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The Sword of Damocles ▾
contents
  1. Book I
  2. I A Wanderer “There’s no such word.” Bulwer
  3. II A Discussion “Young men think old men fools, and old men know young men to be so.” Ray’s Proverb
  4. III A Mysterious Summons “Without unspotted, innocent within, She feared no danger, for she knew no sin.” Dryden
  5. IV Searchings “Patience, and shuffle the cards.” Cervantes
  6. V The Rubicon “I’ll stake my life upon her faith.” Othello
  7. VI A Hand Clasp Ferdinand “Here’s my hand. Miranda And mine with my heart in it.” Tempest
  8. VII Mrs. Sylvester Love is more pleasant than marriage, for the same reason that romances are more amusing than history. Chamfort “He draweth out the thread of his verbosity, finer than the staple of his argument.” Loves Labor Lost
  9. VIII Shadows of the Past “Memory, the warder of the brain.” Macbeth
  10. IX Paula “The stars of midnight shall be dear To her; and she shall lean her ear In many a secret place Where rivulets dance their wayward round, And beauty born of murmuring sound Shall pass into her face.” Wordsworth
  11. X The Barred Door “A school boy’s tale; the wonder of an hour.” Byron
  12. XI Miss Stuyvesant “She smiled; but he could see arise Her soul from far adown her eyes.” Mrs. Browning
  13. XII Miss Belinda Makes Conditions “For of the soul the body form doth take, For soul is form, and doth the body make.” Spenser
  14. XIII The End of My Lady’s Picture “Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate.” Pope
  15. Book II
  16. XIV Miss Belinda Has a Question to Decide “I pray you in your letters, Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice.” Othello
  17. XV An Adventure—Or Something More “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven.” Wordsworth Ophelia “What means this, my lord? Hamlet Marry, this is the miching mallecho; it means mischief.” Hamlet
  18. XVI The Sword of Damocles “And my imaginations are as foul As Vulcan’s smithy.” Hamlet “Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once; Found out the remedy.” Measure for Measure
  19. XVII Grave and Gay “No scandal about Queen Elizabeth I hope.” Sheridan “Stands Scotland where it did?” Macbeth
  20. XVIII In the Night Watches “Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?” Henry IV “What doth gravity out of his bed at midnight?” Henry IV
  21. XIV A Day at the Bank “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.” Hamlet
  22. XX The Dregs in the Cup “O eloquent, just and mightie death! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised: thou hast drawn together all the farre stretched greatnesses; all the pride, crueltie and ambition of man and covered it all over with these two narrow words, ‘Hic jacet’ ” Sir Walter Raleigh
  23. XXI Departure “Forever and forever, farewell Cassius. If we do meet again, why we shall smile; If not, why then, this parting was well made.” Julius Caesar
  24. XXII Hopgood “Give it an understanding but no tongue.” Hamlet
  25. Book III
  26. XXIII The Poem “I’ve shot my arrow o’er the house And hurt my brother.” Hamlet
  27. XXIV The Japha Mansion “Ah what a warning for a thoughtless man, Could field or grove, could any spot on earth Show to his eye an image of the pangs Which it has witnessed; render back an echo Of the sad steps by which it hath been trod. Wordsworth
  28. XXV Jacqueline “The cold in clime are cold in blood, And love as scarce deserves the name, But mine is like the lava flood That burns in Etna’s breast of flame.” Byron
  29. XXVI A Man’s Justice and a Woman’s Mercy “Fair is foul and foul is fair.” Macbeth
  30. XXVII The Lone Watcher “Hark! to the hurried question of Despair, Where is my child?—and Echo answers—Where?” Byron
  31. XXVIII Sunshine on the Hills “If I speak to thee in Friendship’s name, Thou think’st I speak too coldly; If I mention Love’s devoted flame, Thou say’st I speak too boldly.” Moore
  32. XXIX Mist in the Valley “The true beginning of our end.” Midsummer Night’s Dream
  33. Book IV
  34. XXX Miss Belinda Presents Mr. Sylvester with a Christmas Gift “For, O; for, O the hobby horse is forgot.” Hamlet
  35. XXXI A Question “Think on thy sins.” Othello
  36. XXXII Full Tide “A skirmish of wit between them.” Much Ado About Nothing
  37. XXXIII Two Letters “I have no other but a woman’s reason, I think him so, because I think him so.” Two Gentlemen of Verona
  38. XXXIV Paula Makes Her Choice “Good fortune then, To make me bless’t or cursed’st among men.” Merchant of Venice
  39. XXXV Miss Belinda Makes Conditions “Foul deeds will rise, Though all the world o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.” Hamlet
  40. XXXVI Morning “Two maidens by one fountain’s joyous brink, And one was sad and one had cause for sadness.”
  41. XXXVII The Opinion of a Certain Noted Detective “But still there clung One hope, like a keen sword on starting threads uphung.” Revolt of Islam “Facts are stubborn things.” Elliott
  42. XXXVIII Blue-Beard’s Chamber “Present fears Are less than horrible imaginings.” Macbeth
  43. XXXIX From A. To Z. “A naked human heart.” Young
  44. XL Half-Past Seven “I would it were midnight, Hal, and all well.” Henry IV
  45. Book V
  46. XLI The Work of an Hour “Base is the slave that pays.” Henry V “Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.” Congreve
  47. XLII Paula Relates a Story She Has Heard “None are so desolate but something dear, Dearer than self, possesses or possessed.” Byron
  48. XLIII Determination “But alas! to make me A fixed figure for the time of scorn To point his slow unmoving finger at!” Othello “Let me but bear your love, I’ll bear your cares.” Henry V
  49. XLIV In Mr. Stuyvesant’s Parlors “Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud Turn forth her silver lining on the night?” Comus
  50. XLV “The Hour of Six Is Sacred” “Mightier far Than strength of nerve or sinew, or the sway Of magic potent over sun and star, Is love, though oft to agony distrest, And though its favorite seat be feeble woman’s breast.” Wordsworth
  51. XLVI The Man Cummins “Oh day and night, but this is wondrous strange.” Henry V “Shut up in measureless content.” Othello
  52. Endnotes
English ▾

