Rose Mansion Quotes

Roses can grow in slums just as weeds can grow around mansions.

As Jack began to climb the stairs, Fiona looked up at her new home. Five stories of stately mansion rose above her head. Heavy molding around the large windows and doors bespoke a quality and craftsmanship that was obvious even in the dim night. “Good God! It’s massive!” Jack paused with his foot on the last step. “I do wish you’d keep those comments until we are in bed, love. I would appreciate them all the more there.

What if you had like a trillion dollars and could live out here in a gigantic mansion. Would you be bougie?' 'Nah, 'cause I wouldn't live out here. I'd live on a private island somewhere so I ain't gotta be bothered by nobody.

And the purple parted before it, snapping back like skin after a slash, and what it let out wasn't blood but light: amazing orange light that filled her heart and mind with a terrible mixture of joy, terror, and sorrow. No wonder she had repressed this memory all these years. It was too much. Far too much. The light seemed to give the fading air of evening a silken texture, and the cry of a bird struck her ear like a pebble made of glass. A cap of breeze filled her nostrils with a hundred exotic perfumes: frangipani, bougainvillea, dusty roses, and oh dear God, night-blooming cereus... And rising above one horizon came the orange mansion of the moon, bloated and burning cold, while the sun sank below the other, boiling in a crimson house of fire. She thought that mixture of furious light would kill her with its beauty.

She alone was left standing, amid the accumulated riches of her mansion, while a host of men lay stricken at her feet. Like those monsters of ancient times whose fearful domains were covered with skeletons, she rested her feet on human skulls and was surrounded by catastrophes...The fly that had come from the dungheap of the slums, carrying the ferment of social decay, had poisoned all these men simply by alighting on them. It was fitting and just. She had avenged the beggars and outcasts of her world. And while, as it were, her sex rose in a halo of glory and blazed down on her prostrate victims like a rising sun shining down on a field of carnage, she remained as unconscious of her actions as a splendid animal, ignorant of the havoc she had wreaked, and as good-natured as ever.

His words were then these as followeth: Know all men, he said, time’s ruins build eternity’s mansions. What means this? Desire’s wind blasts the thorntree but after it becomes from a bramblebush to be a rose upon the rood of time. Mark me now. In woman’s womb word is made flesh but in the spirit of the maker all flesh that passes becomes the word that shall not pass away. This is the postcreation. Omnis cam ad te veniet

The Daffodil-Yellow Villa The new villa was enormous, a tall, square Venetian mansion, with faded daffodil-yellow walls, green shutters, and a fox-red roof. It stood on a hill overlooking the sea, surrounded by unkempt olive groves and silent orchards of lemon and orange trees. ... the little walled and sunken garden that ran along one side of the house, its wrought-iron gates scabby with rust, had roses, anemones and geraniums sprawling across the weed-grown paths ... ... there were fifteen acres of garden to explore, a vast new paradise sloping down to the shallow, tepid sea.

Know all men, he said, time's ruins build eternity's mansions. What means this ? Desire's wind blasts the thorntree but after it becomes from a bramblebush to be a rose upon the rood of time.

As the carriage proceeded past the main gate, the estate mansion came into view. Contrary to Pandora's expectations, it wasn't at all cold and imposing. It was a gracious, low-slung residence of two stories, inhabiting its surroundings with comfortable ease. Its classic lines were softened by an abundance of glossy green ivy that mantled the cream stucco façade, and arbors of pink roses that arched cheerfully over the courtyard entrance. Two extended wings curved around the front gardens, as if the house had decided to fill its arms with bouquets. Nearby, a slope of dark, dreaming forest rested beneath a blanket of sunlight.

The moon garden of the mansion was famous, having been designed with night-blooming flowers lining the pathways and hillocks of the landscape. They stepped through open doors, went down the wide stone steps, and were greeted by the heady perfume of late-blooming autumn flowers. The pale blossoms were lit from below, setting a mood of mystery. A fountain of natural stone rose up out of a pond surrounded by terra-cotta sculptures.

How easy it was to slip back into the comfort of one's own life, even into one's own worries and fears, and to unintentionally forget. Tears rose to her eyes. Her throat tightened. Oh, Lord. forgive me....Help me to be more grateful.

