The Dewy Morn quotes

His shadow shot a foot long on the dust, thrown by the level beams of the sun. The dust, in shadow and sunshine—the despised dust—now that the lark drew her glance to it, was pleasant to see.

All things are joyously beautiful to those who feel themselves to be; but it is only given to the chosen of nature to know this exceeding delight.

In herself rapt, the whole face of earth and sky ministered to her, each and all that made up the visible world was flung at her feet. They did homage—Felise, queen of herself, was queen of all.

In herself rapt, the whole face of earth and sky ministered to her, each and all that made up the visible world was flung at her feet. They did homage—Felise, queen of herself, was queen of all.

It was love without a lover⁠—love absorbed in itself.

Her whole existence was quivering with love; this intensity of life was love. She was gathering from sunlight, azure sky and grassy fields, from dewy hills and all the morning, an immense strength to love.

The sun had risen and the morning was opening into day, but she was insatiate, still she wished for more.

She had fed herself with the light, and dew, and loveliness of the sunny morn, yet her hunger grew with all she fed on.

There was no rest for her in the sunlight, on all the wide earth.

Rub it as hard as she might, there was the incision, and she could not make the bark grow again.

It is not so easy to undo what has once been done.

The beech would not obliterate that mark in twenty years. The very thought increased her trepidation; her cheek grew warm—everyone who passed would see it for twenty years.

The reflection that although they would see it they might not understand it, did not occur to her. What was so plain to her must be evident to others.

Guilty people always imagine everyone is watching them⁠—that everyone detects their secret.

Someone might be looking now. She looked up, and immediately drew close to the tree, hiding behind it.

She knew he did, although no alteration was perceptible in his manner. Watching him so narrowly, she felt that he had seen her, yet there was no visible change.

Eyes that love have a way of seeing more than is understood by scientific people, though they may analyze light with the spectrum and the polariscope, and all the other appliances together.

At the beeches he rode slowly up towards her. All at once he turned again, and began to descend the hill away from her; then, as suddenly, slipped off his horse to his feet, and walked towards her up the slope.

Large grey eyes that seemed to see him only—to whom the whole world, the hills round them, the sky over, was not—eyes that drew his towards them, and held his vision in defiance of his will.

If once you look over the side of a boat into the clear sea, you must continue looking⁠—the depth fascinates the mind.

Some depth in her rapt gaze fascinated him.

At home she immediately ran upstairs, shut the door, and sat down. In another moment she got up to look at herself in the glass. Her cheeks were scarlet, partly the exertion, partly sunburn, partly excitement.

The sun had scorched her face; love had scorched her heart.

What had she done? Was it well, or wrong? Did he understand? He must have understood. Yet, perhaps, he might not have done so; he would not look at her. Their eyes had met but once.

Upon that face waiting had set its seal unmistakably. She was waiting—she had been waiting years. No end to waiting. Such faces are common enough.

Woman’s life seems to be nothing but waiting, sometimes.

She had unconsciously placed her elbow on her knee, and leant her face on her hand; the very thought of waiting bowed her down into an attitude of pensive regret.

She had unconsciously placed her elbow on her knee, and leant her face on her hand; the very thought of waiting bowed her down into an attitude of pensive regret.

How bitter it is to be a woman sometimes! On the other hand, no one triumphs like a woman when she does triumph.

Caesar’s spoils and car rolling through applauding Rome, are but gewgaws to the triumph of a woman.

But it is also of itself shaped. There alone the bone and sinew assume an exquisite form. I cannot tell you why the human heart yearns towards that which is rounded, smooth, shapely; it is an instinct in the depth of our nature.

The knee is so very human, so nearly sorrowful in its humanity; sorrow seeks its knees, sadness bends on them, love desiring in secret does so on its knees.

They have been bent in many moods in so many lands so many many centuries past Human life is centred in the knee. In the knee we recognise all that the heart has experienced.

He had met her too soon. If he had not known her till he was forty, possibly he might have married her as a matter of judgment.

