Complete Novels of E Nesbit

Home > Other > Complete Novels of E Nesbit > Page 605
Complete Novels of E Nesbit Page 605

by Edith Nesbit


  MUSCADEL

  THE HAUNTED INHERITANCE

  THE POWER OF DARKNESS

  THE STRANGER WHO MIGHT HAVE BEEN OBSERVED

  RACK AND THUMBSCREW

  THE MILLIONAIRESS

  THE HERMIT OF “THE YEWS”

  THE AUNT AND THE EDITOR

  MISS MOUSE

  THE OLD WIFE

  THE HOUSE OF SILENCE

  THE GIRL AT THE TOBACCONIST’S

  WHILE IT IS YET DAY

  ALCIBIADES

  THE CAT-HOOD OF MAURICE

  THE MIXED MINE

  ACCIDENTAL MAGIC; OR DON’T TELL ALL YOU KNOW

  THE PRINCESS AND THE HEDGE-PIG

  SEPTIMUS SEPTIMUSSON

  THE WHITE CAT

  BELINDA AND BELLAMANT; OR THE BELLS OF CARRILLON-LAND

  JUSTNOWLAND

  THE RELATED MUFF

  THE AUNT AND AMABEL

  KENNETH AND THE CARP

  THE MAGICIAN’S HEART

  LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

  A BRIEF LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE.

  A DEATH-BED CONFESSION

  A HOLIDAY

  A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

  A NOBLE DOG

  A POWERFUL FRIEND

  A SILLY QUESTION

  ACCIDENTAL MAGIC; OR DON’T TELL ALL YOU KNOW

  ACTING FOR THE BEST

  ALCIBIADES

  ALFRED THE GREAT

  ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

  AN OBJECT OF VALUE AND VIRTUE

  BARRING THE WAY

  BELINDA AND BELLAMANT; OR THE BELLS OF CARRILLON-LAND

  BILLY AND WILLIAM

  BILLY THE KING

  CINDERELLA

  COALS OF FIRE

  CYMBELINE

  DICK, TOM, AND HARRY

  DOGGY TALES

  EDWARD THE BLACK PRINCE

  GRANDSIRE TRIPLES

  GUILTY

  HAMLET

  HENRY THE FIFTH AND THE BABY PRINCE

  HENRY THE THIRD

  JOHN CHARRINGTON’S WEDDING.

  JUSTNOWLAND

  KENNETH AND THE CARP

  KIND LITTLE EDMUND, OR THE CAVES AND THE COCKATRICE

  KING LEAR

  MACBETH

  MAN-SIZE IN MARBLE.

  MEASURE FOR MEASURE

  MEDDLESOME PUSSY

  MISS EDEN’S BABY

  MISS MOUSE

  MOLLY, THE MEASLES, AND THE MISSING WILL

  MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

  MUSCADEL

  NINE LIVES

  ONE WAY OF LOVE

  OTHELLO

  PERICLES

  PRINCE ARTHUR

  PUSSY TALES

  QUOTATIONS FROM SHAKESPEARE

  RACK AND THUMBSCREW

  RATS!

  ROMEO AND JULIET

  ROUNDING OFF A SCENE

  SEPTIMUS SEPTIMUSSON

  SHOWING OFF; OR, THE LOOKING-GLASS BOY

  SIR CHRISTOPHER COCKLESHELL

  SON AND HEIR

  THE ARSENICATORS

  THE AUNT AND AMABEL

  THE AUNT AND THE EDITOR

  THE BOOK OF BEASTS

  THE BRISTOL BOWL

  THE BRUTE

  THE CAT-HOOD OF MAURICE

  THE CHARMED LIFE; OR, THE PRINCESS AND THE LIFT-MAN

  THE COMEDY OF ERRORS

  THE DELIVERERS OF THEIR COUNTRY

  THE DRAGON TAMERS

  THE DUEL

  THE DYER’S DOG

  THE EBONY FRAME.