The secret path he eager chose, where Layla's distant mansion rose; he kissed the door. A thousand wings increased his pace, whence, his fond devotions paid, a thousand thorns his course delayed. No rest he found by day or night- Layla, forever, in his sight.

Coriolanus moved back to his seat - she knew where to find him now - to listen and to savor their actual reunion, which was only a song away. His eyes teared up when she began the song from the zoo. "Down in the valley, valley so low, Late in the evening, hear the train blow. The train, love, hear the train blow. Late in the evening, hear the train blow." Coriolanus felt an elbow nudge his ribs and looked over to see Sejanus beaming at him. It was nice, after all, to have someone else who knew the significance of the song. Someone who knew what they'd been through. "Go build me a mansion, build it so high, So I can see my true love go by. See him go by, love, see him go by. So I can see my true love go by." That's me, Coriolanus wanted to tell people around him. I'm her true love. And I saved her life. "Go write me a letter, send it by mail. Bake it and stamp it to the Capitol jail. Capitol jail, love, to the Capitol jail. Bake it and stamp it to the Capitol jail." Should he say hello first? Or just kiss her? "Roses are red, love; violets are blue. Birds in the heavens know I love you." Kiss her. Definitely, just kiss her. "Know I love you, oh, know I love you, Birds in the heavens know I love you. "Good night, everybody. Hope we see you next week, and until then, keep singing your song," said Lucy Gray, and the whole Covey took one final blow.

He took up another long strip of towel in his right hand. He had to lean in to loop it behind her. He was so close now. His mind took in the shell of her ear, the hair tucked behind it, that rapid pulse fluttering in her throat. Alive, alive, alive. It isn’t easy for me either. He looped the bandage around again. The barest touches. Unavoidable. Shoulder, clavicle, once her knee. The water rose around him. He secured the knot. Step back. He did not step back. He stood there, hearing his own breath, hers, the rhythm of them alone in this room. The sickness was there, the need to run, the need for something else too. Kaz thought he knew the language of pain intimately, but this ache was new. It hurt to stand here like this, so close to the circle of her arms. It isn’t easy for me either. After all she’d endured, he was the weak one. But she would never know what it was like for him to see Nina pull her close, watch Jesper loop his arm through hers, what it was to stand in doorways and against walls and know he could never draw nearer. But I’m here now, he thought wildly. He had carried her, fought beside her, spent whole nights next to her, both of them on their bellies, peering through a long glass, watching some warehouse or merch’s mansion. This was nothing like that. He was sick and frightened, his body slick with sweat, but he was here. He watched that pulse, the evidence of her heart, matching his own beat for anxious beat. He saw the damp curve of her neck, the gleam of her brown skin. He wanted to … He wanted. Before he even knew what he intended, he lowered his head. She drew in a sharp breath. His lips hovered just above the warm juncture between her shoulder and the column of her neck. He waited. Tell me to stop. Push me away. She exhaled. “Go on,” she repeated. Finish the story. The barest movement and his lips brushed her skin—warm, smooth, beaded with moisture. Desire coursed through him, a thousand images he’d hoarded, barely let himself imagine—the fall of her dark hair freed from its braid, his hand fitted to the lithe curve of her waist, her lips parted, whispering his name.