Once a lover sees his mistress as commonplace, the spell is over.

Rosa wearied him, and he soon found his attendance upon her a burden. Yet he was bound by his own previous conduct to continue it.

The mere fact of Felise’s existence was a cruelty to her.

The existence of one woman is incompatible with the happiness of another.

But for Felise’s existence Barnard was in no degree responsible; fate had prepared this thing for Rosa to “thole,” that fine old English word which conveys the sense of enduring at the hands of something irresistible.

The bitterness of his extravagances recoiled on his own head. Memory constantly brought back to him some sentiment he had uttered, or fancied he experienced, and which now mocked at him.

There is nothing more terrible while it lasts than for a man to despise himself.

After several days spent in this way.

Scarcely anyone ever passed without at least casting a glance down into the deep dark water, which, it was said, the sunshine never reached.

Black and still, unruffled while the wind blew above, it was always the same, and always waiting⁠—waiting like Fate.

The chaunt of the old mill-wheel, its quivering boom as it rolled round heavily, was reechoed in the hollow, and the rush of the cascade formed a hissing undertone.

Dust under foot and bitterness to the taste are all that remain; a void heart, a hopeless future, a weary present.

The commonplace crushes the ideal as a cannonball might a statue.

The world, therefore, has long since decided that the imaginative is to be avoided. Have nothing to do with books, pictures, sculpture, with thought or dream. Above all things be practical.

Those who do not possess an imagination are clearly the gainers in this life; horses, carriages, money, expensive wines, or, if they prefer it, the solid applause of well-to-do folk, are given to them.

The imaginative dream of flowers, but the practical possess a garden.

The infinite superiority of the non-imaginative is established.

Through the woods in springtime his feet waded among pools, broad lakes of azure-purple, acres upon acres of bluebells, so crowded they could not swing; he crushed the tender anemone; he passed the white June rose.

Robert Godwin never walked by the sea, nor gathered a flower.

The old books which had accumulated in the house of his forefathers remained upon the shelves untouched. Since his schooldays, when it was compulsory, he had never opened any other book than the almanac.

Doubtless you have heard them and rested.

Robert Godwin never heard them.

Incessant physical occupation was a necessity of his existence.

No one ever abused Robert Godwin.

Even the old women did not curse him, as they do in storybooks, for they have come to learn⁠—these old women⁠—in the nineteenth century that curses are as harmless as thistledown.

They looked after him as he passed—simply folded their arms and looked after him.

The sky was of a lovely night-blue; it was an hour to think, to dream, to revere, to love—a time when, if ever it will, the soul reigns, and the coarse rude acts of day are forgotten in the aspirations of the inmost mind.

The Night was calm⁠—still; it was in no haste to do anything⁠—it had nothing it needed to do. To be is enough for the stars.

Robert did not notice any difference in the night; he had seen hundreds of nights. He was listening for the roll of the mail-cart wheels. After a time they came; the cart stopped; the driver collected the letters, and went on.

They need to feel—unconsciously—the influence of the air that blows, sun-sweetened, over fragrant hay; to feel the influence of deep shady woods, mile-deep in boughs—the stream—the high hills; they need to revel in long grass.

Put away their books, and give them the freedom of the meadows.

Do it at any cost or trouble to yourselves, if you wish them to become great men and noble women.

He did not interfere; he let her trample it as much as she pleased.

She was the only human being he did not drive.

Felise was very contrite when it was explained to her at home that she had done wrong; this happened in early days, not long after her arrival at Beechknoll.

… the philosophy and the sociology, all the statutes on the statute book, all the Acts of Parliament, would have utterly failed for one instant to shake that heart, would have failed to convince her that wrong was right, or that a lie was the truth.

Felise was unswervingly true to herself.

Robert Godwin did not inquire into the possibilities of the incident; but, despite his self-depreciation and conviction that he could never be anything to her, hope sprang in his secret heart.

Great indeed is the commotion hope arouses when it has been absent many years.

Nine years had passed without hope—now hope returned.

