Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  Dry-eyed had Helena been when she entered the King’s presence and said farewell, but he was uneasy on her account, and gave her a ring from his own finger, saying, “If you send this to me, I shall know you are in trouble, and help you.”

  She did not show him Bertram’s letter to his wife; it would have made him wish to kill the truant Count; but she went back to Rousillon and handed her mother-in-law the second letter. It was short and bitter. “I have run away,” it said. “If the world be broad enough, I will be always far away from her.”

  “Cheer up,” said the noble widow to the deserted wife. “I wash his name out of my blood, and you alone are my child.”

  The Dowager Countess, however, was still mother enough to Bertram to lay the blame of his conduct on Parolles, whom she called “a very tainted fellow.”

  Helena did not stay long at Rousillon. She clad herself as a pilgrim, and, leaving a letter for her mother-in-law, secretly set out for Florence.

  On entering that city she inquired of a woman the way to the Pilgrims’ House of Rest, but the woman begged “the holy pilgrim” to lodge with her.

  Helena found that her hostess was a widow, who had a beautiful daughter named Diana.

  When Diana heard that Helena came from France, she said, “A countryman of yours, Count Rousillon, has done worthy service for Florence.” But after a time, Diana had something to tell which was not at all worthy of Helena’s husband. Bertram was making love to Diana. He did not hide the fact that he was married, but Diana heard from Parolles that his wife was not worth caring for.

  The widow was anxious for Diana’s sake, and Helena decided to inform her that she was the Countess Rousillon.

  “He keeps asking Diana for a lock of her hair,” said the widow.

  Helena smiled mournfully, for her hair was as fine as Diana’s and of the same color. Then an idea struck her, and she said, “Take this purse of gold for yourself. I will give Diana three thousand crowns if she will help me to carry out this plan. Let her promise to give a lock of her hair to my husband if he will give her the ring which he wears on his finger. It is an ancestral ring. Five Counts of Rousillon have worn it, yet he will yield it up for a lock of your daughter’s hair. Let your daughter insist that he shall cut the lock of hair from her in a dark room, and agree in advance that she shall not speak a single word.”

  The widow listened attentively, with the purse of gold in her lap. She said at last, “I consent, if Diana is willing.”

  Diana was willing, and, strange to say, the prospect of cutting off a lock of hair from a silent girl in a dark room was so pleasing to Bertram that he handed Diana his ring, and was told when to follow her into the dark room. At the time appointed he came with a sharp knife, and felt a sweet face touch his as he cut off the lock of hair, and he left the room satisfied, like a man who is filled with renown, and on his finger was a ring which the girl in the dark room had given him.

  The war was nearly over, but one of its concluding chapters taught Bertram that the soldier who had been impudent enough to call Helena his “kicky-wicky” was far less courageous than a wife. Parolles was such a boaster, and so fond of trimings to his clothes, that the French officers played him a trick to discover what he was made of. He had lost his drum, and had said that he would regain it unless he was killed in the attempt. His attempt was a very poor one, and he was inventing the story of a heroic failure, when he was surrounded and disarmed.

  “Portotartarossa,” said a French lord.

  “What horrible lingo is this?” thought Parolles, who had been blindfolded.

  “He’s calling for the tortures,” said a French man, affecting to act as interpreter. “What will you say without ‘em?”

  “As much,” replied Parolles, “as I could possibly say if you pinched me like a pasty.” He was as good as his word. He told them how many there were in each regiment of the Florentine army, and he refreshed them with spicy anecdotes of the officers commanding it.

  Bertram was present, and heard a letter read, in which Parolles told Diana that he was a fool.

  “This is your devoted friend,” said a French lord.

  “He is a cat to me now,” said Bertram, who detested our hearthrug pets.

  Parolles was finally let go, but henceforth he felt like a sneak, and was not addicted to boasting.

  We now return to France with Helena, who had spread a report of her death, which was conveyed to the Dowager Countess at Rousillon by Lafeu, a lord who wished to marry his daughter Magdalen to Bertram.

  The King mourned for Helena, but he approved of the marriage proposed for Bertram, and paid a visit to Rousillon in order to see it accomplished.

  “His great offense is dead,” he said. “Let Bertram approach me.”

  Then Bertram, scarred in the cheek, knelt before his Sovereign, and said that if he had not loved Lafeu’s daughter before he married Helena, he would have prized his wife, whom he now loved when it was too late.

  “Love that is late offends the Great Sender,” said the King. “Forget sweet Helena, and give a ring to Magdalen.”

  Bertram immediately gave a ring to Lafeu, who said indignantly, “It’s Helena’s!”

  “It’s not!” said Bertram.

  Hereupon the King asked to look at the ring, and said, “This is the ring I gave to Helena, and bade her send to me if ever she needed help. So you had the cunning to get from her what could help her most.”