Who’s teasing? I’m telling him the truth. He ain’t going to have it. Neither one of ‘em going to have it. And I’ll tell you something else you not going to have. You not going to have no private coach with four red velvet chairs that swivel around in one place whenever you want ‘em to. No. and you not going to have your own special toilet and your own special-made eight-foot bed either. And a valet and a cook and a secretary to travel with you and do everything you say. Everything: get the right temperature in your hot-water bottle and make sure the smoking tobacco in the silver humidor is fresh each and every day. There’s something else you not going to have. You ever have five thousand dollars of cold cash money in your pocket and walk into a bank and tell the bank man you want such and such a house on such and such a street and he sell it to you right then? Well, you won’t ever have it. And you not going to have a governor’s mansion, or eight thousand acres of timber to sell. And you not going to have no ship under your command to sail on, no train to run, and you can join the 332nd if you want to and shoot down a thousand German planes all by yourself and land in Hitler’s backyard and whip him with your own hands, but you never going to have four stars on your shirt front, or even three. And you not going to have no breakfast tray brought in to you early in the morning with a red rose on it and two warm croissants and a cup of hot chocolate. Nope. Never. And no pheasant buried in coconut leaves for twenty days and stuffed with wild rice and cooked over a wood fire so tender and delicate it make you cry. And no Rothschild ’29 or even Beaujolais to go with it.” A few men passing by stopped to listen to Tommy’s lecture. “What’s going on?” they asked Hospital Tommy. “Feather refused them a beer,” said. The men laughed. “And no baked Alaska!” Railroad Tommy went on. “None! You never going to have that.” “No baked Alaska?” Guitar opened his eyes wide with horror and grabbed his throat.” You breaking my heart!” “Well, now. That’s something you will have—a broken heart.” Railroad Tommy’s eyes softened, but the merriment in them died suddenly. “And folly. A whole lot of folly. You can count on it.” “Mr. Tommy, suh,” Guitar sang in mock humility, “we just wanted a bottle of beer is all.” “Yeah,” said Tommy. “Yeah, well, welcome aboard.

Remarkable, if for nothing else, because of this, that all of those men and women who stayed for any reason left behind them some monument, some structure of marble and brick and stone that still stands; so that even when the gas lamps went out and the planes came in and the office buildings crowded the blocks of Canal Street, something irreducible of beauty and romance remained; not in every street perhaps, but in so many that the landscape is for me the landscape of those times always, and walking now in the starlit streets of the Quarter or the Garden District I am in those times again. I suppose that is the nature of the monument. Be it a small house or a mansion of Corinthian columns and wrought-iron lace. The monument does not say that this or that man walked here. No, that what he felt in one time in one spot continues. The moon that rose over New Orleans then still rises. As long as the monuments stand, it still rises. The feeling, at least here...and there...it remains the same.

I was not a soldier; I was a factory worker drafted to be a guard at ‘the ‘house of special purpose’. I did not have reason to kill any of the Romanovs. Most of the young guards, the other boys from the factory, felt as I did. We did not hate the Imperial family; to the contrary, we regarded them with respect. Many of the boys still held to the religious belief that the tsar was divine, an emissary of God himself. In the case of the young grand duchesses; we had never seen such beautiful girls. Even the house maids liked the girls as the sisters did not put on any airs but even assisted the maids in their housecleaning duties. The grand duchesses darned their own socks and made up their beds. All save the eldest sister, the sad looking blond one, were open and friendly. I speak for most of the boys who guarded the four grand duchesses when I say the last thing on this earth that we wished was to harm these girls. Kill them? It was unthinkable. I was 17 when I began my guard duty at the great house once known as the Ipatiev Mansion, but which the Bolsheviks renamed ‘The House of Special Purpose.

Before I could respond, he snapped his fingers, and I was suddenly standing outside the mansion, my booted feet in the sand, the smell of salt overwhelming my senses, and the rolling ocean at my back. A growl of anger rose in my throat. “I hate it when you do that.” The smile on his face increased. “I know.” I absolutely loathed it, and the bastard did it every chance he got—usually about every five minutes whenever I was in his presence and mostly without any purpose. Sometimes he would just pop me from room to room for the hell of it. The last year or so of my life had been a real test of my short patience.

Why couldn't my mother and I figure out how it was done? My mother deserved a home. It didn't even need to be a mansion, just a little cottage with a rose garden and cream colored curtains and rugs that were soft and clean and kissed your bare feet as you walked across them. That would be plenty. It mad me mad that my mother didn't have nice things, madder still that I couldn't provide them for her, and furious that I couldn't say any of this aloud, because my mother was striving to be upbeat. Taking care of my mother meant saying nothing to disrupt her fragile optimism, so I would press my forehead against the window, harder until it hurt, and shift my focus from the mansions to my reflection in the glass.

