The Ladies Lindores quotes

It was not only that the solid reality dispersed his vision, but that it afforded a measure by which to judge himself and his fortunes, till now vaguely and pleasantly exaggerated in his eyes.

It is seldom indeed that the dim image of what was great and splendid to us in our childhood does not seem ludicrously exaggerated when we compare it with the reality.

He who had felt himself a young prince in disguise, approaching his domains incognito, in order to enjoy at his leisure the incense of universal interest, curiosity, and expectation!

But things were better in the morning.

Unless you have something bitter to reproach yourself with, or some calamity impending over you, things are generally better in the morning.

John looked about him with more hopeful eyes. He had an excellent, a truly Scotch, breakfast, which, at five-and-twenty, puts a man in good-humour with himself; and there were one or two features about Dalrulzian which, in the morning sunshine, looked more encouraging.

but no one wants your life,” said Carry, shaking her head. “No one will touch us, or lock us up, or any of these old-fashioned things. If they only would! The poets say ‘I could die for you,’ as if that was difficult!

Oh no, it is far harder, far harder to live.

”

No, my Carry, no; don’t distress yourself too much. I don’t want to be cynical; but men of Mr. Torrance’s type soon console themselves.

Men have died and worms have eaten them, but not for love.

”

Lady Lindores made no immediate reply. All this was so new to her—a revelation of things unthought of. It took away her breath; it took away her courage.

Is there any shock, any pang that life can give, equal to that of suddenly perceiving a touch of baseness, a failure of honour, a lower level of moral feeling, in those who are most dear to us?

This is what shatters heaven and earth, and shakes the pillars of existence to the beholder. It filled this woman with a sudden despair impossible to describe. She tried to speak, and her very voice failed her. What was the use of saying anything?

“She is well enough. She is never what you call quite well.

Women get into a way of ailing, I think, just as men get into a way of drinking.

You were surprised to hear she was married, I suppose?” he asked abruptly, with again the same threatening, offensive look, which made John’s blood boil.

First, that it was John’s own house, and civility forbade any aggression; and second, that Tinto was much bigger and stronger than the person whom, perhaps, he did not intend to insult—indeed there was no appearance that he meant to insult him at all.

He was only a coarse and vulgar-minded man, speaking after his kind.

“The fact is, if you don’t mind my saying so, I’m not very fond of my mamma-in-law,” said Torrance. “Few men are, so far as I know: they put your wife up to all sorts of things.

I know well enough they are not to blame. A woman should know how to stand up for her own child better than that; but she was just struck helpless with surprise, I say nothing different.

Speak of manoeuvring mothers! manoeuvring fathers are a great deal worse.

I cannot away with a man that will sacrifice his own flesh and blood. Fiegh! I would not do it for a kingdom. And the son, you’ll see, will do the same. Hold you your tongue, Nora.

“That means we are all fond of her bit bright face,” said Miss Barbara; “but we’ll say no more on that subject, Nora.

Human nature’s selfish in grain. The like of me will take no trouble for lad or lass that is not sweet to see, and a comfort to the heart.

”

And Miss Barbara took his compliment in good part. But he and Nora made no further approach to each other. Those praises of her made him draw back visibly, she thought, and embarrassed herself beyond bearing.

To be praised before an unsympathetic, silently protesting audience⁠—can anything be more humiliating?

Nora was conscious of something like dislike of John Erskine before he went away.

Carry did not make any reply at first. She was calm, not excited at all. “Yes; I think perhaps I am more patient, more resigned, when I have no one to fall back upon.

There is no such help in keeping silence as when you have no one to talk to,

” she added, with a faint smile.

And there is nothing to tell. Mr. Torrance has had a mistaken idea. But it is not that altogether. I am frightened without any reason. I suppose it is as my mother says, because of all the old associations he brings back.

Marriage is so strange a thing. It cuts your life in two. What was before seems to belong to someone else⁠—to another world.

”

Perhaps a woman cannot be quite just in such a predicament. It may be all an unconscious fiction, this atrocious precocious cynicism and worldliness of youth.

