Love in Idleness: A Bar Harbour TaleCrawford, F. Marion (Francis Marion)
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Love in Idleness: A Bar Harbour Tale
Crawford, F. Marion (Francis Marion)
Bar Harbor (Me.) -- Fiction; Love stories
"Oh, no. It's an unusual name, that's all. Are they New York
people?"
Lawrence smiled at the idea that any one should ask such a question.
"Yes, of course," he answered. "New York--since the Flood."
"And Miss Trehearne is the only daughter?" enquired the Professor,
inquisitively.
"She has a brother--Randolph," replied Lawrence, rather shortly; for
he was suddenly aware that there was no particular reason why he
should talk about the Trehearnes.
"Of course, they're relations of the Miners," observed the Professor.
"That's the reason why Miss Trehearne has them to stay with her.
Excuse me--I can't get a light in this wind."
Thereupon Lawrence turned away and got under the lee of the deck
saloon, leaving the Professor to himself. Having lighted his
cigarette, the artist went forward and stood in the sharp head-breeze
that seemed to blow through and through him, disinfecting his whole
being from the hot, close air of the train he had left half an hour
earlier.
Bar Harbour, in common speech, includes Frenchman's Bay, the island
of Mount Desert, and the other small islands lying near it,--an
extensive tract of land and sea. As a matter of fact, the name
belongs to the little harbour between Bar Island and Mount Desert,
together with the village which has grown to be the centre of
civilization, since the whole place has become fashionable. Earth,
sky, and water are of the north,--hard, bright, and cold. In
artists' slang, there is no atmosphere. The dark green islands, as
one looks at them, seem to be almost before the foreground. The
picture is beautiful, and some people call it grand; but it lacks
depth. There is something fiercely successful about the colour of
it, something brilliantly self-reliant. It suggests a certain type
of handsome woman--of the kind that need neither repentance nor
cosmetics, and are perfectly sure of the fact, whose virtue is too
cold to be kind, and whose complexion is not shadowed by passion, nor
softened by suffering, nor even washed pale with tears. Only the sea
is eloquent. The deep-breathing tide runs forward to the feet of the
over-perfect, heartless earth, to linger and plead love's story while
he may; then sighing sadly, sweeps back unsatisfied, baring his
desolate bosom to her loveless scorn.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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