The idleness of a passenger, my isolation amongst all these men with whom I had no point of contact, the oily and languid sea, the uniform sombreness of the coast, seemed to keep me away from the truth of these things, within the toil of a mournful and senseless delusion. The voice of the surf now and then was a positive pleasure, like the speech of a brother. It was something natural, that had its reason, that had a meaning.
He stooped over her, and her raised arms fell upon his shoulders. He lifted her up, steadied himself and began to walk, looking straight before him. “What are you doing?” she asked, feebly. “I am escaping from my enemies,” he said, never once glancing at his light burden. “With me?” she sighed, helplessly. “Never without you,” he said. “You are my strength.
Occupation? Put down, well – tourists. We’ve been called harder names before now;.
We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there – there you could look at a thing monstrous and free. It was unearthly, and the men were – No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it – this suspicion.
He must meet that truth with his own true stuff – with his own inborn strength. Principles? Principles won’t do. Acquisitions, clothes, pretty rags – rags that would fly off at the first good shake. No; you want a deliberate belief.
We talk with indignation or enthusiasm; we talk about oppression, cruelty, crime, devotion, self-sacrifice, virtue, and we know nothing real beyond the words. Nobody knows what suffering or sacrifice mean – except, perhaps the victims of the mysterious purpose of these illusions.
The promises, the terrors, the hopes of eternity, are the concern of the corrupt dead; but the obvious sweetness of life belongs to living, healthy men.
He remembered that she was pretty, and, more, that she had a special grace in the intimacy of life. She had the secret of individuality which excites and escapes.
The audacity of youth reckons upon what it fancies an unlimited time at its disposal; but a millionaire has unlimited means in his hand – which is better. One’s time on earth is an uncertain quantity, but about the long reach of millions there is no doubt.
I would just as soon have abused the old village church at home for not being a cathedral.
They were dying slowly – it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now – nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom. Brought from all the recesses of the coast in all the legality of time contracts, lost in uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food, they sickened, became inefficient, and were then allowed to crawl away and rest.
You will learn soon how not to be faint-hearted. A man has got to learn everything – and that’s what so many of them youngsters don’t understand.
True, he had made that last stride, he had stepped over the edge, while I had been permitted to draw back my hesitating foot. And perhaps in this is the whole difference; perhaps all the wisdom, and all truth, and all sincerity, are just compressed into that inappreciable moment of time in which we step over the threshold of the invisible.
His mind, cool, alert, watched it sink there with a sort of vague concern at the absurdity of the occupation, till it rested at the bottom, deep down, where our unexpressed longings lie.
A horn tooted to the right, and I saw the black people run.
But passion most dissembles, yet betrays, Even by its darkness; as the blackest sky Foretells the heaviest tempest.
Had you been the Emperor of the East and West, you could not have ignored your inferiority in his presence.
What saves us is efficiency – the devotion to efficiency.
Live rightly, die nobly.
They were dying slowly – it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now, – nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom.