MihaElla > Recent Status Updates

It is time the "Woman-hater" drew to a close, for the woman-hater is spoiled. He begins sarcastic speeches, from force of habit, but stops short in the middle. He is a very happy man, and owes it to a woman, and knows it. He adores her; and to love well is to be happy.

“Please explain a remarkable phenomenon. You were always a bright girl, and no fool; but not exactly what humdrum people would call a good girl. You are not offended?"

"The idea! Why, I have publicly disowned goodness again and again. You have heard me.”

Either there is such a thing as love at first sight, or it is something more than first sight, when an observant man gazes at a woman for an hour in a blaze of light, and drinks in her looks, her walk, her voice, and all the outward signs of a beautiful soul; for the stout cynic's heart beat at entering that room as it had not beat for years.

Miss Gale, which do you admire most, Lord Uxmoor or Mr. Severne?

For their looks?

Oh, of course.

Mr. Severne.

You don't admire beards, then?

That depends. Where the mouth is well shaped and expressive, the beard spoils it. Where it is commonplace, the beard hides its defect, and gives a manly character. As a general rule, I think the male bird looks well with his crest and feathers.

Vizard asked her if her report was ready. She said it was.

"Have you got it with you?"

"Yes."

"Then please hand it to me."

"Oh! it is in my head. I don't write much down; that weakens the memory. If you would give me half an hour after luncheon—" She hesitated a little.

Zoe jealoused a te'te-'a-te'te, and parried it skillfully. "Oh," said she, "but we are all much interested: are not you, Lord Uxmoor?”

Time is like a kettle. Be blind to him, he flies; watch him, he lags.

Ina caught the culprit and showed him this. "A thousand pounds!" said she. "Are you not ashamed? Was ever a niggardly act so embellished and exaggerated? I feel my face very red, sir."

Oh, I'll explain that in a moment," said Joseph, amicably.

What is the matter with you?

Of course you can't divine, said he, sarcastically

Oh yes, I can; and it is your own fault

My fault! That is a good joke. Did I invite this man with all his advantages? That was Vizard's doing, who calls himself my friend

If it was not this one, it would be some other. Can you hope to keep Zoe Vizard from being courted? Why, she is the beauty of the county!& her brother not married

I took up, one day, my favorite weekly, in which nearly every writer seems to me a scholar, and was regaled with such lines as these:

"It appears that girls are to associate with boys as medical students, in order that, when they become women, they may be able to speak to men with entire plainness upon all the subjects of a doctor's daily practice.”

She taught me to master history accurately. To do this she was artful enough to turn sport into science. She utilized a game: young people in Boston play it. A writes an anecdote on paper, or perhaps produces it in print. She reads it off to B. B goes away, and writes it down by memory; then reads her writing out to C.

“One cup of tea agrees with my brain and nerves," said she. "It steadies them. That is a matter of individual experience. I should not prescribe it to others any the more for that."

Vizard sat wondering at the girl. He said to himself, "What is she? A lusus naturoe?”

Ina was in her bedroom.

He sent in a line, "Can you sing tonight? If not he says he must close."

The reply came back in rather a trembling hand. "I suffer too much by falsehood to break faith myself. I shall pray till night: and then I shall sing. If I die on the stage, all the better for me."

Was not this a great soul?

“What was he like?" said she, to turn the conversation.

"The handsomest young fellow I ever saw."

"Young, of course?"

"Yes, quite a boy. At least, he looked a boy. To be sure, his talk was not like a boy's; very precocious, I should say."

"What a pity, to begin gambling so young!"

So please speak plainly,if you can

Ah,you say that

& I mean it.Never mind consequences;tell me the truth

Like a man,eh? & get hated

Men are well worth imitating,in some things.Tell me the truth,pleasant or not,& I shall always respect you

Bother respect.I am like the rest of us;I want to be loved a little bit.But there—I'm in for it.I have said too much,or too little.I know that.

[…] innocent excitement can never compete with vicious.

What, is it really wicked to play?

I don't know about wicked; you girls always run to the biggest word. But, if avarice is a vice, gambling cannot be virtuous; for the root of gambling is mere avarice, weak avarice.

