A Mummer's Wife

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Brentano's, 1917 - 465 pages
 

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Page 358 - She did not know what she wanted of him, but with a longing that was nearly madness she desired to possess him wholly ; she yearned to bury her poor aching body, throbbing with the anguish of nerves, in that peaceful hulk of fat, so calm, so invulnerable...
Page x - Wife, to dedicate to you, is your own commendation of it the other night when you said to me that no book of mine in your opinion was more likely to " live " ! To live for five-and-twenty years is as long an immortality as anyone should set his heart on; for who would wish to be chattered about by the people that will live in these islands three hundred years hence?
Page 407 - Her rage had now reached its height. Showing her clenched teeth, she foamed at the mouth, the bloodshot eyes protruded from their sockets, and her voice grew more and more harsh and discordant. But, although the excited brain gave strength to the muscles and energy to the will, unarmed she could do nothing against Dick, and suddenly becoming conscious of this she rushed to the fireplace and seized the poker. With one sweep of the arm she cleared the mantelboard, and the mirror came in for a tremendous...
Page 1 - Esther Waters" (revised edition, Brentano, page 1 ) : "and the lamplight made the curious curves of a beautiful ear look like a piece of illuminated porcelain.
Page 41 - ... themselves in the love fortunes of doctors and curates. Amid these there was one story that interested her in particular, and caused her deeper emotions than the others. It concerned a beautiful young woman with a lovely oval face, who was married to a very tiresome country doctor. This lady was in the habit of reading Byron and Shelley in a rich, sweet-scented meadow, down by the river, which flowed dreamily through smiling pasture-lands, adorned by spreading trees.
Page 291 - She became again in instincts and tastes a middle-class woman longing for a home, a fixed and tangible fireside where she might sit in the evening by her husband's side, mending his shirts, after the work of the day. A bitter detestation of her wandering life rose to her head, and she longed to beg of her husband to give up theatricals
Page 2 - Her hair was blue wherever the light touched it, and it encircled the white prominent temple like a piece of rich black velvet; a dark shadow defined the delicate nose, and hinted at thin indecision of lips, whilst a broad touch of white marked the weak but not unbeautiful chin.
Page 334 - ... witch at the window : softly as a drinking snake, she drank of this young life. Thou shalt be mine and mine only, she seemed to say ; and in the devouring gleams the struggle was continued. Out of the flower-like skin black stains grew; all the soft roundnesses fell into distortions ; chubby knees were wrenched to and fro, muscles seemed to be torn, and the bones beneath to be broken violently: as in the Laocoon, every movement spoke of pain. So, for an...
Page 408 - You'd better,' yelled the mad woman after her. 'I'll give it to you.' 'Let me go, will you?' But Dick never ceased his hold of her, and the blood, dripping upon her, trickled in large drops into her ears, and down into her neck and bosom. 'You're spitting on me, you beast! You filthy beast! I'll pay you out for this.' Then, she perceived that it was blood; the intonation of her voice changed, and in terror she screamed, 'Murder! Murder! He's murdering me! Is there no one here to save me?
Page 464 - She began to ramble in her speech, and to fancy herself in Hanley. The most diverse scenes were heaped together in the complex confusion of Kate's nightmare; the most opposed ideas were intermingled. At one moment she told the little girls, Annie and Lizzie, of the immorality of the conversations in the dressing-rooms of theatres; at another she stopped the rehearsal of an opera bouffe to preach to the mummers — in phrases that were remembrances of the extemporaneous prayers of the Wesleyan Church...

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