady gave us a dignified bend of the head. She was an imposing looking spinster, with a curious expression on her features which was difficult to construe. It was...

"Would you like to see a city resuscitated?" he inquired--"Here, in this very spot, some six thousand years ago, a king reigned, with a woman not his queen but his favourite, (q...

Again the rich colour flushed her cheeks, and she gave Lucio her hand. He bowed over it in courtly fashion,--but did not kiss it as he had kissed the hand of Mavis Clare. We pas...

He laughed again as he left the room,--and again his laughter irritated me. When he had gone, I gave way to the base and unworthy impulse that had for some minutes been rankling...

She laughed again and sat down in her former place near me, regarding me with a frankly open and half humorous gaze which I found I could not meet with any sort of composure. To...

Thunder and wild tumult,--the glare of lightning,--the shattering roar of great waves leaping mountains high and hissing asunder in mid-air,--to this fierce riot of savage eleme...

Crowned with a mystic radiance as of trembling stars of fire, that sublime Figure towered between me and the moonlit sky; the face, austerely grand and beautiful, shone forth lu...

She murmured assent, and followed him with a vaguely uneasy glance as he crossed over to the grand piano and sat down. I had never heard him either play or sing; in fact so far...

From the time of reading this, I used to think of Christ as 'carrion crucified';--if I ever thought at all. I found out that no one had ever reproached Swinburne for this term,-...

Still inexorable thought worked in my brain, and forced me to consider my position. Was she,--was Sibyl--more to blame than I myself for all the strange havoc wrought? I had mar...

"As you have expressed the wish,"--he said slowly--"I promise you you _shall_ know me as I am some-day! It may be well for you to know,--for the sake of others who may seek to c...

_First Published November 1895 Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth Editions 1895 Eleventh, Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Sixteenth,...

"Ah, my dear lord, that is not enough for the aspirations of my gifted friend"--responded Lucio, speaking for me, his eyes darkening with that mystic shadow of mingled sorrow an...

He made no immediate reply. His flashing eyes looked, as it were, through me and beyond me at something far away. The curious pallor that at times gave his face the set look of...

We rose then, having finished luncheon, and leaving the Savoy we went on to Arthur's. Here we sat down in a quiet corner and began to talk of our future plans. It took me very l...

"I have made up my mind to die. Not out of passion or petulance,--but from deliberate choice, and as I think, necessity. My brain is tired of problems,--my body is tired of life...

He shrugged his shoulders with quite a desperate air, and left me. I am convinced he thought me mad,--but I knew I had never been so sane. I did indeed entirely comprehend my 'm...