"Not so much beauty, sire,
As would make full the pocket of thine eye."
"A vein
That spilt its tender blue upon her eyelid,
As though the cunning hand that dyed her eyes
Had slipped for joy of its own work."
"What am I who doth rail against the fate
That binds mankind? The atom of an atom,
Particle of this particle the earth,
That with its million kindred worlds doth spin
Like motes within the universal light.
What if I sin—am lost—do crack my life
Against the gateless walls of Fate's decree?
Is the world fouler for a gnat's corpse? Nay,
The ocean, is it shallower for the drop
It leaves upon a blade of grass?"
"There is a boy in Essex, they do say,
Can crack an ox's ribs in one arm-crotch."
All these passages are taken from the tragedy of "Athelwold," written by Miss Amelie Rives, the author of a novel entitled "The Quick and the Dead."