The city had changed beyond recognition. Wrecking balls and bulldozers had leveled the old buildings to rubble. The dust of construction hung permanently over the streets. Gated mansions reached up to the northern foothills, while slums fanned out from the city’s southern limits. I feared an aged that had lost its heart, and I was terrified at the thought of so many useless hands. Our traditions were our pacifiers and we put ourselves to sleep with the lullaby of a once-great civilation and culture. Ours was the land of poetry flowers, and nightingales—and poets searching for rhymes in history’s junkyards. The lottery was our faith and greed our fortune. Our intellectuals were sniffing cocaine and delivering lectures in the back rooms of dark cafés. We bought plastic roses and decorated our lawns and courtyards with plaster swans. We saw the future in neon lights. We had pizza shops, supermarkets, and bowling alleys. We had trafric jams, skyscrapers, and air thick with noise and pollution. We had illiterate villagers who came to the capital with scraps of paper in their hands, begging for someone to show them the way to this medical clinic or that government officee. the streets of Tehran were full of Mustangs and Chevys bought at three times the price they sold for back in America, and still our oil wasn’t our own. Still our country wasn’t our own.

His home was a part of him, an externalized expression of his will, for upon his inherited Dutch Manor house he had superimposed the Gothic magnificence which he desired. He had been attracted by the formulations of Andrew Downing, the young landscape architect who lived on the river at Newburgh and whose directions for building "romantic and picturesque villas" were changing the countryside; but it was not in Nicholas to accept another's ideas, and when five years ago he had remodeled the old Van Ryn homestead, he had used Downing simply as a guide. To the original ten rooms he had added twenty more, the gables and turrets, and the one high tower. The result, though reminiscent of a German Schloss on the Rhine, crossed with Tudor English and interwoven with pure fantasy, was nevertheless Hudson River American and not unsuited to its setting. The Dragonwyck gardens were as much as an expression of Nicholas' personality as was the mansion, for here, he had subdued Nature to a stylized ornateness. Between the untouched grove of hemlocks to the south and the slope of a rocky hill half a mile to the north he had created along the river an artificial and exotic beauty. To Miranda it was overpowering, and she felt dazed as they mounted marble steps from the landing. She was but vaguely conscious of the rose gardens and their pervasive scent, of small Greek temples set beneath weeping willows, of rock pavilions, violet-bordered fountains, and waterfalls.

But the crown jewel was the columned Greek Revival mansion, which dated from the mid-1800s, along with the manicured boxwood gardens that would serve as the backdrop for the couple's ceremony. Of course, everything was not only very traditional but also a standard to what one might imagine an over-the-top Southern wedding to be. As I said, "Steel Magnolias on steroids." The ceremony would take place outdoors in the garden, but large custom peach-and-white scalloped umbrellas were placed throughout the rows of bamboo folding chairs to shade the guests. Magnolia blossoms and vintage lace adorned the ends of the aisles. White, trellis-covered bars flanked the entrance to the gardens where guests could select from a cucumber cooler or spiked sweet tea to keep cool during the thirty-minute nuptials. It was still considered spring, but like Dallas, Nashville could heat up early in the year, and we were glad to be prepared. By the time we arrived the tent was well on its way to completion, and rental deliveries were rolling in. The reception structure was located past the gardens near the enormous whitewashed former stable, and inside the ceiling was draped in countless yards of peach fabric with crystal chandeliers hanging above every dining table. Custom napkins with embroidered magnolias on them complemented the centerpieces' peach garden roses, lush greenery, and dried cotton stems. Cedric's carpentry department created floor-to-ceiling lattice walls covered in faux greenery and white wisteria blooms, a dreamy backdrop for the band.

I am listening to Istanbul" I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed; At first there blows a gentle breeze And the leaves on the trees Softly flutter or sway; Out there, far away, The bells of water carriers incessantly ring; I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed. I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed; Then suddenly birds fly by, Flocks of birds, high up, in a hue and cry While nets are drawn in the fishing grounds And a woman’s feet begin to dabble in the water. I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed. I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed. The Grand Bazaar is serene and cool, A hubbub at the hub of the market, Mosque yards are brimful of pigeons, At the docks while hammers bang and clang Spring winds bear the smell of sweat; I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed. I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed; Still giddy since bygone bacchanals, A seaside mansion with dingy boathouses is fast asleep, Amid the din and drone of southern winds, reposed, I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed. I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed. Now a dainty girl walks by on the sidewalk: Cusswords, tunes and songs, malapert remarks; Something falls on the ground out of her hand, It’s a rose I guess. I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed. I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed; A bird flutters round your skirt; I know your brow is moist with sweat And your lips are wet. A silver moon rises beyond the pine trees: I can sense it all in your heart’s throbbing. I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed.