Nothing is ever so cruelly conventional, so shamelessly egoistical, as the young disciple of social philosophy, who is possibly hiding a quivering and terrified youthful heart beneath that show of abominable wisdom.

But it is hard for a mother whose whole heart is bent on finding excellence and nobleness in her child, to be tolerant of what appears to be such apparent and unmistakable unworthiness.

The young man saw his inconsistency, but that mattered little.

It is only in other people that we find consistency to be necessary.

The consciousness made him hotter and less coherent perhaps, but no more. “The cases are entirely different. I see no resemblance between them,” he said, with resentment and indignation in every tone.

“When they do see a girl that’s above all that sort of thing, that it’s desecration to think of in that way, they either don’t understand her, or they’re jealous of her,” he said to himself, with profound conviction. “

Women don’t know what justice means.

”

Enough has been said about the tragical unworthiness which tears asunder those who are most closely bound together, and kills love, as people say, by killing respect.

To kill love is terrible, but yet it is an emancipation in its way;

and no man or woman can suffer for the unworthiness of one whom he or she has ceased to love, with anything approaching the pain which we feel when those who never can cease to be dear to us fall into evil.

and no man or woman can suffer for the unworthiness of one whom he or she has ceased to love, with anything approaching the pain which we feel when those who never can cease to be dear to us fall into evil.

And love is so fatally robust, and can bear so many attacks!

Lady Lindores, who divined her husband’s motives, and the unscrupulous adherence to them through thick and thin which would recoil from nothing, suffered from that and every other discovery that he was not what she had thought him, with bitter pangs, from which she would …

Had it been so, he would at once have understood his role. It is usual to say that simplicity and sincerity are to the worldly-bred much more difficult to understand than art; but there is something still more difficult than these.

“Pure no-meaning puzzles more than wit.”

Though Lady Lindores had far more meaning in her than nine-tenths of her contemporaries, she was in this one case absolutely incomprehensible from want of meaning. She had no more notion than a child what to do, or even what she wished to be done.

“Maybe no, sir. There’s plenty is of that opinion.

There was mair tint at Shirramuir.

”

and this without any unkindness, any offence, anything that he had not fully expected, and been certain would happen.

But human nature is very fantastic, and so it was.

“You would hear, sir,” said old Rolls, “that my lord and her ladyship, they’ve come home.”

This was all in contradiction to the changed state of her mind towards Millefleurs and the gradual leaning towards a great marriage for Edith which had come over her.

But we are never more hot in defence of our own side than when we have begun to veer towards the other

; and Rintoul’s lectures had been for a long time more than his mother could endure.

“Oh,” said Edith, in a mere breath of rapid, almost inaudible, response, “it is too much; it is too much.” She did not know what she said.

“Nothing is too much. I am not asking any return. I am not presumptuous; but I am free to give. Nobody can stop me from doing that,”

said John, not much more clearly. It was all over in a moment. The people within a few yards of them scarcely knew they had exchanged a word; even Rintoul did not suspect any communication that was worth preventing. And next moment they separated.

He did not get the chance even of a glance from Edith, who said goodbye to him in a tremulous voice, and did not look up. He saw her placed by the side of Millefleurs at table, as he turned away.

He had all the modesty of genuine feeling⁠—a modesty which is sometimes another name for despair.

Why should she take any notice of him? He had no right to aspire so high. Nothing to give, as he said, except as a mere offering—a flower laid at her feet—not a gift which was capable of a return.

She had given in to the utter hopelessness of her situation.

Despair is sometimes an opiate, as it is sometimes a frantic and maddening poison.

There was nothing to be done for her—no use in wearying Heaven with prayers, as some of us do. Nothing could make her better. She had given in utterly, body and soul, and this was all that was to be said.

The ambition that fixed upon Torrance of Tinto was poor enough, and shamed her to think of it; but the Marquis Millefleurs, the Duke of Lavender, that was an ambition which had some justification.