  THE ENCHANCERIED HOUSE

  THE FIERY DRAGON, OR THE HEART OF STONE AND THE HEART OF GOLD

  THE FIRST PRINCE OF WALES

  THE FORCE OF HABIT

  THE GIRL AT THE TOBACCONIST’S

  THE GIRL WITH THE GUITAR

  THE HAUNTED INHERITANCE

  THE HERMIT OF “THE YEWS”

  THE HOUSE OF SILENCE

  THE ICE DRAGON, OR DO AS YOU ARE TOLD

  THE ISLAND OF THE NINE WHIRLPOOLS

  THE LIE ABSOLUTE

  THE LOVE OF ROMANCE

  THE LOVER, THE GIRL, AND THE ONLOOKER

  THE MAGICIAN’S HEART

  THE MAN WITH THE BOOTS

  THE MASS FOR THE DEAD.

  THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

  THE MILLIONAIRESS

  THE MIXED MINE

  THE MYSTERY OF THE SEMI-DETACHED.

  THE OBVIOUS

  THE OLD WIFE

  THE POWER OF DARKNESS

  THE PRINCESS AND THE CAT

  THE PRINCESS AND THE HEDGE-PIG

  THE RELATED MUFF

  THE RING AND THE LAMP

  THE RUNAWAYS

  THE SECOND BEST

  THE SELFISH PUSSY

  THE STRANGER WHO MIGHT HAVE BEEN OBSERVED

  THE TABLES TURNED

  THE TAMING OF THE SHREW

  THE TEMPEST

  THE TWOPENNY SPELL

  THE UNFAITHFUL LOVER

  THE VAIN SETTER

  THE WHITE CAT

  THE WHITE HORSE

  THE WHITE PERSIAN

  THE WINTER’S TALE

  TIMON OF ATHENS

  TINKER

  TOO CLEVER BY HALF

  TWELFTH NIGHT

  TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

  UNCLE ABRAHAM’S ROMANCE.

  UNCLE JAMES, OR THE PURPLE STRANGER

  UNDER THE NEW MOON

  WHILE IT IS YET DAY

  WITH AN E

  Poetry Collections

  The Woolwich Ferry, River Thames, London. On 20 February 1917, three years after her first husband died of a heart attack, Nesbit married Thomas “the Skipper” Tucker, Woolwich ferry’s captain. They were married in Woolwich, where he also worked as a ship’s engineer on the ferry.

  LAYS AND LEGENDS

  CONTENTS

  TO TWO WOMEN.

  TEKEL

  THE MOAT HOUSE

  SONG: MY SWEET, MY SWEET

  SONG. SOFT IS THE GROUND UNDERFOOT

  SONG. GOOD-BYE, MY LOVE, MY ONLY DEAR

  SONG. OH, LOVE, I LEAVE

  SONG. OH, BABY, BABY, BABY DEAR

  SONG. DAY IS FAIR, AND SO IS SHE

  SONG. I HAD A SOUL

  UNOFFICIAL

  PESSIMISM

  GHOSTS

  THE DEAD TO THE LIVING

  THE SPHINX

  QUIETA NE MOVETE

  MICROCOSM

  THE HUSBAND OF TO-DAY

  THE WIFE OF ALL AGES

  TWO VOICES

  VIES MANQUÉES

  A LAST APPEAL

  OVER AND DONE

  OVER AND UNDONE

  CHRISTMAS

  NEW YEAR SONG

  THE SINGING OF THE MAGNIFICAT

  LOVE’S SUICIDE

  CHRISTMAS ROSES

  A CHOICE

  A LIFE’S STORY

  ABSOLUTION

  CUL-DE-SAC

  THE MOORS

  SONG. A MONTH OF GREEN AND TENDER MAY

  RICHBOROUGH CASTLE

  AUGUST

  THE LAST ENVOY

  BABY’S BIRTHDAY

  JANUARY

  CHILDREN’S PLAYGROUNDS IN THE CITY

  THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA

  TO HIS LADY, IMPLORING HER TO BE TRUE

  AT THE FEAST

  SPRING SONG

  NEW YEAR

  A STAR IN THE EAST

  PARTING

  TWO CHRISTMAS EVES

  FOR THE NEW YEAR

  THE FERRY

  LOVERS’ QUARRELS

  WHEN!

  SONG. WE LOVED, MY LOVE, AND NOW IT SEEMS

  QUAND MÊME

  LOVE AND KNOWLEDGE

  HOPES

  A BROWN STUDY

  A GOOD-BYE

  UNTIL THE DAWN

  TO TWO WOMEN.