Secondly," he went on, "a Chief Magistrate is about as far beneath a marquess's daughter as a tree is beneath the moon." A mutinous look crossed his aunt's face. "Sir Richard started out as a saddler's apprentice. He got himself a knighthood partly because he married a wife with good connections." "A wealthy baker's daughter. That's a far cry from a lady of rank." "That doesn't mean it can't happen. You're a fine man, a handsome man, if I do say so myself. You're young and strong, with a good education and gentlemanly manners-better manners than Sir Richard, anyway. And now that you own this house-" "She lives in a mansion!" Snatching his arm free, he rose. "Do you really think she'd be happy here in Cheapside, with the butchers and merchants and tradesmen?" Her aunt looked wounded. "I thought you liked this neighborhood." Damn. "I do, but..." There was nothing for it but to tell her the truth. "She can't stand me, all right? I'd be the last person on earth she'd want to marry." Snatching up the report, he headed for the door. "I have to go." "Jackson?" "What?" he barked. "If that's true, she's a fool." Lady Celia was no fool. She simply knew better than to take up with a man who didn't know the identity of his own father. He managed a curt nod. "I'll see you tonight, Aunt." As he left the house, an age-old anger weighed him down. He wouldn't hurt Aunt Ada for the world, but she didn't understand. Ever since he'd started working for the Sharpes, she'd hoped that his association with them would raise him up in the world, and nothing he said dampened that hope. No doubt she believed that his father's supposedly noble blood made him somehow superior to every other bastard. But one day she would learn. An unclaimed bastard was an unclaimed bastard, no matter who his father was.

Yeah, well, tell him to take his charming ass out the door or I’ll do it for him.” The last time I’d gone for dinner, the thirty-something boys—and Hack and Jedrik were boys considering they bantered back and forth like a couple of ten-year-olds—had fought over who could get me to go on a date with them. They’d actually made a hundred dollar bet. I still couldn’t figure out why they even lived there with Anstice and Keir. It wasn’t like Keir needed the rent money. Hell, they lived in a mansion in the

Looking incredibly dashing as he bent his head toward the oh-so-fashionable Miss Kasson was none other than Mr. Edgar Wanamaker—her best friend from childhood, and . . . the very first gentleman to ever offer her a proposal of marriage. She and Edgar had met when they’d been little more than infants, that circumstance brought about because their parents owned adjacent summer cottages on Long Island. Wilhelmina had spent every childhood summer with Edgar by her side, enjoying the sandy beaches and chilly water of the Atlantic from the moment the sun rose in the morning until it set in the evening. Even when Edgar had been away at school, being a few years older than Wilhelmina, they’d spent every possible minute they could with each other during the holidays. He’d even made certain to be in the city the night of her debut ball, waiting for her at the bottom of her family’s Park Avenue mansion as she’d descended the grand staircase on her father’s arm. As she’d stepped to the highly polished parquet floor, she’d caught his gaze, the intensity of that gaze causing her heart to fill with fondness for her oldest and dearest friend. That fondness, however, had disappeared a few hours later when Edgar had gone and ruined everything by asking her to marry him. She’d been all of seventeen years old the night of her debut—seventeen years old with the world spread out at her feet. Add in the notion that the whispers stirring around the ballroom were claiming she was destined to be a diamond of the first water, and the last thing she’d wanted that particular evening was a marriage proposal extended to her from her very best friend. Edgar, no matter the affection she held for him, was only a second son. Paired with the pesky fact he’d had no idea as to what he’d wanted to do with the rest of his life—except, evidently, to marry her—and she’d been less than impressed by his offer. What

Tinkling sounds came from outside, of hammering and chiselling, as labourers worked like bees, and seven- or eight-storeyed buildings rose in the place of ancestral mansions that had been razed cruelly to the ground, climbing up like ladders through screens of dust. An old mansion opposite the veranda had been repainted white, to its last banister and pillar, so that it looked like a set of new teeth. ... In another sphere altogether, birds took off from a tree or parapet, or the roof of some rich Marwari’s house, startling and speckling the neutral sky. Not a moment was still or like another moment. In a window in a servants’ outhouse attached to a mansion – both the master’s house and the servants’ lost in a bond now anachronistic and buried – a light shone even at this time of the day, beacon of winter.

