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“Yes, but I should like to see him.”
As I sat there in that now lonely room; the fire burning low, in that mild stage when, after its first intensity has warmed the air, it then only glows to be looked at; the evening shades and phantoms gathering round the casements, and peering in upon us silent, solitary twain; the storm booming without in solemn swells; I began to be sensible of strange feelings. I felt a melting in me. No more my splintered heart and maddened hand were turned against the wolfish world. This soothing savage had redeemed it. There he sat, his very indifference speaking a nature in which there lurked no civilized hypocrisies and bland deceits. Wild he was; a very sight of sights to see; yet I began to feel myself mysteriously drawn towards him. And those same things that would have repelled most others, they were the very magnets that thus drew me. I’ll try a pagan friend, thought I, since Christian kindness has proved but hollow courtesy. I drew my bench near him, and made some friendly signs and hints, doing my best to talk with him meanwhile. At first he little noticed these advances; but presently, upon my referring to his last night’s hospitalities, he made out to ask me whether we were again to be bedfellows. I told him yes; whereat I thought he looked pleased, perhaps a little complimented.
“I shall be very fit to see Jane--which is all I want.”
“I am charmed, my love, quite charmed,” said Lord Henry, elevating his dark, crescent-shaped eyebrows and looking at them both with an amused smile. “So sorry I am late, Dorian. I went to look after a piece of old brocade in Wardour Street and had to bargain for hours for it. Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
“Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.”
Such, then, was the person that I saw seated on the transom when I followed Captain Peleg down into the cabin. The space between the decks was small; and there, bolt-upright, sat old Bildad, who always sat so, and never leaned, and this to save his coat tails. His broad-brim was placed beside him; his legs were stiffly crossed; his drab vesture was buttoned up to his chin; and spectacles on nose, he seemed absorbed in reading from a ponderous volume.
“The Apothecary came” ]
“Harry, how can you?”
“It is only the sacred things that are worth touching, Dorian,” said Lord Henry, with a strange touch of pathos in his voice. “But why should you be annoyed? I suppose she will belong to you some day. When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one’s self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance. You know her, at any rate, I suppose?”
“What needs, O monarch! this invidious praise, Ourselves to lessen, while our sire you raise? Dare to be just, Atrides! and confess Our value equal, though our fury less. With fewer troops we storm’d the Theban wall, And happier saw the sevenfold city fall,[137] In impious acts the guilty father died; The sons subdued, for Heaven was on their side. Far more than heirs of all our parents’ fame, Our glories darken their diminish’d name.”
Moby-Dick — Chapter 19: The Ramadan
“Paradoxes are all very well in their way....” rejoined the baronet.
“What needs, O monarch! this invidious praise, Ourselves to lessen, while our sire you raise? Dare to be just, Atrides! and confess Our value equal, though our fury less. With fewer troops we storm’d the Theban wall, And happier saw the sevenfold city fall,[137] In impious acts the guilty father died; The sons subdued, for Heaven was on their side. Far more than heirs of all our parents’ fame, Our glories darken their diminish’d name.”
“I would sooner come with you; yes, I feel I must come with you. Do let me. And you will promise to talk to me all the time? No one talks so wonderfully as you do.”
Moby-Dick — Chapter 12: Nightgown
“O first and greatest power! whom all obey, Who high on Ida’s holy mountain sway, Eternal Jove! and you bright orb that roll From east to west, and view from pole to pole! Thou mother Earth! and all ye living floods! Infernal furies, and Tartarean gods, Who rule the dead, and horrid woes prepare For perjured kings, and all who falsely swear! Hear, and be witness. If, by Paris slain, Great Menelaus press the fatal plain; The dame and treasures let the Trojan keep, And Greece returning plough the watery deep. If by my brother’s lance the Trojan bleed, Be his the wealth and beauteous dame decreed: The appointed fine let Ilion justly pay, And every age record the signal day. This if the Phrygians shall refuse to yield, Arms must revenge, and Mars decide the field.”
“I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at your knowing any.”
One afternoon, a month later, Dorian Gray was reclining in a luxurious
“I deserve neither such praise nor such censure,” cried Elizabeth; “I am not a great reader, and I have pleasure in many things.”