United States or Suriname ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Men in his discontented state were only too apt to build up a dream-woman, compounded of their own starved fancy, and translate her into terms of the first attractive woman who happened to cross the path. He was not going to be a driveling idiot, like Chris and some of the other men he knew. Things were bad, but they could be much worse.
The Kafirs know little and care less for all the imposing and elaborate machinery of British rule; the queen on her throne is but a fair and distant dream-woman to them; Sir Garnet himself, that great inkosi, was as nobody in their eyes compared to their own chieftain, their king of hearts, the one white man to whom of their own free will and accord they give the royal salute whenever they see him.
"I am encouraged to ask you about yourself," he said. "You know I love you, too." This last statement was not an insincere one, for he did not conceive it as a real statement made to a real human being. Cleo was his wonderful dream-woman, and he had no notion at all of getting any insight into her as a real woman playing an actual rôle in actual life.
The picklock on the bedroom floor remained the one last useless trace of the Dream-Woman. At this point of the narrative the landlord paused, and, turning toward the window of the room in which we were sitting, looked in the direction of the stable-yard. "So far," he said, "I tell you what was told to me. The little that remains to be added lies within my own experience.
And yet Aggie had a quicker and more intelligent look than Lady Castlederry. The beautiful, arrogant woman was like the dream-woman of his romances ... and again, she was not like her; for the dream-women had not got Lady Castlederry's look of settled stupidity in her eyes. John had hurriedly quitted Aggie's company on that occasion.
He drew in his breath quickly, murmuring a soft "Oh," and as he did so, his dream-woman fell dead and he did not even turn to look at her.
Once, indeed, he had kissed his dream-woman ... he had kissed her exactly as he had kissed his great-aunt, Miss Clotworthy, who was famous for the fact that she had attended a Sunday School in Belfast as pupil and teacher for fifty-seven years without a break ... and the dream-woman had taken the kiss in the unemotional manner in which she took hold of his hand when he led her away ... and lost her!...
"Light gray eyes," she said, in low, mournful, awe-struck tones, pointing toward the open door; "a droop in the left eyelid; flaxen hair, with a gold-yellow streak in it; white arms, with a down upon them; little lady's hand, with a reddish look under the finger nails The Dream-Woman, Isaac, the Dream-Woman!"
She did not stand at the end of the road waiting for Romeo to come to her. She did not wait until the fight was fought and won. She did not offer a cold hand or cold lips to Romeo. Her behaviour was really more like that of Aggie Logan than that of the dream-woman!... Aggie Logan! That "girner" with the sallow look and the giggle!
I've thought it was noble beyond all words, with eyes like the first deep violets of Spring, but filled with compassion for all the world. So brave, so true, so tender it might be that I'm thinking if I could see it once, with love on it for me, that I'd never be asking more." "Why haven't you seen her face?" asked Evelina, idly, to relieve an awkward pause. "Is she only a dream-woman?"
Word Of The Day