The Sword of Damocles

Anna Katharine Green

free · 140,053 words · 16 h 40 m audiobook, read by Mary Bard for LibriVox

text from Standard Ebooks

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To
My father
I dedicate this book
as expressing some of the principles of
justice and mercy which,
by precept and example, he has
instilled into my
breast
from early childhood.

“When all else fails love saves.”

Damocles, one of the courtiers of Dionysius, was perpetually extolling with rapture that tyrant’s treasures, grandeur, the number of his troops, the extent of his dominions, the magnificence of his palaces, and the universal abundance of all good things and enjoyments in his possession; always repeating, that never man was happier than Dionysius. “Since you are of that opinion,” said the tyrant to him one day, “will you taste and make proof of my felicity in person?” The offer was accepted with joy; Damocles was placed upon a golden couch, covered with carpets richly embroidered. The sideboards were loaded with vessels of gold and silver. The most beautiful slaves in the most splendid habits stood around, ready to serve him at the slightest signal. The most exquisite essences and perfumes had not been spared. The table was spread with proportionate magnificence. Damocles was all joy, and looked upon himself as the happiest man in the world; when unfortunately casting up his eyes, he beheld over his head the point of a sword, which hung from the roof only by a single horsehair.

Rollin

Book I

Two Men

I

A Wanderer

“There’s no such word.”

Bulwer

A wind was blowing through the city. Not a gentle and balmy zephyr, stirring the locks on gentle ladies’ foreheads and rustling the curtains in elegant boudoirs, but a chill and bitter gale that rushed with a swoop through narrow alleys and forsaken courtyards, biting the cheeks of the few solitary wanderers that still lingered abroad in the darkened streets.

In front of a cathedral that reared its lofty steeple in the midst of the squalid houses and worse than squalid saloons of one of the dreariest portions of the East Side, stood the form of a woman. She had paused in her rush down the narrow street to listen to the music, perhaps, or to catch a glimpse of the light that now and then burst from the widely swinging doors as they opened and shut upon some tardy worshipper.

She was tall and fearful looking; her face, when the light struck it, was seared and desperate; gloom and desolation were written on all the lines of her rigid but wasted form, and when she shuddered under the gale, it was with that force and abandon to which passion lends its aid, and in which the soul proclaims its doom.

Suddenly the doors before her swung wide and the preacher’s voice was heard: “Love God and you will love your fellow-men. Love your fellow-men and you best show your love to God.”

She heard, started, and the charm was broken. “Love!” she echoed with a horrible laugh; “there is no love in heaven or on earth!”

And she swept by, and the winds followed and the darkness swallowed her up like a gulf.

II

A Discussion

“Young men think old men fools, and old men know young men to be so.”

Ray’s Proverb

“And you are actually in earnest?”

“I am.”

The first speaker, a fine-looking gentleman of some forty years of age, drummed with his fingers on the table before him and eyed the face of the young man who had repeated this assent so emphatically, with a certain close scrutiny indicative of surprise.

