The Return |
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Common terms and phrases
Alice answer Arthur bag hooked began believe beneath Bethany breath broke candle chair child churchyard clear cold cornflour course Craik Danton dark dear door Dr Ferguson Dr Simon dream dull eyes face faint faintest faintly Falstaff fancy fellow fingers gazed glanced gone grave Grisel hand haunted head heard heart Herbert horrible Huguenot husband influenza is-is kind Lawford took lean least lifted light listening looked looking-glass Lovat lucid interval lych-gate mean memory mind miserable Miss Sinnet muttered neath never night Oh yes once one's paused perhaps poor old queer quiet quietly realise remember rose Sabathier Sabathier's seemed shadow Sheila silence simply sitting sleep slowly smiled softly sound stairs stared stir stood stooping strange stranger suddenly suppose surely talk tell there's thing thought turb turned vicar voice wait walk watched whispered Widderstone wife window wonder
Popular passages
Page 201 - He saw with extraordinary vividness the low panelled room; the still listening face; the white muslin shoulders and dark hair; and the eyes that seemed to recall some far-off desolate longing for home and childhood.
Page 253 - What peace did he find who couldn't perhaps, like you, face the last good-bye?" It is victory for Lawford in the end — "it seemed ... as if ... some obscure detestable presence as slowly, as doggedly had drawn worsted aside" — and one hopes it is rest at last for Sabathier. Few novels of our time have awakened such enthusiasm as Memoirs of a Midget. Storm Jameson hailed it...
Page 172 - What I want to know now is what are you going to do ? Where are you sleeping ? What are you going to think about?
Page 136 - The one clinching chance of a century ! Wouldn't you have made a fight for it? Wouldn't you have risked the raid? I can just conceive it — the amazing struggle in that darkness within a darkness ; like some dazed alien bee bursting through the sentinels of a hive ; one mad impetuous clutch at victory; then the appalling stirring on the other side; the groping back to a house dismantled, rearranged, not, mind you, disorganised or disintegrated. . . .' He broke off with a smile, as if of apology...
Page 292 - At last it seemed in the haunted quietness other thoughts came to him. A cloud, as it were of youth, drew over the wrinkled skin, composed the birdlike keenness; his head nodded. Once, like Lawford in the darkness at Widderstone, he glanced up sharply across the lamplight at his phantasmagorical shadowy companion, heard the steady surge of multitudinous rain-drops, like the roar of Time's winged chariot hurrying near; then he too, with spectacles awry, bobbed on in his chair, a weary old sentinel...
Page 231 - Who was that poor, dark, homeless ghoul, Sabathier? Who was this Helen of an impossible dream? Her face with its strange smile, her eyes with their still pity and rapt courage had taken hope away. 'Here's not your rest,' cried one insistent voice; 'she is the mystery that haunts day and night, past all the changing of the restless hours. Chance has given you back eyes to see, a heart that can be broken. Chance and the stirrings of a long-gone life have torn down the veil age spins so thick and fast.
Page 129 - After all, what is every man?' he talked on; 'a horde of ghosts — like a Chinese nest of boxes — oaks that were acorns that were oaks. Death lies behind us, not in front — in our ancestors, back and back, until
Page 248 - I don't ask new even. I can, I would begin again. God knows my face has changed enough even as it is. Think of me as that poor wandering ghost of yours; how easily I could hide away — in your memory; and just wait, wait for you. In time even this wild futile madness too would fade away. Then I could come back. May I try?
Page 142 - Hush, don't speak ! Come back; come back. I am with you, a friend, you see ; come back.' Lawford clutched her hand as a blind man in sudden peril might clutch the hand of a child. He saw nothing clearly; spoke almost without understanding his words. 'Oh, but it's must
Page 234 - But there, what on earth are we, Herbert, when all is said? Who is it has — has done all this for us — what kind of self? And to what possible end? Is it that the clockwork has been wound up and must still jolt on a while with jarring wheels? Will it never run down, do you think ?' Herbert smiled faintly, but made no answer.