For many days Rosa had endeavoured to discover for whom Martial had deserted her; a woman herself, she never doubted but that his conduct was due to some other woman.

A woman always blames a woman.

Some one obtained a reputation for astuteness by remarking when he heard of mischief, “Who is the woman?”

The drama of real life never ends like this.

Someone has to suffer⁠—always someone has to suffer.

The old Greeks dwelt on the tendency of human affairs to drift downwards irresistibly to unhappiness. Guilt—that is, untoward and often involuntary actions—pulls generation after generation heavily as lead down, down, down.

Beauty—what is beauty, forsooth? Form and colour; that is, surface only. Fortune—what is fortune?

Nothing is ever a pleasure or a real profit to him who has to labour for it.

Truth—you die in the pursuit, and the sea beats the beach as It did a thousand years ago.

Form and colour; that is, surface only. Fortune—what is fortune? Nothing is ever a pleasure or a real profit to him who has to labour for it. Truth—you die in the pursuit, and the sea beats the beach as It did a thousand years ago.

The stolid are alone happy.

Yet there drops from the azure heaven a beam of light, and whomsoever that ray touches must follow it to the end, though cheeks grow pale, though shoulders stoop, though ache and pain increase.

The Ballot Act is the Act which enables every person to go and record his vote without fear of after-consequences from the vengeance of any party whose wishes he has crossed.

The Ballot Act is the Magna Charta of modern days.

Under it a man can act as he thinks and feels, and knows to be right, and is not to be overawed by any threat, fear, or authority.

Assuredly the Houses of Cornleigh will be swept away when the Browns and Shaws and similar folk can give utterance to their minds in the practical form of the vote under the shelter of Modern Magna Charta.

There is nothing so good as Law; nothing so evil as the Letter of the Law.

Sitting alone in his justice-room, or in the midst of the fourteen other magnates at the Petty Sessions, Cornleigh administered the Letter of the Law in its harshest form to the labourers and poor folk who came under the jurisdiction of his tribunal.

Justice Shallow had corn and beeves—riches gained by his own perseverance and parsimony in his settled middle-age.

Mr. Justice Shallow Cornleigh had indeed land and beeves, but he had them in the same way as the puppy gets the hearthrug⁠—because he was born in the family, not because of any exertions of his own.

Justice Shallow had spirit enough left in his old days to lend Falstaff a thousand pounds to push him at Court.

With his authority he stamped their folly, and became responsible for it.

Iniquity was done in his name, and he cast down his eyes and did not see it.

It is a terrible thing when a fool sits in the place of power. Oppression is done without redress.

With his authority he stamped their folly, and became responsible for it. Iniquity was done in his name, and he cast down his eyes and did not see it.

It is a terrible thing when a fool sits in the place of power.

Oppression is done without redress.

They give thousands to hospitals—not a penny to a poor man. Cornleigh Cornleigh would subscribe a hundred pounds to a new hospital, but he would not permit your aged cottager to stay in his home—nothing of the sort; drive him to the workhouse.

There is nothing so cold-hearted as philanthropy.

”

But to write—who can write? The spectre rises between the mind and the paper; letters may be traced, but meaning flies before it can be transcribed.

There is no labour so heavy as writing when the heart is cruelly hurt.

He could not do it; nothing else was neglected, but letters accumulated and piles of accounts lay as they were thrown in the ledge of the window.

As Felise had been to Rosa, so was Martial to Godwin.

The dramatist renders all his characters happy; human life leaves half at least in sorrow.

There was no solace in his hands, nor in riding to and fro, nor in aught that he could do. His candle burned through the night, for he could not sleep; but he did not seek to pass the hours in working with his hands.

The same reflex action now led him on to desire the strangest of strange things. He desired to see with his own eyes the love that passed between Felise and Martial.

Can there be anything more bitter than the view of happiness to the miserable?

To the hungry to watch the banquet, to the thirsty to see the spring, to the sleepless to watch the slumberer; but these are little indeed to the torture of the jealous.

