Trilby quotes

It was a fine, sunny, showery day in April.

The big studio window was open at the top, and let in a pleasant breeze from the northwest. Things were beginning to look shipshape at last.

… bare head with short, thick, wavy brown hair, and a very healthy young face, which could scarcely be called quite beautiful at first sight, since the eyes were too wide apart, the mouth too large, the chin too massive, the complexion a mass of freckles.

Besides, you can never tell how beautiful (or how ugly) a face may be till you have tried to draw it.

But a small portion of her neck, down by the collarbone, which just showed itself between the unbuttoned lapels of her military coat collar, was of a delicate privetlike whiteness that is never to be found on any French neck, and very few English ones.

“Oh, don’t you remember sweet Alice, Ben Bolt? Sweet Alice, with hair so brown?” etc., etc.

As some things are too sad and too deep for tears, so some things are too grotesque and too funny for laughter.

Of such a kind was Miss O’Ferrall’s performance of “Ben Bolt.”

She then got up and shook the crumbs off her coat, and slipped her feet into Durien’s slippers, saying, in English: “Well, I’ve got to go back.

Life ain’t all beer and skittles, and more’s the pity; but what’s the odds, so long as you’re happy?

”

but quite pathetically sweet from the sincerity and fervor of its convictions, a profound belief in their importance, and a proud trust in their lifelong immutability.

Oh, happy days and happy nights, sacred to art and friendship!

oh, happy times of careless impecuniosity, and youth and hope and health and strength and freedom—with all Paris for a playground, and its dear old unregenerate Latin quarter for a workshop and a home!

And all this melancholy preoccupation, on Little Billee’s part, from the momentary gleam and dazzle of a pair of over-perfect feet in an over-aesthetic eye, too much enamoured of mere form!

Reversing the usual process, he had idealized from the base upward!

Many of us, older and wiser than Little Billee, have seen in lovely female shapes the outer garment of a lovely female soul. The instinct which guides us to do this is, perhaps, a right one, more often than not.

… said of me that whatever my other literary shortcomings might be, I at least had never penned a line which a pure-minded young British mother might not read aloud to her little blue-eyed babe as it lies sucking its little bottle in its little bassinet.

Fate has willed it otherwise.

Would indeed that I could duly express poor Trilby’s one shortcoming in some not too familiar medium—in Latin or Greek, let us say—lest the young person (in this ubiquitousness of hers, for which Heaven be praised) should happen to pry into these pages when her …

Sheer gayety of heart and genial good-fellowship, the difficulty of saying nay to earnest pleading.

She was bonne camarade et bonne fille before everything.

Though her heart was not large enough to harbor more than one light love at a time (even in that Latin quarter of genially capacious hearts), it had room for many warm friendships;

and she was the warmest, most helpful, and most compassionate of friends, far more serious and faithful in friendship than in love.

Indeed, she might almost be said to possess a virginal heart, so little did she know of love’s heartaches and raptures and torments and clingings and jealousies.

With her it was lightly come and lightly go, and never come back again; as one or two, or perhaps three, picturesque bohemians of the brush or chisel had found, at some cost to their vanity and self-esteem; perhaps even to a deeper feeling—who knows?

for he was constantly receiving supplies from his own people in Austria—his old father and mother, his sisters, his cousins, and his aunts, hardworking, frugal folk of whom he was the pride and the darling.

He had but one virtue⁠—his love of his art; or, rather, his love of himself as a master of his art⁠—the master

; for he despised, or affected to despise, all other musicians, living or dead—even those whose work he interpreted so divinely, and pitied them for not hearing Svengali give utterance to their music, which of course they could not utter themselves.

“He’s a rum ’un, ain’t he?” said Trilby. “

He reminds me of a big hungry spider, and makes me feel like a fly!

But he’s cured my pain! he’s cured my pain! Ah! you don’t know what my pain is when it comes!”

It was poor Trilby’s sad distinction that she surpassed all other models as Calypso surpassed her nymphs; and whether by long habit, or through some obtuseness in her nature, or lack of imagination, she was equally unconscious of self with her clothes on or without!

Truly, she could be naked and unashamed⁠—in this respect an absolute savage.

