United States or Turkmenistan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It was as in the fable of the weremen, who, at a magic sign or word, put off their human aspect and become beasts. So it had chanced to the spirit of Montalvo, shining through his flesh like some baleful marsh-light through the mist.
And I was awake enough to be sure that it was not a dream. In impressions like these we recognize the last trace of things which are sinking out of sight and call within us, of memories which are perishing. It is like a shimmering marsh-light falling upon some vague outline of which one scarcely knows whether it represents a pain or a pleasure a gleam upon a grave. How strange!
Each Wild Thing has over its head a marsh-light, which moves as the Wild Thing moves; they have no souls, and cannot die, and are of the kith of the Elf-folk. Or if they tarry longer, sitting upon the rushes, their bodies fade from view as the marsh-fires pale in the light, and by daylight none may see the Wild Things of the kith of the Elf-folk.
The loss of an hour strung him to pursue the chase in earnest, and he had a beating of the heart as he thought that it might be serious. He recollected thinking it so at Copsley. The long ride, and nightfall, with nothing in view, had obscured his mind to the possible behind the thick obstruction of the probable; again the possible waved its marsh-light.
Now he saw that this scheme had been a kind of Jack-o'-lantern a marsh-light after which he might have danced for years to come. As matters stood, he must needs be content if, the passage-moneys paid, he could scrape together enough to keep him afloat till he found a modest corner to slip into. His first impulse was to say nothing of this to his wife in the meantime. Why unsettle her?
For, that a woman is miles above him, as a star is above a marsh-light, is no reason why a man should not love her. Nay, is it not the best of reasons for loving her? The higher in soul, and the lowlier in position he is, the more imperative and unavoidable is it that he should love her; and the absence of any thought in the direction of marriage leaves but the wider room for the love infinite.
He beheld now with a sickening shudder the woman cowering at his feet whose beauty an hour ago had melted his soul: she was flesh to him only her beauty was of the earth, and flesh and the earth were passing, and it was other things on which such moments as these were opening things such as shone in the transfigured face of Lilian of Lilian whom, if this marsh-light had not dazzled him from his way, he might now be holding to his heart triumphant; for here disguises would have fallen and he could have claimed his own.
Many a good woman appreciated the waste of good food even while she added to it, and sighed after that full larder for the benefit of her man and the weans at home; but all the time there was the dancing marsh-light of Margret's money luring the good souls on.
If these two touched hands, then in that moment would be spanned the distance between the star in the ascendant and the wavering marsh-light, between the sea-colossus and his one-time rival, now so long overwhelmed and chained to sterile earth. In the short silence the wind seemed to take with a rushing sound the palm tops overhead. Then Ferne spoke. "With all my heart I thank you," he said.
"Then I will consecrate my life to finding her," cried Alick warmly. Mr. Dundas shrugged his shoulders. "Who can persuade a willful man against his folly?" he said coldly. "You are following a marsh-light, my boy, and if you do find it you will only be landed in a bog." "If I find her I shall have found my reward," Alick answered with boyish fervor.
Word Of The Day