  YOU who bore the pain and care

  Only women have to bear,

  You who staked your life to win

  Life for me, to love you in,

  You who loved me all these years,

  With your kisses, prayers, and t
ears. —

  You whose being gave to earth

  All that gives my life its worth,

  You who gave me love and praise

  In the darkest of my days:

  To you both where far you stand,

  See, I reach out heart and hand.

  Heart that love of you enfolds,

  Hand that this poor nosegay holds:

  If some weeds about it twine,

  Cast them back, for they are mine;

  All the flowers were set by you,

  And within your garden grew.

  TEKEL

  WHEN on the West broke light from out the East,

  Then from the splendour and the shame of Rome —

  Renouncing wealth and pleasure, game and feast,

  And all the joys of his polluted home,

  Desiring not the gifts his world could give,

  If haply he might save his soul and live —

  Into the desert’s heart a man had come.

  His God had died for love of him, and he

  For love of God would die to all of these

  Sweet sins he had not known for sins, and be

  Estranged for evermore from rest and ease;

  His days in penance spent might half atone

  For the iniquity of days bygone,

  And in the desert might his soul find peace.

  Crossing wide seas, he reached an alien land:

  By mighty harbours and broad streams he passed

  Into an arid, trackless waste of sand,

  And journeying ever faster and more fast,

  Left men behind, and onward still did press

  To a ruined city in the wilderness,

  And there he stayed his restless feet at last.

  There stood long lines of columns richly wrought,

  Colossal statues of forgotten kings,

  Vast shadowy temples, court within dim court,

  Great shapes of man-faced beasts with wide firm wings;

  And in and out each broken colonnade

  The bright-eyed, swift, green-gleaming lizards played,

  In that still place the only living things.

  But when the moon unveiled her still, white face,

  And over sand and stone her glory shed —

  Another life awoke within the place,

  And great beasts stalked, with silent heavy tread,

  Through pillared vista, over marble floor,

  And the stern menace of the lion’s roar

  Made horrible the city of the dead.

  Like a great bird soft sinking on its nest,

  Too lightly to disturb its tender brood,

  The night, with dark spread wings and cloudy breast,

  Sank on the desert city’s solitude

  As he drew near. The shadows grew more dense,

  The silence stronger; weariness intense

  Fell on him then, and only rest seemed good.

  He passed between tall pillars’ sculptured gloom,

  And entered a deserted, lightless fane,

  And knew not if it temple were, or tomb,

  But slept and slept, till over all the plain

  The level sunbeams spread, and earth was bright

  With morning’s radiant resurrection-light;

  Then he awoke, refreshed and strong again.

  Through empty courts he passed, and lo! a wall

  Whereon was imaged all the languid grace

  Of fairest women, and among them all

  Shone like a star one lovely Eastern face:

  Undimmed by centuries the colours were,

  Bright as when first the painter found her fair,

  And set her there to glorify the place.

  All he had fled from suddenly drew near,

  And from her eyes a challenge seemed down-thrown;

  ‘Ah, fool!’ she seemed to say, ‘what dost thou here?

  How canst thou bear this stern, sad life alone,

  When I — not just this face that copies me,

  But I myself — stretch arms and lips to thee,

  From that same world whose joys thou hast foregone?’

  His heart leaped up like flame — she was so fair;

  Then with a start he hid his eyes and fled

  Into the hotness of the outer air.

  His pulse beat quickly. ‘Oh, my God!’ he said,

  ‘These be the heart made pure, and cleansèd brain!

  I vow to Thee to never look again

  On women, real or painted, quick or dead!’

  So lest within the city he should find,

  To tempt his soul, still some accursèd thing,

  He left the palaces and courts behind,

  Found a green spot, with date-palms and a spring

  And built himself a rough stone shelter there

  And saw no more the face, so strange and fair

  That had begot such vain imagining.

  He tilled the patch of land, and planted seeds

  Which from his own far country he had brought;

  And, caring little for his body’s needs,

  Strove still by blind belief to strangle thought,

  By ceaseless penance to deny desire,

  To quench in prayer and fast all human fire,

  And wrest from Heaven the blessings that he sought.

  And there peace found him, and he dwelt alone,

  And gladly gave his life to God. Behind

  Lay the long dim arcades of graven stone;

  Before him lay the desert, burning blind

  Sometimes with the dread dance of its own sand,

  That wildly whirled in shadowy columns, fanned

  By the hot breath of the fierce desert wind.