She would have ridden through Coventry, like Lady Godiva—but without giving it a thought beyond wondering why the streets were empty and the shops closed and the blinds pulled down—would even have looked up to Peeping Tom’s shutter with a friendly nod, had she known …

… sit for hire), the failure is so lamentably conspicuous in the studio light—the fierce light that beats on this particular throne—that Don Juan himself, who has not got to paint, were fain to hide his eyes in sorrow and disenchantment, and fly to other climes.

All beauty is sexless in the eyes of the artist at his work⁠—the beauty of man, the beauty of woman, the heavenly beauty of the child, which is the sweetest and best of all.

Indeed it is woman, lovely woman, whose beauty falls the shortest, for sheer lack of proper physical training.

For it came, and tortured worse and lasted longer than it had ever done before.

But she soon found, to her miserable bewilderment, that mind-aches are the worst of all.

Then she decided that she must write to one of the trois Angliches, and chose the Laird.

They were stars, just twin gray stars—or rather planets just thrown off by some new sun, for the steady mellow light they gave out was not entirely their own.

Favorite types of beauty change with each succeeding generation.

These were the days of Buckner’s aristocratic Album beauties, with lofty foreheads, oval faces, little aquiline noses, heart-shaped little mouths, soft dimpled chins, drooping shoulders, and long side ringlets that fell over them—the Lady Arabellas and the Lady Clementinas, Musidoras and Medoras!

and sweet jellies, and cakes, and sweetmeats, and confections of all kinds, from the famous pastrycook at the corner of the Rue Castiglione.

Mouths went watering all day long in joyful anticipation.

They water somewhat sadly now at the mere remembrance of these delicious things—the mere immediate sight or scent of which in these degenerate latter days would no longer avail to promote any such delectable secretion. Hélas! ahimè! ach weh! ay de mi! eheu!

… of his little self, drowned him in a great seething surge of love—love of his kind, love of love, love of life, love of death, love of all that is and ever was and ever will be—a very large order indeed, even for Little Billee.

And it seemed to him that he stretched out his arms for love to one figure especially beloved beyond all the rest

—one figure erect on high with arms outstretched to him, in more than common fellowship of need; not the sorrowful figure crowned with thorns, for it was in the likeness of a woman; but never that of the Virgin Mother of Our Lord.

Little Billee reached the Hôtel Corneille that night in a very exalted frame of mind indeed, the loftiest, lowliest mood of all.

Now see what sport we are of trivial, base, ignoble earthly things!

Sitting on the doorstep and smoking two cigars at once he found Ribot, one of his fellow-lodgers, whose room was just under his own. Ribot was so tipsy that he could not ring.

I congratulate you and your sister-in-law on its complete success. I also feel very deeply for your nephew. I’m not sure that he has not lost more than he will gain by—a—by the—a—the success of this—a—this interview, in short!”

Taffy’s eloquence was exhausted, and his quick temper was getting the better of him.

Then Mrs. Bagot, drying her eyes, came and took his hand in a very charming and simple manner, and said: “Mr. Wynne, I think I know what you are feeling just now. You must try and make some allowance for us.

As a matter of fact, however, nothing of this kind happened.

Nothing ever happens but the unforeseen. Pazienza!

Then at length one day—it was a fine, sunny, showery day in April, by the by, and the big studio window was open at the top and let in a pleasant breeze from the northwest, just as when our little story began—a railway omnibus drew …

But his fame filtered quickly down to those immediately beneath, and through these to wider circles. And there was quite enough of opposition and vilification and coarse abuse of him to clear it of any suspicion of cheapness or evanescence.

What better antiseptic can there be than the philistine’s deep hate?

What sweeter, fresher, wholesomer music than the sound of his voice when he doth so furiously rage?

“Oh, it has been a jolly time, though it didn’t last long!” So Trilby had written in her farewell letter to Taffy; and these words were true for Taffy and the Laird as well as for her.

And that is the worst of those dear people who have charm: they are so terrible to do without, when once you have got accustomed to them and all their ways.

And when, besides being charming, they are simple, clever, affectionate, constant, and sincere, like Trilby and Little Billee! Then the lamentable hole their disappearance makes is not to be filled up!

Gecko never came at all. Even Svengali was missed, little as he had been liked.

