My Lord Monleigh Quotes

“No pain is unbearable except that of regret.”
― Jan Cox Speas, My Lord Monleigh

“Endurance is not the frail and tenuous thing some think it, but is in reality the measuring rod of our sanity and may be safely stretched to fill our direst need.”
― Jan Cox Speas, My Lord Monleigh

“Honesty must sometimes be taken in small measure, like a bitter medicine.”
― Jan Cox Speas, My Lord Monleigh

“There was no portion of land in the world with so contradictory a nature as the Highlands. Now it was a land of sunlit moors stained red with heather, knowing only the peace of the quiet sky and the heart-shaking beauty of the blue hills; now it was a harsh and awesome place where silent mists obscured the peaks and a bitter relentless rain came down from bitter skies, where an angry sea washed against the shore, and sullen clouds reflected in sullen gray lochs.

Scotland in the sun and Scotland in the rain...”
― Jan Cox Speas, My Lord Monleigh

“I could not answer. We stood looking at each other, and suddenly the world seemed to recede like the slow wash of the outgoing tide, leaving behind a vast and breathless silence. The rushing sough of water faded away, there was no bird call, no faint rustle of wind in the trees; and I remembered the strange moment I first saw him on the moor above the sea, when I had known that same rapt silence and quietude.Then he put out his hand and pushed back a wayward lock of hair on my forehead. I did not move, for all will to move had left me at his touch, and he held my chin and and lifted my face to his. “Don’t be frightened,” he said quietly.
“If I am afraid,” I answered, low, “I have reason enough.”
“Are you sure?”
No, I was sure of nothing, except that for the space of a single afternoon I had been happier than I had ever been before.”
― Jan Cox Speas, My Lord Monleigh

“No pain is unbearable," he said, "except that of regret.”
― Jan Cox Speas, My Lord Monleigh

“Their Solemn League and Covenant was designed to protect the liberty of men's consciences," he said, "but it has come to mean only the liberty to bind men to their own convictions. And they scream like wrathful vultures because I'll not permit my conscience or my mind to be bound by other men, as mortal as myself, who have taken the word of God to themselves and think to make all others worship as they see fit”
― Jan Cox Speas, My Lord Monleigh

“He sat there beside me with his lithe and careless grace, the firelight glittering in his dark eyes and throwing into bold relief the high cheek-bones and the line of his chin, the laughter curving his hard mouth, the powerful thighs and shoulders; and I knew with an unequivocal clarity that no place on earth which had known his presence would remain unchanged with his passing...”
― Jan Cox Speas, My Lord Monleigh

“No one can save another from the consequences of wilful delusion.”
― Jan Cox Speas, My Lord Monleigh

“It would be very unwise,” I said at last, “for me to ride with you.”
“Very unwise,” he agreed.
“I’ve no way of knowing your intentions.”
“None whatsoever. ”
“You may be plotting more wickedness.”
“We may, indeed.”
“It is doubtless improper, as well as dangerous, for me to remain in such infamous company.”
“Doubtless,” he said gravely.
“On the other hand,” I said, “my character is reasonably virtuous and untainted. I see no reason to fear it would be corrupted by your guilt.”
― Jan Cox Speas, My Lord Monleigh

“I was under his spell, as I had come to be under the spell of this west coast of Scotland. And his was the nature of a Highlander, after all, a man forever fighting for the possession of himself. There was a dark heritage in his blood, that same heritage of violence and disquiet which had seethed through Highland history since the beginning of time; and I would imagine that this unrest, this dark vein of passion, must be guarded with a constant vigilance lest it stealthily conquer a man’s soul and abandon him to the darkness.”
― Jan Cox Speas, My Lord Monleigh

“I ran through the woods and across the whispering burn, and Monleigh waited just beyond the woods. He put his hands to my waist without a word and lifted me to the saddle. Then he sprang up behind me and touched spurs to his horse; and we were away, riding like the wind across the hills, while the stars rode their white stallions in furious pursuit across the wide arc of the sky.”
― Jan Cox Speas, My Lord Monleigh

“But it occurred to me that if there were a god in that wilderness he would be an ancient pagan deity, one of those gods men worshipped in olden days with weird circles of stones and chants of exultation; and he would stride along the hilltops, his massive head and shaggy locks touching the sky, and toss aside great boulders as if they were pebbles, and call forth the furious gales sweeping in from the sea. His voice would thunder from the very heavens, and the sound of his laughter would echo wildly down the deep chasms and corries of the mountains. And so I did not pray, fearing the consequences, but closed my eyes and tried not to think at all.”
― Jan Cox Speas, My Lord Monleigh

“It may be true, as some would have it, that death comes only once to each of us. A final reckoning, they deem it, to be faced by each lonely man in his turn; one last bitter obstacle to be surmounted before we are done with this world and may partake of the joyful mysteries of the next.
I do not contradict them. Surely we may believe with impunity whatever satisfies the dictates of our consciences or our creeds, for those who would enlighten us are gone far beyond the reach of our questions. But that day I sat in Margaret Clennon’s chamber, where the late afternoon sun slanted through the tall narrow windows with their velvet hangings, and the fire mulled quietly on the hearth and cast its reflection, like a wayward flame, against my wine goblet of Venetian glass, I learned that truth is not so simple a matter, and death does not always wait upon a final judgment but lies in ambush behind each turning of the road. We die a score of times, foolish humans that we are, and each time the dying is a torment and a pain which has no hope of surcease in another, kinder world beyond.”
― jan cox speas, My Lord Monleigh