Riders Of The Purple Sage Quotes
"Of all the gifts that have come to me from contact with the West, this one of sheer love of wilderness beauty, colour, grandeur, has been the greatest, the most significant for my work."
"Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed."
"I’ve heard of your love for Fay Larkin and that you intend to adopt her. But – Jane Withersteen, the child is a Gentile!"
"Then what has he done to get tied up that way?"
"Milly Erne’s grave is in a secret burying-ground on my property."
"But she passed as a Mormon, and certainly she had the Mormon woman’s locked lips."
"Mormon wives wear yokes, but they get jealous."
"She had one real friend – Jane Withersteen. But Jane couldn’t mend a broken heart, and Milly died."
"Next to his horse a rider of the sage loved a spring."
"The spring gushed forth in a swirling torrent, and leaped down joyously to make its swift way along a willow-skirted channel."
"It was all in strange contrast to the endless slopes of lonely sage and the wild rock environs beyond."
"I never seen their like," was Lassiter’s encomium, "an’ in my day I’ve seen a sight of horses."
"What can Oldring do with so many cattle? Why, a hundred head is a big steal."
"But in her it had infinitely more – a revelation of mortal spirit."
"A strange muffled pounding and splashing and ringing."
"The canyon opened fan-shaped into a great oval of green and grey growths."
"It was an unobtrusive, almost secret aid which she rendered to the Gentile families of the village."
"At any time this work called for a clearness of mind that precluded anxiety and worry; but under the present circumstances, it required all her vigour and obstinate tenacity to pin her attention upon her task."
"Sunset came, bringing with the end of her labour a patient calmness and power to wait that had not been hers earlier in the day."
"Her faith welled up in her heart and said that all would soon be right in her little world."
"The glimmering of the first star was like the peace and beauty of the night."
"Once resigned to further loss, and sure of herself, Jane Withersteen attained a peace of mind that had not been hers for a year."
"She prayed as she had never prayed in all her life – prayed to be forgiven for her sin; to be immune from that dark, hot hate; to love Tull as her minister, though she could not love him as a man."
"She might never be able to marry a man of her choice, but she certainly never would become the wife of Tull."
"The water that flowed along the path at her feet, and turned into each cottage-yard to nourish garden and orchard, also was hers, no less her private property because she chose to give it free."
"Jane felt swayed by a strength that far exceeded her own. In a clash of wills with this man she would go to the wall."
"Venters knew then that it had a burrow higher up. More than once he jerked over to seize it, only in vain, for the rabbit by renewed effort eluded his grasp."
"The cliff-dwellers, driven by dreaded enemies to this last stand, had cunningly cut the rock until it balanced perfectly, ready to be dislodged by strong hands."
"Above Venters loomed a wonderful arch of stone bridging the canyon rims."
"The valley was a cove a mile long, half that wide, and its enclosing walls were smooth and stained, and curved inwards, forming great caves."
"The water was so cold it made his fingers tingle as he dipped the canteen."
"It was a stupendous tomb. It had been a city."
"He saw the darkening rims, the grey oval turning black, the undulating surface of forest, like a rippling lake, and the spear-pointed spruces."
"It had the look of a place where silence had become master and was now irrevocable and terrible and could not be broken."
"The shaking of the high grass told him of the running of animals, what species he could not tell."
"She had been made to ride at the head of infamous forays and drives."
"In those ensuing days, however, it became clear as clearest light that Bess was rapidly regaining strength."
"Day by day Venters watched the white of her face slowly change to brown, and the wasted cheeks fill out by imperceptible degrees."
"He had shot a masked outlaw the very sight of whom had been ill omen to riders; he had carried off a wounded woman whose bloody lips quivered in prayer; he had nursed what seemed a frail, shrunken boy; and now he watched a girl whose face had become strangely sweet."
"Chiefly it was the present that he wished to dwell upon; but it was the call of the future which stirred him to action."
"No idea had he of what that future had in store for Bess and him."
"Venters exercised his usual care in the matter of hiding tracks from the outlet, yet it took him scarcely an hour to reach Oldring’s cattle."
"He roped one, securely tied its feet, and swung it up over his shoulder."
"What did she think when she looked at him so? Almost he believed she had no thought at all."
"All about her and the present there in Surprise Valley, and the dim yet subtly impending future, fascinated Venters and made him thoughtful."