It is a dismal and sulky looking piece of furniture, a grand-piano that nobody ever plays⁠—with all its sound and its souvenirs locked up inside⁠—a kind of mausoleum! a lopsided coffin⁠—trestles and all!

So it went back to London by the “little quickness,” just as it had come!

Tray’s tail became as a wagging point of interrogation, and he turned his head first on one side and then on the other—his eyes fixed on Little Billee’s, his face irresistible in its genial doggy wistfulness.

“Tray, what a singularly good listener you are⁠—and therefore what singularly good manners you’ve got! I suppose all dogs have!”

said Little Billee; and then, in a very tender voice, he exclaimed,

Then a rest of ten minutes; then more csárdás; then the diva would sing “Malbrouck s’en va-t’en guerre,” of all things in the world! and finish up with “un impromptu de Chopin, sans paroles.”

Truly a somewhat incongruous bill of fare!

Close on the stroke of nine the musicians came in and took their seats. They were dressed in the foreign hussar uniform that has now become so familiar. The first violin had scarcely sat down before friends recognized in him their old friend Gecko.

its intonation absolutely, mathematically pure; one felt it to be not only faultless, but infallible; and the seduction, the novelty of it, the strangely sympathetic quality!

How can one describe the quality of a peach or a nectarine to those who have only known apples?

Until la Svengali appeared, the world had only known apples—Catalanis, Jenny Linds, Grisis, Albonis, Pattis! The best apples that can be, for sure—but still only apples!

its intonation absolutely, mathematically pure; one felt it to be not only faultless, but infallible; and the seduction, the novelty of it, the strangely sympathetic quality! How can one describe the quality of a peach or a nectarine to those who have only known apples?

Until la Svengali appeared, the world had only known apples⁠—Catalanis, Jenny Linds, Grisis, Albonis, Pattis! The best apples that can be, for sure⁠—but still only apples!

If she had spread a pair of large white wings and gracefully fluttered up to the roof and perched upon the chandelier, she could not have produced a greater sensation. The like of that voice has never been heard, nor ever will be again.

… came pouring out of her parted lips (whose shape he so well remembered), and her dovelike eyes looked straight over Svengali’s head, straight in his own direction—nay, at him—something melted in his brain, and all his long-lost power of loving came back with a rush.

It was like the sudden curing of a deafness that has been lasting for years.

The doctor blows through your nose into your Eustachian tube with a little India-rubber machine; some obstacle gives way, there is a snap in your head, and straightway you hear better than you had ever heard in all your life, almost too well;

“So have I.”

“I was just as fond of Trilby as you were. Only she happened to prefer you.”

“What!” cried Little Billee again. “You were fond of Trilby?”

And it was only on Taffy’s promising that he would go all the way to Devonshire with him on the morrow, and stay with him there, that he could be got to dress and dine.

The huge Taffy lived entirely by his affections, and he hadn’t many to live by⁠—the Laird, Trilby, and Little Billee.

Trilby was unattainable, the Laird was quite strong and independent enough to get on by himself, and Taffy had concentrated all his faculties of protection and affection on Little Billee, and was equal to any burden or responsibility all this instinctive young fathering might involve.

They were utterly bewildered; and the Laird would have it that there was another Madame Svengali somewhere, the real one, and that Trilby was a fraud—self-deceived and self-deceiving—quite unconsciously so, of course.

Truth looked out of her eyes, as it always had done⁠—truth was in every line of her face.

The truth only—nothing but the truth could ever be told in that “voice of velvet,” which rang as true when she spoke as that of any thrush or nightingale, however rebellious it might be now (and forever perhaps) to artificial melodic laws and limitations and …

grace, charm, magnetism—whatever the nameless seduction should be called that she possessed to such an unusual degree—she had lost none of it when she lost her high spirits, her buoyant health and energy, her wits!

Tuneless and insane, she was more of a siren than ever⁠—a quite unconscious siren⁠—without any guile, who appealed to the heart all the more directly and irresistibly that she could no longer stir the passions.

All this was keenly felt by all three—each in his different way—by Taffy and Little Billee especially.

… fast-fading lily—for so she called her in her own mind—quite forgetting (or affecting to forget) on what very questionable soil the lily had been reared, and through what strange vicissitudes of evil and corruption it had managed to grow so tall and white and fragrant!