Along the rough cobbled streets that had served so well in surprise attacks and buccaneer landings, weeds hung from the balconies and opened cracks in the whitewashed walls of even the best-kept mansions, and the only signs of life at two o’clock in the afternoon were languid piano exercises played in the dim light of siesta. Indoors, in the cool bedrooms saturated with incense, women protected themselves from the sun as if it were a shameful infection, and even at early Mass they hid their faces in their mantillas. Their love affairs were slow and difficult and were often disturbed by sinister omens, and life seemed interminable. At nightfall, at the oppressive moment of transition, a storm of carnivorous mosquitoes rose out of the swamps, and a tender breath of human shit, warm and sad, stirred the certainty of death in the depths of one’s soul. And

Louisa dropped her forehead to her husband’s naked chest and, for the dozenth time, silently cursed her female organs for their poor scheduling. “We’ll never get to Kent if we aren’t on our way soon.” Joseph patted her bottom and stepped back. “We will not let your parents serve us breakfast, or your sisters dragoon you into their private lair. I suspect the worst offenders will be your brothers, though. I’ve never met such a lot of mother hens.” He splashed on his cedar-and-spice scent, then started laying out clothing, making trips from the wardrobe to the bed. Joseph continued striding around the bedroom in nothing but riding breeches, as casual as you please. And Louisa did please. Her husband was well endowed with muscle and masculine pulchritude, and he thought her brothers were mother hens. He had listened to her in the dark, and he had held her and rubbed her back when she hadn’t even known she could ask for those considerations. Maybe love was not a matter of ringing declarations and rhyming couplets. Maybe it wasn’t bloodred roses and dramatic sentiments. Maybe love was a pat on the bottom and a tender kiss, a shared good night’s sleep, and a man considerate enough to build a quick stop by the ducal mansion into the start of the wedding journey. ***

What do we need to talk about?” I ground out, folding my arms to keep myself from hitting him with a blast of akasha, the fifth and most powerful element only the gods and the Apollyon could wield. It wouldn’t kill him, but sure as hell would sting like a bitch. Apollo shifted his gaze to the dark ocean. “Do you have to always be so messy?” My brows rose. “Huh?” “Back there,” he said, jerking his chin to where the lights from the mansion twinkled in the distance. “Do you always have to be so messy when you dispatch those who betrayed us?” “Do I have to? No.” “Then why?” He looked at me. Killing them the way I did was unnecessary. I could just blast them into nothing, make it quick, neat, and painless, but that’s not how I rolled. Maybe in the beginning I’d been less…violent, but not anymore. Not when my sole purpose of existence was carrying out the gods’ dirty work. Because every time I saw one of their faces, I thought of my own major screw-ups, and they were plentiful, and that made me think of— I cut that thought off. I was so not going down that road tonight without a bottle of whiskey. “You all turned me into the Terminator. What did you expect?” I shrugged. “Is this what you wanted to talk to me about? My method of carrying out your orders? I’d think you’d have better things to do than pop up just to bitch at me because I made a mess.” “It’s not just making a mess, Seth, and you know that. It’s you.

The secret patch he eager chose, where Layla's distant mansion rose; he kissed the door. A thousand wings increased his pace, whence, his found devotions paid, a thousand thorns his course delayed. No rest he found by day of nigh - Layla was forever in his sight.