Not love him! Why should not she love him?

Lady Lindores even went so far as to ask herself with some heat. He was delightful; everything but his stature was in his favour. He was excellent; his very failings leant to virtue’s side.

But neither did he ask himself what he meant, nor did Beaufort ask him. They said nothing more to each other, except such civilities as are indispensable when men eat together—for they dined all the same, notwithstanding the circumstances.

In every crisis men must still dine; it is the only thing that is inevitable, in trouble or in joy.

And then the night followed. Night is horrible, yet it is consolatory to those who are in suspense. John could not suppose that his trials were over, that nothing was to follow;

After a time Mrs. Monypenny, hearing who it was, sent to request him to have some cold beef in the kitchen, an offer of which Rolls availed himself at once. “For what is the use of punishing yourself?” he said. “

A man’s more qualified for everything when he has eaten his dinner.

” He was very serious, and unlike his usual cheerfully communicative mood, in Mr. Monypenny’s kitchen. The maids did not know what had come over him.

“I paid no attention to it. There’s some story forever going on in the countryside. Wise men just shut their ears,” he said.

“Wise men are one thing and friends another,” said John.

“Had I no one who could have told me, at least, on how small a thread my reputation hung? I might have gone away,” he said, with some vehemence, “at the height of it.

“Mr. Erskine,” said the agent, “a sneer is always easy.

Gibes break no bones, but neither have they any healing in them.

You may say what you like to me, but an argument like that will do you terrible little good with them that will have to judge at the end. I am giving no opinion myself. On my own account I will speak frankly.

“Dear Carry, you would have done neither; you would have done your duty to the end,” her mother said, drawing Carry into her arms. “It is excitement that makes you speak so.”

“Not excitement, but deliverance,” said Lady Car with solemnity.

“Yes, mother, you are right; I should have stood to the end; but do you think that would have been a credit to me? Oh, you don’t know how hard falsehood is! Falsehood and slavery—they are the same thing; they make your heart like iron:

“Not excitement, but deliverance,” said Lady Car with solemnity. “Yes, mother, you are right; I should have stood to the end; but do you think that would have been a credit to me? Oh, you don’t know how hard falsehood is!

Falsehood and slavery⁠—they are the same thing; they make your heart like iron: you have no feeling even when you ought perhaps to have feeling.

I am cruel now; I know you think I am cruel: but how can one help it? slaves are cruel. I can afford to have a heart now.”

Carry, you are very much mistaken if you think I will interfere. Children are out of my way. Your mother will be your best adviser. I yield to her better information now. You are tired, you are unhappy—you are—left desolate—”

“Oh, how do you dare to say such words to me?”

cried Carry, rising, coming forward to him with feverish energy, laying her hands upon his shoulders, as if to compel him to face her, and hear what she had to say. “Don’t you know—don’t you know?

It is a strange experience for a man whose personal freedom has never been restrained to find himself in prison.

The excitement and amazement of the first day made it something so exceptional and extraordinary, that out of very strangeness it was supportable: and Erskine felt it possible to wind himself up to the necessity of endurance for one night.

I never saw the poor fellow but once or twice, and the last time I had the misfortune to disagree with him; no—I can’t convey myself to his house to learn if I’m to be taken or not. It is a droll sort of experience.

I feel rather like a bale of goods, don’t you know, on approval,

” he said with a laugh. He took it with great good-humour; but it was possible that even Millefleurs’s good-humour might be exhausted.

Then there arose all at once in poor Nora’s inexperienced brain that bitterest struggle on earth, the rally of all her powers to defend and account for, while yet she scorned and loathed, the conduct of the man she loved.

It is easy to stand through evil report and good by those who are unjustly accused, who are wronged, for whom and on whose behalf you can hold your head high.

But when, alas! God help them, they are base, and the accusation against them just! Nora, young, unused to trouble, not knowing the very alphabet of pain, fell into this horrible pit in a moment, without warning, without escape.

Nora was past making any reply.