Oh, strange compelling power of weakness and grace and prettiness combined, and sweet, sincere unconscious natural manners! not to speak of worldwide fame!

For Mrs. Bagot was just a shrewd little conventional British country matron of the good upper middle-class type, bristling all over with provincial proprieties and respectabilities, a philistine of the philistines, in spite of her artistic instincts;

She remained in Fitzroy Square, at her son’s, and spent most of her time with Trilby, doing and devising all kinds of things to distract and amuse her, and lead her thoughts gently to heaven, and soften for her the coming end of all.

Trilby had a way of saying, and especially of looking, “Thank you” that made one wish to do as many things for her as one could, if only to make her say and look it again.

And she had retained much of her old, quaint, and amusing manner of telling things, and had much to tell still left of her wandering life, although there were so many strange lapses in her powers of memory—gaps—which, if they could only have been filled …

Besides, there’ll be no wrath for any of us—not even the worst! Il y aura amnistie générale! Papa told me so, and he’d been a clergyman, like Mr. Thomas Bagot. I often think about God. I’m very fond of Him.

One must have something perfect to look up to and be fond of⁠—even if it’s only an idea!

“Though some people don’t even believe He exists! Le père Martin didn’t—but, of course, he was only a chiffonnier, and doesn’t count.

What is it but praying when you try and bear up after losing all you cared to live for? And very good praying too!

There can be prayers without words just as well as songs, I suppose; and Svengali used to say that songs without words are the best!

“And then it seems mean to be always asking for things. Besides, you don’t get them any the faster that way, and that shows!

And also the same fine weather.

It is always fine weather in the courtyard of the Grand Hôtel. As the Laird would say, they manage these things better there!

Taffy wears a short beard, which is turning gray. His kind blue eye is no longer choleric, but mild and friendly—as frank as ever; and full of humorous patience. He has grown stouter;

… even being introduced, that, at all events, Taffy is a “gentleman,” inside and out, up and down—from the crown of his head (which is getting rather bald) to the sole of his foot (by no means a small one, or a lightly shod—ex pede Herculem)!

Indeed, this is always the first thing people say of Taffy⁠—and the last. It means, perhaps, that he may be a trifle dull. Well, one can’t be everything!

Porthos was a trifle dull—and so was Athos, I think; and likewise his son, the faithful Viscount of Bragelonne—bon chien chasse de race! And so was Wilfred of Ivanhoe, the disinherited; and Edgar, the Lord of Ravenswood!

Indeed, this is always the first thing people say of Taffy—and the last. It means, perhaps, that he may be a trifle dull. Well, one can’t be everything!

Porthos was a trifle dull⁠—and so was Athos, I think; and likewise his son, the faithful Viscount of Bragelonne⁠—bon chien chasse de race!

And so was Wilfred of Ivanhoe, the disinherited; and Edgar, the Lord of Ravenswood! and so, for that matter, was Colonel Newcome, of immortal memory!

and likewise his son, the faithful Viscount of Bragelonne—bon chien chasse de race! And so was Wilfred of Ivanhoe, the disinherited; and Edgar, the Lord of Ravenswood! and so, for that matter, was Colonel Newcome, of immortal memory!

Yet who does not love them⁠—who would not wish to be like them, for better, for worse!

Taffy’s wife is unlike Taffy in many ways; but (fortunately for both) very like him in some. She is a little woman, very well shaped, very dark, with black, wavy hair, and very small hands and feet; a very graceful, handsome, and vivacious person;

a very graceful, handsome, and vivacious person; by no means dull; full, indeed, of quick perceptions and intuitions; deeply interested in all that is going on about and around her, and with always lots to say about it, but not too much.

She distinctly belongs to the rare, and ever-blessed, and most precious race of charmers.

She had fallen in love with the stalwart Taffy more than a quarter of a century ago in the Place St. Anatole des Arts, where he and she and her mother had tended the sick-couch of Little Billee—but she had never told her love.

She had fallen in love with the stalwart Taffy more than a quarter of a century ago in the Place St. Anatole des Arts, where he and she and her mother had tended the sick-couch of Little Billee—but she had never told her love.

Tout vient à point, pour qui sait attendre!

That is a capital proverb, and sometimes even a true one. Blanche Bagot had found it to be both!