On the greenish face of the sundial, weather-stained and tarnished, the shadow of the gnomon seemed to rest, so slowly the sun moved on his high summer circle.

Love and Time were idle, but the reapers toiled in the corn.

Red berries and pink flowers were on the sprays of the brambles that thrust forth from the thicket of hawthorn. There were nuts on the hazel-rods among the hawthorns, and along the edge of the grass disks of knapweed, and yellow bedstraw, and purple vetch.

Upon the green and tarnished face of the ancient sundial there was written in worn letters,

Nihil nisi umbra⁠—Nothing without shadow; no, not even love.

The fervour of passion must needs cast the deepest shadow beside it. Let us welcome the shadow if only we can have the sunlight of love.

She could see the top of the load above the hawthorn and hazel, slowly ascending the hill by the wood.

He was hers, and yet he was not hers.

Thus Rosa was in part avenged, and returned bitterness for bitterness to the heart of her rival. Though now forsaken, she had received the firstfruits of love, and they could not be given to another.

… sorrow flowed warm tears, tears which neither the bitter loss of Mary nor the insult and injustice of his confinement could cause, but which flowed at a touch of kindness, Felise’s kindness went to his heart, already growing stubborn under the stony handling of fate.

To the dead there is no difference between deal and oak, or elm⁠—a ditch is the same as a tomb; but to the living, who will one day die, there is every difference.

Depend upon it, too great respect cannot be paid to the dead. Therein the deepest, the most subtle of the chords of human nature is touched.

Goring drove Felise in to Maasbury to attend the meeting. For five-and-twenty years he had avoided all such movements, retired among his trees, till at the moment when he desired to act he found himself powerless.

Absolute silence⁠—absolute retirement, destroys a man’s hold on the world.

Not for the best of all objects could he now obtain the attention of the well-disposed; he could call no one to assist the innocent and helpless.

Absolute silence—absolute retirement, destroys a man’s hold on the world. Not for the best of all objects could he now obtain the attention of the well-disposed; he could call no one to assist the innocent and helpless.

Alone, a man is powerless. It is when his voice acts like a lever that he is mighty; a lever that stirs those that hear it, and in their turn they stir others, till the circle widening, an irresistible wave is formed.

He had to begin again at the beginning; first, to see and be present at what was going on; next, to make friends; and finally, to set foot in the ring and do battle.

Rosa’s glance was across their line of sight. Felise was unconscious of Rosa’s presence, and was occupied in looking for Martial in the crowd below; at length Mr. Goring pointed him out on the platform.

When an eye looks steadily across the general line of view there seems something sinister in its gaze.

Have you never chanced to look aside for a moment from the stage, or the concert, and accidentally caught such a glance regarding someone pitilessly? Your thought has just been filled with noble sentiment, or the ear with sweet sound;

We used to have such orderly pleasant meetings, and everything went off smoothly and as you would wish. This is all owing to the ballot, you know; devilish thing, sir, the ballot!”

Somehow the Maasbury world had begun to lose its reverent awe of Cornleigh Cornleigh, Esq.

Felise was full of wonder at what she saw beneath her; she could not understand it. She had read the great speeches of Demosthenes; they read so calm and composed, as if delivered in an atmosphere of perfect peace.

Speeches had been made by some of them of an advanced character, not at all of a resigned and praise-the-authorities-that-be description. Something must be done to stir them up, to get them together and talk to them.

Much is sometimes accomplished by getting people together and talking to them.

Besides encouraging their own ranks, there was still harder work to be carried out among the small voters, who had much increased in the neighbourhood of the town; there was the terrible Ballot Act to be countermined;

Insult it is of the cruellest and harshest kind.

The wretched beings require food, and you give them a picture.

Felise gave old Abner Brown half-a-crown to purchase himself a beefsteak and a quart of good ale; that is to say, to buy himself fresh blood to circulate in those old and withered limbs.

Felise gave old Abner Brown half-a-crown to purchase himself a beefsteak and a quart of good ale; that is to say, to buy himself fresh blood to circulate in those old and withered limbs.

