Page:The Yellow Book - 13.djvu/301

Rh our best and least loved, there rests a sanctuary that strangers do not enter; and here is such hate in place.

Envy is the slim rapier, and the more we handle it the lighter it feels to our grasp. It is a delicate weapon and prolific of imagination. Yet, once dropped, the cunning feel of the blade leaves us, and its fickle laugh looks whimsical, not formidable, along the ground.

Anger is sudden, or, like the storm long gathering, breaks in thunder and crooked lightning, that runs jagged over the face of the tumult, while our disturbed senses hurry across the lighter skies of our natures like clouds.

Exasperation is physical, the itch inside the thumb, the transient wish for suffering. Like a dog growling, or the Arab stabbing up between the bloody hoofs, we turn the gaze back to savagery, and with a shrug cast off the painted blanket of our civilisation. Then our arms are free, and we crouch and are dangerous.

Jealousy, the much maligned, yet a man's quality, and more tragic than funny, is much, in minds hard of trust. The jealous have been laughed at as buffoons and all their sadness missed, for it is long before some men trust and belief comes struggling; yet once seated the fall of mountains is insignificant. Jealousy prompts men to rash deeds and often repented, yet it is but a winding path and it leads to a stronghold.

But great hate; not dependent upon circumstances, not an elation nor a depression, unstorming, barren, lasting and unproductive—few natures have the silence to harbour it. Silence is the home of great emotions who feel the hopelessness of words. All great speech has broken silence, the noises scare it, and it remains underground; only it comes forth in the stillnesss of the night like the elves and flies at the trivial tread of the light. In

The Yellow Book—Vol. XIII.