If he is not there—& I am not so mad as to think he will be there—I shall risk a few pieces myself,to be nearer him in mind

This amazed Ashmead;it was so unlike her.You are joking,said he.Why,if you lose five napoleons at play,it will be your death;you will grizzle so

Yes;but I shall not lose.I am too unlucky in love to lose at cards.I mean to play this afternoon;& never again in all my life.Sir,I am resolved

“Zoe," said Harrington gravely, "something tells me I am going to meet my fate."

"All the better," said Zoe. "I wish you to meet your fate. My love for my brother is not selfish. I am sure she is a good woman. Perhaps I may find out something."

"About what?"

"Oh, never mind.”

But innocence is sometimes very bold. She did not care a bit; and, to tell the truth, she had little need to care. Beauty so positive as hers is indomitable. The petty accidents that are the terrors of homely charms seem to enhance Queen Beauty. Disheveled hair adorns it: close bound hair adorns it. Simplicity adorns it. Diamonds adorn it. Everything seems to adorn it, because, the truth is, it adorns everything.

“Look here," said he, "I'll—won't you have a cigar?—there; now I'll tell you something: I have a mania as bad as yours; only mine is intermittent, thank Heaven! I'm told a million women are as good,or better, than a million men. It may be so. But when I, an individual, stake my heart on lovely woman, she always turns out unworthy. With me, the sex avoids alternation. Therefore I rail on it wholesale…

Her next song was encored,& she came off flushed with art & gratified pride.I have no fears now, said she, to her Achates, firmly.I have my barometer; a young lady in the stalls.Oh, such a beautiful creature, with black hair and eyes!She applauds me fearlessly. Her glorious eyes speak to mine,& inspire me.She is happy, she is.I drink sunbeams at her.I shall act and sing 'Le Parlate d'Amor' for her—and you will see

She rose,all of a sudden,& looked keenly at herself in the glass,to see if she had not somehow overrated her attractions.But the glass was reassuring.It told her not one man in a million could go to a sick friend that night,when he might pass the evening by her side,& visit his friend early in the morning. Best loved is best served.Tears of mortified vanity were in her eyes;but she smiled through them at the glass;

“I do not desire wit, but consolation. I believe you are Mephistopheles himself in disguise; for ever since I signed that diabolical compact you made me, I have been in a state of terror, agitation, misgiving, and misery—and I thank and bless you for it; for these thorns and nettles they lacerate me, and make me live. They break the dull, lethargic agony of utter desolation.”

“Is it not strange? I, a child of the theater, am at heart domestic. He, a gentleman and a scholar, born, bred, and fitted to adorn the best society, is by nature a Bohemian.”

“But there—what is done is done. We must make the best of it; and you mustn't think I meant to run him down. He loves you, in his way. He must be a noble fellow, or he never could have won such a heart as yours. He won't be jealous of an old fellow like me, though I love you, too, in my humdrum way, and always did. You must do me the honor to present me to him at once.”

The song went like this:

‘Your steel dagger has torn through my white breast, and I held to it my little darling, my boy, washed him with my hot blood, and the wound was healed without herbs or roots; I did not fear death, neither will this djigit boy.’

“He spent a week with us. We met with nothing but good from him,” she said. “Well-mannered, intelligent, fair-minded.”

How did you discover all this?

Well, I have. And that’s that.

“So you fell for him,” said Ivan Matveyevich, who had just come in. “You really did.”

“Well, all right. I fell for him. What’s that to you? Why run a good man down? He may be a Tartar but he’s a good man.”

He liked her simplicity, the special kind of beauty of an ethnic group alien to him and the attraction she felt towards him which she transmitted to him unconsciously. He tried not to look at her and not to speak to her, but his eyes kept turning towards her in spite of himself and followed her movements.

Butler looked at those mountains and filled his lungs with the air around him, rejoicing in the fact that he was alive and that it was precisely he who was alive, and in this lovely world too.

Hadji Murat stopped, his sunburnt face flushed deeply and his eyes became bloodshot.

“Fear came upon me and I fled.”

“Is that so? said Loris-Melilov. I thought you were never afraid of anything.”

“Afterwards, never; from that time on I remembered it with shame and, when I remembered it, I was no longer afraid of anything.”

Hadji Murat answered the smile with a smile, and this smile astounded Poltoratsky with its childlike good nature. It was not at all what Poltoratsky was expecting from this terrifying tribesman from the mountains. He was expecting a gloomy, dry, alien individual yet he was confronted by a very simple man, smiling with a smile so kind that he looked not like a stranger but like a friend he had known for a long time.