Complete Novels of E Nesbit
Page 605
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