  Bertram denied again that the ring was Helena’s, but even his mother said it was.

  “You lie!” exclaimed the King. “Seize him, guards!” but even while they were seizing him, Bertram wondered how the ring, which he thought Diana had given him, came to be so like Helena’s. A gentleman now entered, craving permission to deliver a petition to the King. It was a petition signed Diana Capilet, and it begged that the King would order Bertram to marry her whom he had deserted after winning her love.

  “I’d sooner buy a son-in-law at a fair than take Bertram now,” said Lafeu.

  “Admit the petitioner,” said the King.

  Bertram found himself confronted by Diana and her mother. He denied that Diana had any claim on him, and spoke of her as though her life was spent in the gutter. But she asked him what sort of gentlewoman it was to whom he gave, as to her he gave, the ring of his ancestors now missing from his finger?

  Bertram was ready to sink into the earth, but fate had one crowning generosity reserved for him. Helena entered.

  “Do I see reality?” asked the King.

  “O pardon! pardon!” cried Bertram.

  She held up his ancestral ring. “Now that I have this,” said she, “will you love me, Bertram?”

  “To the end of my life,” cried he.

  “My eyes smell onions,” said Lafeu. Tears for Helena were twinkling in them.

  The King praised Diana when he was fully informed by that not very shy young lady of the meaning of her conduct. For Helena’s sake she had wished to expose Bertram’s meanness, not only to the King, but to himself. His pride was now in shreds, and it is believed that he made a husband of some sort after all.

  QUOTATIONS FROM SHAKESPEARE

  ACTION.

  Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant

  More learned than their ears.

  Coriolanus — III. 2.

  ADVERSITY.

  Sweet are the uses of adversity,

  Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

  Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

  As You Like It — II. 1.

  That, Sir, which serves and seeks for gain,

  And follows but for form,

  Will pack, when it begins to rain,

  And leave thee in the storm.

  King Lear — II. 4.

  Ah! when the means are gone, that buy this praise,

  The breath is gone whereof this praise is made:

  Feast won — fast lost; one cloud of winter showers,

  These flies are couched.

 
Timon of Athens — II. 2.

  ADVICE TO A SON LEAVING HOME.

  Give thy thoughts no tongue,

  Nor any unproportioned thought his act

  Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.

  The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried

  Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel;

  But do not dull thy palm with entertainment

  Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade. Beware

  Of entrance to a quarrel: but, being in,

  Bear it, that the opposer may beware of thee.

  Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:

  Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment,

  Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

  But not expressed in fancy: rich, not gaudy:

  For the apparel oft proclaims the man;

  And they in France, of the best rank and station,

  Are most select and generous, chief in that.

  Neither a borrower, nor a lender be:

  For loan oft loses both itself and friend;

  And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

  This above all. — To thine ownself be true;

  And it must follow, as the night the day,

  Thou canst not then be false to any man.

  Hamlet — I. 3.

  AGE.

  My May of life Is

  fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf:

  And that which should accompany old age,

  As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,

  I must not look to have; but, in their stead,

  Curses not loud, but deep, mouth-honor, breath,

  Which the poor heart would feign deny, but dare not.

  Macbeth — V. 3.

  AMBITION.

  Dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. And I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality, that it is but a shadow’s shadow.

  Hamlet — II 2.

  I charge thee fling away ambition;

  By that sin fell the angels, how can man then,

  The image of his Maker, hope to win by ‘t?

  Love thyself last; cherish those hearts that hate thee;

  Corruption wins not more than honesty.

  Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,

  To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not!

  Let all the ends, thou aim’st at, be thy country’s,

  Thy God’s, and truth’s.

  King Henry VIII. — III. 2.

  ANGER.

  Anger is like

  A full-hot horse, who being allowed his way,

  Self-mettle tires him.

  King Henry VIII. — I. 1.

  ARROGANCE.

  There are a sort of men, whose visages

  Do cream and mantle like a standing pond,

  And do a willful stillness entertain,

  With purpose to be dressed in an opinion

  Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit,

  As who should say, “i am Sir Oracle,

  And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!”

  O! my Antonio, I do know of these

  That therefore are reputed wise

  For saying nothing, when, I am sure,

  If they should speak, would almost dam those ears,

  Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools.

  The Merchant of Venice — I. 1.

  AUTHORITY.

  Thou hast seen a farmer’s dog bark at a beggar?

  And the creature run from the cur?

  There thou might’st behold the great image of authority

  a dog’s obeyed in office.

  King Lear — IV. 6.

  Could great men thunder

  As Jove himself does, Jove would ne’er be quiet,

  For every pelting, petty officer

  Would use his heaven for thunder: nothing but thunder —

  Merciful heaven!

  Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt,

  Splitt’st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak,

  Than the soft myrtle! — O, but man, proud man!