"The suggestion of the mask always made Venters remember; now that it was gone he seldom thought of her past."
"He began to think of improving Surprise Valley as a place to live in, for there was no telling how long they would be compelled to stay there."
"I absolutely deny the truth of what you say about yourself. I can’t explain it. There are things too deep to tell. Whatever the terrible wrongs you’ve suffered, God holds you blameless. I see that – feel that in you every moment you are near me."
"In this beautiful valley he had been living a beautiful dream. Tranquillity had come to him, and the joy of solitude, and interest in all the wild creatures and crannies of this incomparable valley – and love."
"The world had not been made for a single day’s play or fancy or idle watching. The world was old. Nowhere could be got a better idea of its age than in that gigantic silent tomb."
"That ever was the burden of its tidings – youth in the shady woods, waders through the wet meadows, boy and girl at the hedgerow stile, bathers in the booming surf, sweet, idle hours on grassy, windy hills, long strolls down moonlit lanes – everywhere in far-off lands, fingers locked and bursting hearts and longing lips – from all the world tidings of unquenchable love."
"What’s the life of one of those sneaking cowards to such a man as you? I think of your great hate towards him who – I think of your life’s implacable purpose. Can it be –"
"It’s Wrangle! . . . It’s Wrangle!" cried Jane Withersteen. "I’d know him from a million horses!"
"Like rough iron his hard hand crushed Jane's."
"Love your enemies as yourself!" was a divine word, entirely free from any church or creed.
"Another shadow had lengthened down the sage-slope to cast further darkness upon her."
"There was something terribly wrong with her soul, something terribly wrong with her churchmen and her religion."
"But here the damnable verdict blistered her that the more she sacrificed herself the blacker grew the souls of her churchmen."
"Material loss weighed nothing in the balance with other losses she was sustaining."
"Conscience thundered at her that there was left her religion."
"I reckon. But if there’s a tracker in these uplands as good as me he can find you."
"The strength in him then – the thing rife in him that was not hate, but something as remorseless – might have been the fiery fruition of a whole lifetime of vengeful quest."
"I’ll love you as no man ever loved a woman. I want you to know – to remember that I fought a fight for you – however blind I was."
"I believe I’ll rise out of all this dark agony a better woman, with greater love of man and God."
"Years are terrible things, and for years you’ve been bound. Habit of years is strong as life itself."
"I’m of Mormon birth. I’m being broken. But I’m still a Mormon woman."
"I believe you’re softened towards most, perhaps all, my people except – . But when I speak of your purpose, your hate, your guns, I have only him in mind."
"Come with me out of Utah – where I can put away my guns an’ be a man."
"I’ll never leave Utah. What would I do in the world with my broken fortunes and my broken heart? I’ll never leave these purple slopes I love so well."
"It’s strange, an’ hell an’ heaven at once, Jane Withersteen. ’Pears to me that you’ve thrown away your big heart on love – love of religion an’ duty an’ churchmen, an’ riders an’ poor families an’ poor children! Yet you can’t see what love is – how it changes a person!"
"Milly was the belle them days. I can see her now, a little girl no bigger ’n a bird, an’ as pretty. She had the finest eyes, dark blue-black when she was excited, an’ beautiful all the time."
"I reckon no brother an’ sister ever loved each other better."
"I had a blind faith that somethin’ was guidin’ me."
"I reckon I don’t want to hear no more," said Lassiter.
"Jane, I’ll ride away with you. Hide me till danger is past – till we are forgotten – then take me where you will."
"If we get up in the sage we can hide and slip along like coyotes."
"Oh, I can’t believe – Don’t raise me! Bern, let me kneel. I see truth in your face – in Miss Withersteen’s."
"Life's hell out here. You think – or you used to think – that your religion made this life heaven."
"I'm a man, and I know. I name fanatics, followers, blind women, oppressors, thieves, ranchers, rustlers, riders."
"Life's bloody. You'd think churches and churchmen would make it better. They make it worse."
"Someday the border'll be better, cleaner, for the ways of men like Lassiter!"
"Bear up, Jane, bear up! It's our game, if you don't weaken."
"Stick close to me. Watch where your horse's going and ride!"
"All of life, of good, of use in the world, of hope in heaven centered in Lassiter's ride with little Fay to safety."