The Tree of Knowledge: A Novel

There is nothing to remember in me, Nothing I ever said with a grace, Nothing I did that you care to see, Nothing I was that deserves a place In your mind, now I leave you, set...

Walked up and down, and still walked up and down, And I walked after, and one could not hear A word the other said, for wind and sea That raged and beat and thundered in the night.

A long, dark, panelled room, with a low flat ceiling carved with coats-of-arms and traversed with fantastic ribs. A room so large and long that a small party could only inhabit...

The dinner was a most hilarious repast. It was impossible to resist the infectious good spirits of the Allonby girls, and Godfrey was duly awed and held in check by the presence...

Allonby's return to full consciousness had been a very gradual affair. Each lucid interval had been eagerly watched by Dr. Forbes, who feared the loss of memory, partial or enti...

Lady Mabel was sitting in a wicker chair, her gloves were removed, and lay rolled up in her lap, her firm white hands were employed with tea-cups and cream jug.

The clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober coloring from an eye That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; Another race hath been, and other palms are won. Tha...

"He will live, and is doing finely," said Claud, shaking hands with the invalid. "He has recognised his sister this morning, and spoken several coherent sentences. Dr. Forbes is...

Now I may speak; you fool, for all Your lore! WHO made things plain in vain? What was the sea for? What the grey Sad church, that solitary day, Crosses and graves, and swallows...

She stood on the floor, Fair and still as the moonlight that came there before, And a smile just beginning: It touches her lips, but it dare not arise To the height of the mysti...

"'Go to the hills,' said one remit a while This baneful diligence--at early morn Court the fresh air, explore the heaths and woods;" ... 'I infer that he was healed By persevera...

With his usual forethought, Mr. Cranmer had made out in his own mind a plan of the coming walk. He meant to walk from Poole to Edge with Elsa Brabourne, the anachronism, and ret...

It was snowing--or rather, sleeting, in the half-hearted, fitful way to which Londoners are accustomed. Out of doors, the lamps flared on wet glistening pavements, with here and...

"Eyes," he said, "now throbbing thro' me are ye eyes which did undo me? Shining eyes, like antique jewels set in Parian marble stone? Underneath that calm white forehead, are ye...

Write woman's verses, and dream woman's dreams: But let me feel your perfume in my home, To make my sabbath after working-days. Bloom out your youth beside me,--be my wife.

Here all the summer could I stay, For there's a Bishop's Teign And King's Teign And Coomb at the clear Teign's head, Where, close by the stream, You may have your cream, All spr...

Well, you may, you must, set down to me Love that was life, life that was love; A tenure of breath at your lips' decree, A passion to stand as your thoughts approve, A rapture t...

We walked beside the sea After a day which perished, silently, Of its own glory. Nor moon nor stars were out: They did not dare to tread so soon about, Though trembling in the f...

One friend in that path shall be To secure my step from wrong; One to count night day for me, Patient through the watches long, Serving most with none to see.

"Colonel Wynch-Frère? Glad to see you, sir! Fine day for the wind-up, isn't it? Never seen Ascot so full on a Friday in my life! Everybody's here. Seen my wife, by chance?"

... I, Who love my art, would never wish it lower To suit my stature. I may love my art, You'll grant that even a woman may love art, Seeing that to waste true love on anything...

Then I knew That I was saved. I never met His face before, but, at first view, I felt quite sure that God had set Himself to Satan: who would spend A minute's mistrust on the end?

Unwise I loved and was lowly, loved and aspired, Loved, grieving or glad, till I made you mad, And you meant to have hated and despised, Whereas you deceived me, nor inquired.

In the beginning, when God called all good, Even then was evil near us, it is writ; But we indeed, who call things good and fair, The evil is upon us while we speak; Deliver us...

So it would once have been--'tis so no more, I have submitted to a new control; A power is gone which nothing can restore, A deep distress hath humanized my soul.

I? what I answered? As I live I never fancied such a thing As answer possible to give! What says the body, when they spring Some monstrous torture engine's whole Weight on it? N...

Henry Fowler came out of the stables with heavy gait, and face from which the genial curves had fled. To-night you saw him in all his native plainness,--his leaden-colored eyes,...