Bilbo made it to the governor’s mansion without citizens like Ida Mae or Miss Theenie having any say as to his getting into or remaining in office. He later ascended without them to the U.S. Senate, where, in 1938, the year Ida Mae finally migrated to Chicago, he helped lead one of the longest filibusters in the history of the Senate, the one to thwart a bill that would have made lynching a federal crime. At one point in the filibuster, he rose to speak on behalf of his constituents—not the entire state of Mississippi but the white voters there—and in opposition to the interests of half the state. He spoke in defense of the right to kill black citizens as white southerners saw fit. “If you succeed in the passage of this bill,” Bilbo told his Senate colleagues, “you will open the floodgates of hell in the South. Raping, mobbing, lynching, race riots, and crime will be increased a thousand fold; and upon your garments and the garments of those who are responsible for the passage of the measure will be the blood of the raped and outraged daughters of Dixie, as well as the blood of the perpetrators of these crimes that the red-blooded Anglo-Saxon white Southern men will not tolerate.

The Whigs portrayed Harrison as a log-cabin-dwelling, coonskin-cap-wearing, hard-cider-drinking frontier farmer. The opposite was true. Harrison was from one of the oldest and most prosperous families in Virginia, and his log cabin was in reality a mansion in Indiana.

The taxi arrived in a few minutes and the girls were driven to the yacht club, which was in the opposite direction to the old mansion. As they entered the expansive grounds, Bess exclaimed, “What a beautiful place!” There was a large garden with hedges on three sides. Flower beds were laid out in symmetrical patterns. Roses and delphinium were particularly prominent. At the far end of the grounds stood a long formal-looking Italian-type building of white cement. When the taxi reached the entrance, two young men in well-fitting blue uniforms took their bags. They led the girls through a tastefully furnished lobby to the registration desk.

It never ceased to amaze me how disinterested half the knights were in our own history, in taking advantage of the extraordinary gifts we’d been handed the night we were tapped into Rose & Grave. To them, it was just another privilege they’d been born into, like admission to Eli or their Long Island mansions. Did they have any idea how much more it was to…other people?

studying biology” was our code word for visiting the brothel. We remembered there was a sign on the front of the mansion, READING CRESCENT HOTEL-RESTAURANT, and that the girls had botanical aliases—Flower, Leaf, Daphne, Rose.

Maggie sidled around to the wall, found a mirror, and unpinned her lace mantilla from her hair. She flipped the lace up and off her shoulders, but it snagged on something. A tug did nothing to dislodge the lace, though someone behind her let out a muttered curse. Damn it? Being a lady in company, Maggie decided she’d heard “drat it” and used the mirror to study the situation. Oh, no. Of all the men in all the mansions in all of Mayfair, why him? “If you’ll hold still,” he said, “I’ll have us disentangled.” Her beautiful, lacy green shawl had caught on the flower attached to his lapel, a hot pink little damask rose, full of thorns and likely to ruin her mantilla. Maggie half turned, horrified to feel a tug on her hair as she did. A stray pin came sliding down into her vision, dangling on a fat red curl. “Gracious.” She reached up to extract the pin, but her hand caught in the shawl, now stretched between her and the gentleman’s lapel. Another tug, another curl came down. “Allow me.” It wasn’t a request. The gentleman’s hands were bare and his fingers nimble as he reached up and removed several more pins from Maggie’s hair. The entire flaming mass of it listed to the left then slid down over her shoulders in complete disarray. His dark eyebrows rose, and for one instant, Maggie had the satisfaction of seeing Mr. Benjamin Hazlit at a loss. Then he was handing her several hairpins amid the billows of her mantilla, which were still entangled with the longer skeins of her hair. While Maggie held her mantilla before her, Hazlit got the blasted flower extracted from the lace and held it out to her, as if he’d just plucked it from a bush for her delectation. “My apologies, my lady. The fault is entirely mine.” And he was laughing at her. The great, dark brute found it amusing that Maggie Windham, illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Moreland, was completely undone before the servants, her sisters, and half her father’s cronies from the Lords. She wanted to smack him. Maggie

