FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110  
111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   >>   >|  
inst the bars with the common result; it was the wings that suffered, the bars only grew a trifle brighter. Then it seemed that he had lost a wife to whom he was attached, and the child who remained to him, although he loved her and clung to her, he did not altogether understand. So it came about, perhaps, that he had fallen under the curses of loneliness and continual apprehension; and in this shadow where he was doomed to walk, flourished forebodings and regrets, drawing their strength from his starved nature like fungi from a tree outgrown and fallen in the forest. Mr. Fregelius, so thought Morris, was timid and reticent, because he dared not discover his heart, that had been so sorely trampled by Fate and Fortune. Yet he had a heart which, if he could find a confessor whom he could trust, he longed to ease in confidence. For the rest, the man's physical frame, not too robust at any time, was shattered, and with it his nerve--sudden shipwreck, painful accident, the fierce alternatives of hope and fear; then at last a delirium of joy at the recovery of one whom he thought dead, had done their work with him; and in this broken state some ancient, secret superstition became dominant, and, strive as he would to suppress it, even in the presence of a stranger, had burst from his lips in hints of unsubstantial folly. Such was the father, or such he appeared to Morris, but of the daughter what could be said? Without doubt she was a woman of strange and impressive power. At this very moment her sweet voice, touched with that continual note of pleading, still echoed in his brain. And the dark, quiet eyes that now slept, and now shone large, as her thoughts fled through them, like some mysterious sky at night in which the summer lightning pulses intermittently! Who might forget those eyes that once had seen them? Already he wished to be rid of their haunting and could not. Then her beauty--how unusual it was, yet how rich and satisfying to the eye and sense; in some ways almost Eastern notwithstanding her Norse blood! Often Morris had read or heard of the bewildering power of women, which for his part hitherto he had been inclined to attribute to shallow and very common causes, such as underlie all animate nature. Yet that of Stella--for undoubtedly she had power--suggested another interpretation to his mind. Or was it, after all, nothing but a variant, one of the Protean shapes of the ancient, life-compelling mystery? An
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110  
111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Morris

 

nature

 

thought

 
ancient
 
continual
 

fallen

 
common
 

thoughts

 

suffered

 

result


forget
 

intermittently

 

pulses

 

summer

 

lightning

 
mysterious
 

Without

 

trifle

 

strange

 
brighter

appeared

 
daughter
 

impressive

 

pleading

 

echoed

 

touched

 

moment

 
wished
 

Stella

 

animate


undoubtedly

 

suggested

 

underlie

 

inclined

 

attribute

 

shallow

 

interpretation

 

compelling

 

mystery

 

shapes


Protean

 

variant

 

hitherto

 

satisfying

 

unusual

 

beauty

 
Already
 

haunting

 

bewildering

 

Eastern