Good beef and beer are what the poor want, and you would find it difficult to supply too much of it.

But somehow or other your modern philanthropist cannot endure the idea of beef and beer.

with nothing in the frying-pan nor any lard to grease it), and offers them a cold drink from the pump. In the midst of squalling children, over the deal table scarce supplied with bread, he hangs up a picture.

For the enjoyment of art it is first of all necessary to have a full belly.

May I inquire, too, of any painter, if such chances to light on these pages, whether he would consider it likely to encourage a love of art merely to hang a picture on a wall?

whether he has not known even well educated and wealthy people who possessed scores of valuable pictures without the least love of art? whether, in short, even he, a painter of pictures, considered pictures the whole end and aim of art?

Is not art rather in the man than on the wall?

Once now and then I have been into the cottages of farm labourers (who had the good fortune to possess security of tenure) and found old oak furniture; curious grotesque crockery, generally much coloured—the favourite colour red;

There was not a cottage-tenant on the estate of Cornleigh Cornleigh who could call his cottage his own securely for more than six months. How then was it possible for taste to grow up, or to exercise itself if it was there?

There can be no art in a people who know that at any moment they may be thrust out of doors. Art is of slow growth.

Up in the north they say there is a district where the labourers spend their idle hours in cutting out and sticking together fiddles. I do not care twopence for a fiddle as a fiddle;

Does anyone suppose that farmers humiliated themselves in this manner of their own free will? No, indeed. The guilt—for it is nothing less than guilt—lies with the landlords, who, through their agents, forced us to this infamy. [Hear, hear! from the Opposition; cheers and counter-cheers.]

I say “guilt,” because it is a criminal thing to force a man to part with his own self-respect.

[Cheers and uproar.] Either bow the knee and touch the hat—either do as we bid you, vote as we please, give up your very conscience—either bow the knee and touch your hat or leave your farm. [‘Shame!’ cheers and yelling.]

There was no definite cause for her anxiety—it was a vague feeling of uneasiness, traceable in a great measure to the unhappy death of Mary. By that sudden loss her confidence in the future had been shaken.

Till some sharp sorrow comes we look forward frankly, and never question the certainty that tomorrow will bring the same settled and pleasant circumstances which surround us today.

Her confidence in the future was shaken. Martial was hers now—but tomorrow?

Flags and tall grasses and green things, growing down to the water’s edge and encroaching on the bank, hid the forget-me-nots under their tangled cover.

Once again the shadow was idle on the dial; Time was idle, drowsy in summer indolence.

Away in the stubble women were gleaning, gathering ears of wheat from among the streaked convolvulus and the pale field veronica. A sound of pastoral things stays in the word “gleaning;” yet It is the most aching of labours—stoop, stoop, stoop.

A sound of pastoral things stays in the word “gleaning;” yet It is the most aching of labours—stoop, stoop, stoop. They laboured and sought the ears of wheat while the summer was slumbering around them.

Love lingered by the brook and watched the running water, touching the reeds and letting them slip through the fingers, pausing to gather a flower, and then in the act sparing it.

Let it bloom; do not injure a flower; let it stay in the sunshine by the running stream.

Let it bloom; do not injure a flower; let it stay in the sunshine by the running stream.

All things seem possible in the open air.

By the water some part of her old faith returned to her. The voice of the sunshine was hope; in the breeze there was a soothing reassurance;

The voice of the sunshine was hope; in the breeze there was a soothing reassurance; a swallow flew before her, following the winding brook low over the sward, and thought shot forward swifter than he.

There are moments when the earth is so beautiful that sorrow seems a dream.

It cannot be—it is not real, this regret; we have fancied it, or surely the sun would not shine, the water sparkle like this. To the beautiful, sadness is unknown—it is not in its sphere; is this why we instinctively cling to loveliness?

“

Mr. Cornleigh, I think the poor people need something to eat more than they do pictures,

” replied Felise.