“It is an unlooked-for move for you to make,” he remarked at length. “Your success as a pianist has been so decided, I confess I do not understand why you should desire to abandon a profession that in five years’ time has procured you both competence and a very enviable reputation—for the doubtful prospects of Wall Street, too!” he added with a deep and thoughtful frown that gave still further impressiveness to his strongly marked features.

The young man with a sweep of his eye over the luxurious apartment in which they sat, shrugged his shoulders with that fine and nonchalant grace which was one of his chief characteristics.

“With such a pilot as yourself, I ought to be able to steer clear of the shoals,” said he, a frank smile illumining a face that was rather interesting than handsome.

The elder gentleman did not return the smile. Instead of that he remained gazing at the ample coal-fire that burned in the grate before him with a look that to the young musician was simply inexplicable. “You see the ship in haven,” he murmured at last; “but do not consider what storms it has weathered or what perils escaped. It is a voyage I would encourage no son of mine to undertake.”

“Yet you are not the man to shrink from danger or to hesitate in a course you had marked out for yourself, because of the struggle it involved or the difficulties it presented!” the young man exclaimed almost involuntarily as his glance lingered with a certain sort of fascination on the powerful brow and steady if somewhat melancholy eye of his companion.

“No; but danger and difficulty should not be sought, only subdued when encountered. If you were driven into this path, I should say, ‘God pity you!’ and hold you out my hand to steady you along its precipices and above its sudden quicksands. But you are not driven to it. Your profession offers you the means of an ample livelihood while your good heart and fair talents insure you ultimate and honorable success, both in the social and artistic world. For a man of twenty-five such prospects are not common and he must be difficult to please not to be satisfied with them.”

“Yes,” said the other rising with a fitful movement but instantly sitting again; “I have nothing to complain of as the world goes, only—Sir,” he exclaimed with a sudden determination that lent a force to his features they had hitherto lacked, “you speak of being driven into a certain course; what do you mean by that?”

“I mean,” returned the other; “forced by circumstances to enter a line of business to which many others, if not all others are preferable.”

“You speak strongly, speculation evidently has none of your sympathy, notwithstanding the favorable results which have accrued to you from it. But excuse me, by circumstances you mean poverty, I suppose, and the lack of every other opening to wealth and position. You would not consider the desire to make a large fortune in a short space of time a circumstance of a sufficiently determining nature to reconcile you to my entering Wall Street speculation?”

The elder gentleman rose, not as the other had done with a restless impulse quickly subsiding at the first excuse, but forcibly and with a feverish impatience that to appearance was somewhat out of proportion to the occasion. “A large fortune in a short space of time!” he reiterated, pausing where he had risen with an eagle glance at his companion and a ringing tone in his voice that bespoke a deep but hitherto suppressed agitation. “It is the alluring inscription above the pitfall into which many a noble youth has fallen; the battle-cry to a struggle that has led many a strong man the way of ruin; the guidepost to a life whose feverish days and sleepless nights offer but poor compensation for the sudden splendors and as sudden reverses attached to it. I had rather you had accounted for this sudden freak of yours by the strongest aspiration after power than by this cry of the merely mercenary man who in his desire to enjoy wealth, prefers to win it by a stroke of luck rather than conquer it by a life of endeavor.” He stopped. “I am aware that this tirade against the ladder by which I myself have risen so rapidly, must strike you as in ill-taste. But Bertram, I am interested in your welfare and am willing to incur some slight charge of inconsistency in order to insure it,” and here he turned upon his companion with that expression of extreme gentleness which lent such a peculiar charm to his countenance and explained perhaps the almost unlimited power he held over the hearts and minds of those who came within the circle of his influence.

“You are very good, sir,” murmured his young friend, who to explain matters at once was in reality the nephew of this Wall Street magnate, though from the fact of his having taken another name on entering the musical profession, was not generally known as such. “No one, not even my father himself, could have been more considerate and kind; but I do not think you understand me, or rather I should say I do not think I have made myself perfectly intelligible to you. It is not for the sake of wealth itself or the éclat attending its possession that I desire an immediate fortune, but that by means of it I may attain another object dearer than wealth, and more precious than my career.”

The elder gentleman turned quickly, evidently much surprised, and cast a sudden inquiring glance at his nephew, who blushed with a modest ingenuousness pleasing to see in one so well accustomed to the critical gaze of his fellow-men.

“Yes,” said he, as if in answer to that look, “I am in love.”