Juxtaposition, in fine; and what is juxtaposition? Look you, we travel along, in the railway-carriage or steamer, And _pour passer le temps_, till the tedious journey be ended,...

There was a deep silence between Fowler and Claud as they walked homewards in that dewy autumn dawn. Every moment increased the beauty of the scene through which they walked--th...

Beat, happy stars, timing with things below, Beat with my heart, more blest than heart can tell, Blest, but for some dark undercurrent woe That seems to draw--but it shall not b...

And I said--Is this the sky, all grey and silver-suited? And I said--Is this the sea, that lies so pale and wan? I have dreamed, as I remember--give me time, I was reputed Once...

For a moment Elaine recoiled, every nerve thrilled with the thought that the stranger, concealed in some bush in the immediate vicinity, had heard her reckless and incautious ex...

"Thy steps are dancing towards the bound Between the child and woman, And thoughts and feelings more profound And other years are coming; And thou shalt be more deeply fair, Mor...

Then he turned, and gravely surveyed the scene of action. The hedge on one side of the lane--the side on which they had found Allonby--was broken and full of gaps. The lane on t...

I find you passing gentle. 'Twas told me you were rough, and coy, and sullen, And now I find report a very liar; For thou art pleasant, gamesome, passing courteous, But slow in...

It was no fancy. There he stood, trim and fresh as ever, a small bunch of Neapolitan violets in his button-hole, his hands behind him, and wearing his usual expression of alert...

"Oh," said the girl, as she rose and took his arm, "to cut a dance is not considered breaking one's word in _le monde où l'on s'ennuie_, especially when to keep it would be to m...

It was evening when Percivale left Edge Willoughby, and walked slowly down the terrace, accompanied by dear little Miss Fanny, who had undertaken to show him the stile leading t...

Miss Fanny Willoughby, when the unseen Allonby saw her pass on the terrace, had just come from feeding her fowls. The poultry-yard was quite a feature at Edge, as the house was...

Lady Mabel's dinner-party was a very cultured but also a somewhat unconventional one. Twelve was the number of guests, and all of them were young, lively, and either literary, s...

"That's past my telling, or the telling of anybody else, I think," said Dr. Forbes, slowly. "It's the most mysterious thing in the whole course of my professional experience." H...

Elaine Brabourne's feelings, as she went up the Combe, along the path which Allonby had trod before her, were about as different from his as anything that could possibly be imag...

A lady! In the narrow space Between the husband and the wife! ... She showed a face With dangers rife. A subtle smile, that dimpling fled As night-black lashes rose and fell.

Ted Haldane had been able to bring a certain amount of comfort to Hilda and Jacqueline. He had been to Osmond's bankers, and found that the young man had that morning drawn out...

Anyone who has read the _Mort d'Arthur_ can hardly fail, if he traverse the Combe of Edge in early summer, to be struck by its resemblance to the fairy Valley of Avilion.

The air broke into a mist with bells, The steeple rocked with the crowd, and cries; Had I said "Good folks, mere noise repels, But give me your sun from yonder skies," They had...

At an earlier period in her career, the esoteric Buddhist would have amused Wynifred beyond measure. She would have regarded him as material for a sketch of character, and drawn...

She should never have looked at me if she meant I should not love her! There are plenty ... men, you call such, I suppose ... she may discover All her soul too, if she pleases,...

"Queer sunstroke, to wait till five o'clock in the evening to strike, and queer fit to break a man's arm," said Jane, with some warmth. "I've seen apoplexy, sir, and I've seen e...

A man may love a woman perfectly, And yet by no means ignorantly maintain A thousand women have not larger eyes; Enough that she alone has looked at him With eyes that, large or...

A pleasant autumn afternoon shed its mellow light over Edge Combe. The fields were golden with harvest, and the air was warm with sunshine. In the porch at Lower House, Wynifred...

He looked, Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth And ocean's liquid mass beneath him lay In gladness and deep joy. The clouds were touched, And in their silent faces did he...

A lie which is half the truth is even the blackest of lies. For a lie which is all a lie may be met with and fought outright, But a lie which is half a truth is a harder matter...

It was sunset when at last they rose from the fallen log. To Wynifred it was as though every cloud of trouble had melted away out of her sky. Grief was grief no longer when shar...