The cessation of pain, that is more, a great deal more, than a negative good.

For the first moment, at least, it is bliss, active bliss—more than anything else known to men. Of course Nora, when she came to herself, explained that it was a sudden little spasm, a feeling of faintness—something she was used to.

He gave a sigh, in which there was great pathos and self-commiseration, and then he said, with a tone of bewilderment and despair, though his phraseology was not, perhaps, dignified—“

I’m in a hobble that I cannot see how to get out of.

A man cannot, for his ain credit, say one thing one afternoon and another the next day.”

It is impossible to describe the grim pleasure with which Rolls looked on. He liked to see the effect of his words. He liked to bring this young lord to his knees, and enjoy his triumph over him.

But there are limits to mortal enjoyment

, and the time during which his visitor was permitted to remain with him was near an end. Rolls employed the few minutes that remained in impressing upon Rintoul the need for great caution in his evidence.

“I hope so,” said Rolls gravely. “Ye’ll mind this, my lord, that the accused is no’ on his oath; he canna be called upon to criminate himself—that’s one of the first grand safeguards of our laws.

Whatever ill posterity may hear of me, there’s no’ one in the country can say that Thomas Rolls was mansworn!

”

“But I understood all the time,” Edith said.

There is something to be said perhaps for this kind of lovemaking too.

And the time flew as never time flew before—as time has always flown under such circumstances; and it began to grow dark before they knew: for the days were creeping in, growing short, and the evenings long.

The butler’s fine countenance was mildly illuminated by the light he carried. He gave a slight glance round him, with a serenity which made all these excited people shrink, in his indifferent and calmly superior vision.

Imperturbable as a god, he proceeded to close the shutters and draw the curtains.

John Erskine in the quiet took his leave like any ordinary guest.

His father might “slang” him as much as he pleased; fierce words break no bones, and he knew exactly how far it could go. Lord Lindores also knew this, and it had the most curious composing and subduing effect upon him.

What is the use of being angry, when the object of your anger does not care for it? There is no such conqueror of passion.

If nobody cared, the hastiest temper would learn to amend itself. Lord Lindores was aware that Rintoul would hear him out to the end—that he would never, so to speak, turn a hair—that he would reply with perfect coolness, and remain entirely unmoved.

Thus, as it sometimes happens, the worst of the family misfortunes was the one that was condoned most easily; for certainly, in the matrimonial way, Rintoul’s failure was the worst.

Daughters come and daughters go⁠—sometimes they add to the family prestige, sometimes they do the reverse; but at all events, they go, and add themselves to other families, and cease to be of primary importance as concerns their own.

But the eldest son, the heir, is in a very different position. If he does nothing to enrich the race, or add honour to it, the family stock itself must suffer. Nora Barrington would bring some beauty with her to Lindores;

Lady Lindores had not been false in the sentiments of pity and remorseful regret with which she had heard of the death of Torrance.

There are some souls which are so finely poised that they cannot but answer to every natural claim, even when against themselves.

Had she been Torrance’s wife, all the privileges of freedom would not have emancipated her from that compassion for the man struck down in the midst of his life, which took almost the shape of tenderness and sorrow.

Agnes, seated within in attendance on her mistress, gave her a little nod with her eyelids, as much as to say, Who’s in the right now? “To Lindores.”

“Bless me!” said Janet, “single women are aye so keen on that subject. They would ken better if they had ever had a man o’ their ain.”

And indeed Miss Barbara’s magnificent intention was to make a proposal to Lord Lindores, which must, she could not doubt, make everything smooth.

“There are many things to be taken into consideration,” he said. “I had other plans—You will excuse me if I cannot give up my intentions in a moment, because two young people have chosen to fall in love with each other—”

“It is what we all have to do, my lord,” said Miss Barbara, who was old-fashioned, and gave every man his title. “It is the only thing, in my experience, that it is useless to fight against.”

Then Lord Lindores made her a fine bow, and declared that this was a most appropriate sentiment from a lady’s lips; but a man must be excused if he took a graver view.