A deep silence for a moment pervaded the apartment, a sombre silence almost startling to young Mandeville, who had expected some audible expression to follow this announcement if only the good-natured “Pooh! pooh!” of the matured man of the world in the presence of ardent youthful enthusiasm. What could it mean? Looking up he encountered his uncle’s eye fixed upon him with the last expression he could have anticipated seeing there, namely that of actual and unmistakable alarm.

“You are displeased,” Mandeville exclaimed. “You have thought me proof against such a passion, or perhaps you do not believe in the passion itself!” Then with a sudden remembrance of the notable if somewhat indolent loveliness of his uncle’s wife, blushed again at his unusual want of tact, while his eye with an involuntary impulse sought the large panel at their right where, in the full bloom of her first youth, the lady of the house smiled upon all beholders.

“I do not believe in that passion influencing a man’s career,” his uncle replied with no apparent attention to the other’s embarrassment. “A woman needs be possessed of uncommon excellences to justify a man in leaving a path where success is certain, for one where it is not only doubtful but if attained must bring many a regret and heartache in its train. Beauty is not sufficient,” he went on with sterner and sterner significance, “though it were of an angelic order. There must be worth.” And here his mind’s eye if not that of his bodily sense, certainly followed the glance of his companion.

“I believe there is worth,” the young man replied; “certainly, it is not her beauty that charms me. I do not even know if she is beautiful,” he continued.

“And you believe you love!” the elder exclaimed after another short pause.

There was so much of bitterness in the tone in which this was uttered, that Mandeville forgot its incredulity. “I think I must,” returned he with a certain masculine naivete not out of keeping with his general style of face and manner, “else I should not be here. Three weeks ago I was satisfied with my profession, if not enthusiastic over it; today I ask nothing but to be allowed to enter upon some business that in three years’ time at least will place me where I can be the fit mate of any woman in this land, that is not worth her millions.”

“The woman for whom you have conceived this violent attachment is, then, above you in social position?”

“Yes, sir, or so considered, which amounts to the same thing, as far as I am concerned.”

“Bertram, I have lived longer than you and have seen much of both social and domestic life, and I tell you no woman is worth such a sacrifice on the part of a man as you propose. No woman of today, I should say; our mothers were different. The very fact that this young lady of whom you speak, obliges you to change your whole course of life in order to obtain her, ought to be sufficient to prove to you—” He stopped suddenly, arrested by the young man’s lifted hand. “She does not oblige you, then?”

“Not on her own account, sir. This lily,” lifting a vase of blossoms at his elbow, “could not be more innocent of the necessities that govern the social circle it adorns, than the pure, single-minded girl to whom I have dedicated what is best and noblest in my manhood. It is her father—”

“Ah, her father!”

“Yes, sir,” the young man pursued, more and more astonished at the other’s tone. “He is a man who has a right to expect both wealth and position in a son-in-law. But I see I shall have to tell you my story, sir. It is an uncommon one and I never meant that it should pass my lips, but if by its relation I can win your sympathy for a pure and noble passion, I shall consider the sacred seal of secrecy broken in a good cause. But,” said he, seeing his uncle cast a short and uneasy glance at the door, “perhaps I am interrupting you. You expect someone!”

“No,” said his uncle, “my wife is at church; I am ready to listen.”

The young man gave a hurried sigh, cast one look at his companion’s immovable face, as if to assure himself that the narrative was necessary, then leaned back and in a steady businesslike tone that softened, however, as he proceeded, began to relate as follows:

restoring your place…

fetching the rest…

More by Anna Katharine Green

  • A Strange Disappearance
    Q, the young detective who tells this one, is good company, quick with a disguise and a little vain about it, and watching him worry at why a sewing girl vanished from a rich man's house is half the fun. Expect Victorian melodrama under the sleuthing, and enjoy it anyway.
  • Lost Man’s Lane
    Amelia Butterworth is the fun here, a nosy, sharp-tongued spinster who invites herself into a crumbling country house where travelers keep vanishing on the road outside. It's creaky Victorian gothic with a phantom coach and everything, so come for atmosphere and her voice, not tight plotting.
  • That Affair Next Door
    Miss Amelia Butterworth narrates this one, a nosy, tart-tongued spinster who spots a body in the empty house next door and decides Detective Gryce needs her help whether he wants it or not. If you like your Victorian mysteries with dry wit, she's great company.

genres

  • Mystery

—

thank you for reading

The Sword of Damocles by Anna Katharine Green. The text is in the US public domain, from the Standard Ebooks edition. Served from our own copy; read on their site for the full edition with images and typography.

Narrated by Mary Bard for LibriVox, also public domain.

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