  Drest in a little brief authority —

  Most ignorant of what he’s most assured,

  His glassy essence, — like an angry ape,

  Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven,

  As make the angels weep.

  Measure for Measure — II. 2.

  BEAUTY.

  The hand, that hath made you fair, hath made you good: the

  goodness, that is cheap in beauty, makes beauty brief in goodness;

  but grace, being the soul of your complexion, should keep the body

  of it ever fair.

  Measure for Measure — III. 1.

  BLESSINGS UNDERVALUED.

  It so falls out

  That what we have we prize not to the worth,

  Whiles we enjoy it; but being lacked and lost,

  Why, then we rack the value; then we find

  The virtue, that possession would not show us

  Whiles it was ours.

  Much Ado About Nothing — IV. 1.

  BRAGGARTS.

  It will come to pass,

  That every braggart shall be found an ass.

  All’s Well that Ends Well — IV. 3.

  They that have the voice of lions, and the act of bares,

  are they not monsters?

  Troilus and Cressida — III. 2.

  CALUMNY.

  Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow,

  thou shalt not escape calumny.

  Hamlet — III. 1.

  No might nor greatness in mortality

  Can censure ‘scape; back-wounding calumny

  The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong,

  Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?

  Measure for Measure — III. 2.

  CEREMONY.

  Ceremony

  Was but devised at first, to set a gloss

  On faint deeds, hollow welcomes.

  Recanting goodness, sorry ere ’tis shown;

  But where there is true friendship, there needs none.

  Timon of Athens — I. 2.

  COMFORT.

  Men

  Can counsel, and speak comfort to that grief

  Which they themselves not feel; but tasting it,

  Their counsel turns to passion, which before

  Would give preceptial medicine to rage,

  Fetter strong madness in a silken thread,

  Charm ache with air, and agony with words:

  No, no; ’tis all men’s office to speak patience

  To those that wring under the load of sorrow;

  But no man’s virtue, nor sufficiency,

  To be so moral, when he shall endure

  The like himself.

  Much Ado About Nothing — V. 1.

  Well, every one can master a grief, but he that has it.

  Idem — II.

  COMPARISON.

  When the moon shone, we did not see the candle.

  So doth the greater glory dim the less;

  A substitute shines brightly as a king,

  Until a king be by; and then his state

  Empties itself, as does an inland brook

  Into the main of waters.

  Merchant of Venice — V. 1.

  CONSCIENCE.

  Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

  And thus the native hue of resolution

  Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought;

  And enterprises of great pith and moment,

  With this regard, their currents turn awry,

  And lose the name of action.

  Hamlet — III. 1.

  CONTENT.

  My crown is in my heart, not on my head;

  Not decked with diamonds and Indian stones,

  Nor to be seen; my crown is called “content;”

  A crown it is, that seldom kings enjoy. />
  King Henry VI., Part 3d - III. 1.

  CONTENTION.

  How, in one house,

  Should many people, under two commands,

  Hold amity?

  King Lear — II. 4.

  When two authorities are set up,

  Neither supreme, how soon confusion

  May enter twixt the gap of both, and take

  The one by the other.

  Coriolanus — III. 1.

  CONTENTMENT.

  ’Tis better to be lowly born,

  And range with humble livers in content,

  Than to be perked up in a glistering grief,

  And wear a golden sorrow.

  King Henry VIII. — II. 3.

  COWARDS.

  Cowards die many times before their deaths;

  The valiant never taste of death but once.

  Julius Caesar — II. 2.

  CUSTOM.

  That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat

  Of habit’s devil, is angel yet in this:

  That to the use of actions fair and good

  He likewise gives a frock, or livery,

  That aptly is put on: Refrain to-night:

  And that shall lend a kind of easiness

  To the next abstinence: the next more easy:

  For use almost can change the stamp of nature,

  And either curb the devil, or throw him out

  With wondrous potency.

  Hamlet — III. 4.

  A custom

  More honored in the breach, then the observance.

  Idem — I. 4.

  DEATH.

  Kings, and mightiest potentates, must die;

  For that’s the end of human misery.

  King Henry VI., Part 1st — III. 2.

  Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,

  It seems to me most strange that men should fear;

  Seeing that death, a necessary end,

  Will come, when it will come.

  Julius Caesar — II. 2.

  The dread of something after death,

  Makes us rather bear those ills we have,

  Than fly to others we know not of.

  Hamlet — III. 1.

  The sense of death is most in apprehension.

  Measure for Measure — III. 1.

  By medicine life may be prolonged, yet death

  Will seize the doctor too.

  Cymbeline — V. 5.

  DECEPTION.

  The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

  An evil soul, producing holy witness,

  Is like a villain with a smiling cheek;

  A goodly apple rotten at the heart;