The Room in the Dragon Volant quotes

We were, perpetually, passing relays of return-horses, on their way, jaded and dusty, to the inns from which they had been taken. They were arduous times for those patient public servants.

The whole world seemed posting up to Paris.

I ought to have noted it more particularly, but my head was so full of Paris and the future, that I passed the intervening scenery with little patience and less attention;

The lady, you may be sure, was not the less interesting on that account.

What a fascination a title exercises upon the imagination!

I do not mean on that of snobs or moral flunkies. Superiority of rank is a powerful and genuine influence in love. The idea of superior refinement is associated with it.

By this time the sun was near its setting, and threw its golden beams on the red brick chimneys of the offices, and made the two barrels, that figured as pigeon-houses, on the tops of poles, look as if they were on fire.

Everything in this light becomes picturesque; and things interest us which, in the sober grey of morning, are dull enough.

After a little search, I lighted upon the very carriage, of which I was in quest. A servant was locking one of the doors, for it was made with the security of lock and key. I paused near, looking at the panel of the door.

“You desire to quarrel, Madame!” And the old man, I presume, shut down the window. Down it went, at all events, with a rattle that might easily have broken the glass.

Of all thin partitions, glass is the most effectual excluder of sound.

I heard no more, not even the subdued hum of the colloquy.

Full of this exciting hope, I sauntered out, upon the steps of the Belle Étoile. It was now night, and a pleasant moonlight over everything. I had entered more into my romance since my arrival, and this poetic light heightened the sentiment.

What a drama, if she turned out to be the Count’s daughter, and in love with me! What a delightful⁠—tragedy, if she turned out to be the Count’s wife!

In this luxurious mood, I was accosted by a tall and very elegantly-made gentleman, who appeared to be about fifty.

He laughed and shrugged, “Of course it is, my young friend.

People who live by an art, always understand it better than an amateur.

I see you had formed the same plan, and no doubt came provided.”

I saw my host in the apartment in which we had supped.

Wherever you employ a force of any sort, to carry a point of real importance, reject all nice calculations of economy. Better to be a thousand percent over the mark, than the smallest fraction of a unit under it.

I instinctively felt this.

“Don’t mind these letters,” he said. “I will introduce you. I will take you myself from house to house.

One friend at your side is worth many letters.

Make no intimacies, no acquaintances, until then. You young men like best to exhaust the public amusements of a great city, before embarrassing yourself with the engagements of society. Go to all these. It will occupy you, day and night, for at least three weeks.

The knight having made this speech to himself, cast his eyes once more upon the enchanter’s castle, and heaved a gentle sigh—a sigh of longing, of resolution, and of love.

What a fool I was! and yet, in the sight of angels, are we any wiser as we grow older?

It seems to me, only, that our illusions change as we go on; but, still, we are madmen all the same.

What a fool I was! and yet, in the sight of angels, are we any wiser as we grow older?

It seems to me, only, that our illusions change as we go on; but, still, we are madmen all the same.

“Well, St. Clair,” said I, as my servant entered, and began to arrange my things. “You have got a bed?”

“The light of violet eyes.”

Love, if not a religion, as the oracle had just pronounced it, is, at least, a superstition.

How it exalts the imagination! How it enervates the reason! How credulous it makes us!

“That an unscrupulous person has no difficulty in evading a simple question like mine.

Know then, once for all, that nothing disgusts a person of spirit so much as suspicion.

You, Monsieur, are a gentleman of discretion. I shall respect you accordingly.”

“But you don’t deceive me. You imitate your friend’s diplomacy.

I hate diplomacy. It means fraud and cowardice.

Don’t you think I know him. The gentleman with the cross of white ribbon on his breast. I know the Marquis d’Harmonville perfectly. You see to what good purpose your ingenuity has been expended.”

“

The world is not so ungrateful as you suppose; or if it be, there are, nevertheless, a few hearts that redeem it.

I can answer for the Countess de St. Alyre, she never forgets a kindness. She does not show all she feels; for she is unhappy, and cannot.”

The silent, moonlighted, solitary road, how it contrasted with the many-eddied whirl of pleasure from whose roar and music, lights, diamonds and colours, I had just extricated myself.

The sight of lonely Nature at such an hour, acts like a sudden sedative.

The madness and guilt of my pursuit struck me with a momentary compunction and horror. I wished I had never entered the labyrinth which was leading me, I knew not whither. It was too late to think of that now;

And now it was done. I was in the park of the Château de la Carque, as nefarious a poacher as ever trespassed on the grounds of unsuspicious lord!

Before me rose the appointed grove, which looked as black as a clump of gigantic hearse-plumes.

It seemed to tower higher and higher at every step; and cast a broader and blacker shadow toward my feet. On I marched, and was glad when I plunged into the shadow which concealed me.

“No, we must not waste our moments in extravagances. Understand my case.

There is no such thing as indifference in the married state.

Not to love one’s husband,” she continued, “is to hate him. The Count, ridiculous in all else, is formidable in his jealousy. In mercy, then, to me, observe caution.

I stood, with my finger on the trigger, determined to shoot him dead if he should attempt to enter the place where the Countess was. It would, no doubt, have been a murder; but, in my mind, I had no question or qualm about it.

When once we engage in secret and guilty practices we are nearer other and greater crimes than we at all suspect.

“There’s the statue,” said the Colonel, in his brief discordant tones. “That’s the figure.”

I drew back from this melancholy room, and closed the door. Her distrust of me was the worst rashness she could have committed.

There is nothing more dangerous than misapplied caution.

In entire ignorance of the fact I had entered the room, and there I might have lighted upon some of the very persons it was our special anxiety that I should avoid.

Her voice, low and hard, seemed to me to tremble a little.

It takes a long course of guilt to subjugate nature completely, and prevent those exterior signs of agitation that outlive all good.

The doctor, however, was treating me as coolly as he might a subject which he was about to place on the dissecting-table for a lecture.

It was reassuring, at all events, to hear that there was no intention to murder me.

No one who has not tried it knows the terror of the approach of death, when the mind is clear, the instincts of life unimpaired, and no excitement to disturb the appreciation of that entirely new horror.

The nature and purpose of this tenderness was very, very peculiar, and as yet I had not a suspicion of it.