  Each day passed by as had passed other days,

  And days gone by were as the days to come,

  Save that on some days he was wild with praise,

  And weak with vigil and with fast on some;

  And no man saw he for long months and years,

  But ever did he penance with hot tears,

  And but for prayer and praise his lips were dumb.

  Sometimes at first, when spent with watch and prayer,

  He saw again the Imperial City’s towers,

  Where, in a mist of music and sweet air,

  Thais and Phryne crowned his cup with flowers —

  He saw the easeful day, the festal night,

  The life that was one dream of long delight,

  One rose-red glow of rapture and fair hours.

  He heard old well-remembered voices cry,

  ‘Come back to us! Think of the joys you miss;

  Each moment floats some foregone rapture by,

  A cup, a crown, a song, a laugh, a kiss!

  Cast down that crown of thorns, return, and be

  Once more flower-crowned, love-thrilled, wine-warmed, and see

  The old sweet life — how good a thing it is!’

  But his soul answered, ‘Nay, I am content;

  Ye call in vain; the desert shuts me in.

  Your flowers are sere, your wine with gall is blent,

  Your sweets have all the sickening taste of sin;

  Such sin I expiate with ceaseless pain,

  And world and flesh and devil strive in vain

  Back from its sanctuary my soul to win.

  ‘Fair are the Imperial City’s towers to see?

  I seek the City with the streets of gold.

  Beside the lilies God has grown for me

  Faint are the roses that your fingers hold.

  Ear hath not heard the music I shall hear,

  Eye hath not seen the joys that shall appear,

  Nor heart conceived the things I shall behold.’

  After long days a stranger halted there,

  For some far distant monastery bound.

  The hermit fed and lodged, nor could forbear

  To tell his guest what rest his soul had found

  How with the world he long ago had done,


  How the hard battle had been fought and won,

  And he found peace, pure, perfect and profound.

  The stranger answered, ‘Thou hast watched an hour,

  But many hours go to make up our day,

  And some of these are dark with fateful power,

  And Satan watches for our souls alway;

  The spirit may be willing, but indeed

  The flesh is weak, and so much more the need

  To pray and watch, my brother, watch and pray.’

  The Roman bowed his head in mute assent,

  And, having served the stranger with his best,

  Bade him God-speed, and down the way he went —

  Gazed sadly after, but within his breast

  A pale fire of resentment sprang to flame

  Was he not holy now, and void of blame,

  And certain of himself, and pure, and blest?

  That night a new-born desolation grew

  Within his heart as he made fast the stone

  Against the doorway of his hut, and knew

  How more than ever he was now alone.

  He was in darkness, but the moon without

  Made a new tender daylight round about

  The hut, the palms, the plot with millet sown.

  Hark! — what was that? — For many months and years

  He had not heard that faint uncertain noise,

  Broken, and weak, and indistinct with tears —

  A voice — a human voice — a woman’s voice.

  ‘Oh, let me in,’ it wailed, ‘before I die!

  Oh, let me in, for Holy Charity!

  For see — my life or death is at thy choice!’

  Unthinking, swift he rolled the stone away:

  There stood a woman, trembling, shrinking, thin;

  Her pale hair by the moon’s white light looked grey,

  And grey her hands and grey her withered skin.

  ‘Oh, save me — lest I die among the beasts

  Who roam, and roar, and hold their fearful feasts!

  Oh, save me,’ she besought him, ‘let me in!’

  Troubled, he answered, ‘Nay, I have a vow

  Never again a woman’s face to see!’

  ‘But, ah,’ she cried, ‘thy vow is broken now,

  For at this moment thou beholdest me.

  I cannot journey farther. Help!’ she said,

  ‘Or I before the dawning shall be dead,

  And thou repent to all eternity!’

  His soul was gentle and compassionate.

  ‘Thou shalt not perish — enter here,’ he said;

  ‘My vow is broken, and thy need is great.’

  She staggered forward to the dry leaf bed,

  And sank upon it, cold and still and white.

  ‘Perhaps she may not live until the light,’

  He thought, and lifted up her drooping head,

  And gave her wine from out a little store

  Which he had kept untouched since first he came;

  He rolled the stone again before his door

 

‹ Prev