Mr. Bronson,” she said a bit unsteadily, “I—I will see you at supper.” Bronson's face wore an expression of seriousness identical to her own. “Let Rose eat with us,” he said. “Don't any upper-class children have supper with their families?” Holly took a long moment to answer. “In some country homes the children are allowed to eat en famille. However, in most well-to-do households the children take separate nursery meals. Rose has become accustomed to the arrangement at the Taylor' mansion, and I should dislike to change a familiar ritual—” “But there she had other children to eat with, didn't she?” Bronson pointed out. “And here she has to take most meals by herself.” Holly glanced into her daughter's small face. Rose seemed to be holding her breath, waiting with silent excitement to see if her unexpected champion would succeed at gaining her a place at the adults' dinner table. It would be easy for Holly to insist that Rose adhere to the traditional mealtime separation between grown-ups and children. However, as Bronson and the little girl both stared at her expectantly, Holly realized with a flash of amused despair that yet another boundary was to be broken. “Very well,” she said. “If Rose behaves well, she may take meals with the family from now on.” To Holly's surprise, Rose flew to Bronson with an exclamation of happiness and threw her arms around his leg. “Oh, Mr. Bronson,” she cried, “thank you!” Grinning, Bronson disentangled her little arms and sank to his haunches. “Thank your mother, princess. I only asked. She was the one who gave permission.” Bouncing back to Holly, Rose decorated her face with kisses. “Darling,” Holly murmured, trying not to smile, “let's go upstairs and change your pinafore and wash your face before dinner. We can't have you looking like a ragamuffin.” “Yes, Mama.” Rose's small hand took hers, and she skipped eagerly as she led Holly away.

When he finished he had a magnificent house, perched on the edge of a precipice at whose feet the ocean thundered, but it was a house that knew no happiness, for shortly after Whip had moved in with his third wife, the Hawaiian-Chinese beauty Ching-ching, who was pregnant at the time, she had caught him fooling around with the brothel girls that flourished in the town of Kapaa. Without even a scene of recrimination, Ching-ching had simply ordered a carriage and driven back to the capital town of Lihune, where she boarded an H & H steamer for Honolulu. She divorced Whip but kept both his daughter Iliki and his yet-unborn son John. Now there were two Mrs. Whipple Hoxworths in Honolulu and they caused some embarrassment to the more staid community. There was his first wife, Iliki Janders Hoxworth, who moved in only the best missionary circles, and there was Ching-ching Hoxworth who lived within the Chinese community. The two never met, but Howxworth & Hale saw to it that each received a monthly allowance. The sums were generous, but not so much so as those sent periodically Wild Whip's second wife, the fiery Spanish girl named Aloma Duarte Hoxworth, whose name frequently appeared in New York and London newspapers... p623 When the polo players had departed, when the field kitchens were taken down, and when the patient little Japanese gardeners were tending each cut in the polo turf as if it were a personal wound, Wild Whip would retire to his sprawling mansion overlooking the sea and get drunk. He was never offensive and never beat anyone while intoxicated. At such times he stayed away from the brothels in Kapaa and away from the broad lanai from which he could see the ocean. In a small, darkened room he drank, and as he did so he often recalled his grandfather's words: "Girls are like stars, and you could reach up and pinch each one on the points. And then in the east the moon rises, enormous and perfect. And that's something else, entirely different." It was now apparent to Whip, in his forty-fifth year, that for him the moon did not intend to rise. Somehow he had missed encountering the woman whom he could love as his grandfather had loved the Hawaiian princess Noelani. He had known hundreds of women, but he had found none that a man could permanently want or respect. Those who were desirable were mean in spirit and those who were loyal were sure to be tedious. It was probably best, he thought at such times, to do as he did: know a couple of the better girls at Kapaa, wait for some friend's wife who was bored with her husband, or trust that a casual trip through the more settled camps might turn up some workman's wife who wanted a little excitement. It wasn't a bad life and was certainly less expensive in the long run than trying to marry and divorce a succession of giddy women; but often when he had reached this conclusion, through the bamboo shades of the darkened room in which he huddled a light would penetrate, and it would be the great moon risen from the waters to the east and now passing majestically high above the Pacific. It was an all-seeing beacon, brillant enough to make the grassy lawns on Hanakai a sheet of silver, probing enough to find any mansion tucked away beneath the casuarina trees. When this moon sought out Wild Whip he would first draw in his feet, trying like a child to evade it, but when it persisted he often rose, threw open the lanai screens, and went forth to meet it. p625