...that wealth of muscle, that affluence of flesh.
The expression clothing that profile was agreeable...
...sonorous, brass-lunged choruses...
...in your cheek, which the blood has forsaken.
...the pupils, rampant in the licence of evening recreation, were counterfeiting a miniature chaos.
...for the letters from incessant perusal were losing all sap and significance...
The sky, relieved of its avalanche, lay naked and pale.
The longer we live, the more our experience widens; the less prone are we to judge our neighbor's conduct, to question the world's wisdom...
Her personal appearance was far from destitute of advantages.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Villette(2) by Charlotte Bronte
Some people's movements provoke the soul by their loose awkwardness...
...his destitution of purse.
...the weather and rooms being too hot to give substantial fabrics suffrance...
I read your skull that night you came...
When my tongue once got free, and my voice took its true pitch, and found its natural tone...
...he fumed like a bottled storm.
...a want of companionship maintained in my soul the cravings of a most deadly famine.
...but this duty had become to him a sort of form: he went through it with the phlegm of custom.
I said I was perishing for a word of advice or an accent of comfort.
It was cold, and pierced me to the vitals.
I saw in his countenance a teeming plenitude of comment, question and interest...
I have done nothing wrong: my life has not been active enough for any dark deed, either of romance or reality...
...my sympathy desired to keep its cornucopia replenished and ready for outpouring.
...his destitution of purse.
...the weather and rooms being too hot to give substantial fabrics suffrance...
I read your skull that night you came...
When my tongue once got free, and my voice took its true pitch, and found its natural tone...
...he fumed like a bottled storm.
...a want of companionship maintained in my soul the cravings of a most deadly famine.
...but this duty had become to him a sort of form: he went through it with the phlegm of custom.
I said I was perishing for a word of advice or an accent of comfort.
It was cold, and pierced me to the vitals.
I saw in his countenance a teeming plenitude of comment, question and interest...
I have done nothing wrong: my life has not been active enough for any dark deed, either of romance or reality...
...my sympathy desired to keep its cornucopia replenished and ready for outpouring.
Villette by Charlotte Bronte
...it was a scene of feeling too brimful...
...to be in a trance of content.
...to sever the thread of an existence so long fretted by affliction.
...(the room did not boast a sofa).
...they shook my philosophy more than did the night...
Black was the river as a torrent of ink...
...yet amidst all these deadening influences, my fancy budded fresh...
...they were very plebeian in soul.
...I found myself an object of study: she held me under her eye...
...polishing my faculties and whetting them to a keen edge with constant use.
...on the edge of a moral volcano that rumbled under my feet...
...I was sitting on the hidden seat reclaimed from fungi and mould...
..the tempest took hold of me with tyranny: I was roughly roused and obliged to live.
...to be in a trance of content.
...to sever the thread of an existence so long fretted by affliction.
...(the room did not boast a sofa).
...they shook my philosophy more than did the night...
Black was the river as a torrent of ink...
...yet amidst all these deadening influences, my fancy budded fresh...
...they were very plebeian in soul.
...I found myself an object of study: she held me under her eye...
...polishing my faculties and whetting them to a keen edge with constant use.
...on the edge of a moral volcano that rumbled under my feet...
...I was sitting on the hidden seat reclaimed from fungi and mould...
..the tempest took hold of me with tyranny: I was roughly roused and obliged to live.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Jude The Obscure(2) by Thomas Hardy
"Oh, I am not going to be a philosopher any longer! I only see what's under my eyes."
...the satisfaction of being on the brink of a gratified desire.
A contented mind is a continual feast.
"Why didn't I tell him pleasant untruths, instead of half-realities?"
"It was Nature's intention, Nature's law and raison d'etre that we should be joyful in what instincts she afforded us--instincts which civilization had taken upon itself to thwart."
...her intellect played like lambent lightning over conventions and formalities...
"Do not do an immoral thing for moral reasons!"
...the satisfaction of being on the brink of a gratified desire.
A contented mind is a continual feast.
"Why didn't I tell him pleasant untruths, instead of half-realities?"
"It was Nature's intention, Nature's law and raison d'etre that we should be joyful in what instincts she afforded us--instincts which civilization had taken upon itself to thwart."
...her intellect played like lambent lightning over conventions and formalities...
"Do not do an immoral thing for moral reasons!"
Jude The Obscure by Thomas Hardy
..a watch-chain that danced madly and threw around scintillations of sky-light...
A little chill overspread him at her first unrobing.
Drinking was the regular, stereotyped resource of the despairing worthless.
Teach me to live, that I may dread
The grave as little as my bed.
Teach me to die...
...she had altogether the air of a woman clipped and pruned by severe discipline...
...for no average man--no man short of a sensual savage--will molest a woman by day or night, at home or abroad, unless she invites him.
"What is the use of thinking of laws and ordinances, "she burst out, "if they make you miserable when you knew you are committing no sin?"
"It is as culpable to bind yourself to love always as to believe a creed always, and as silly as to vow always to like a particular food or drink!"
A little chill overspread him at her first unrobing.
Drinking was the regular, stereotyped resource of the despairing worthless.
Teach me to live, that I may dread
The grave as little as my bed.
Teach me to die...
...she had altogether the air of a woman clipped and pruned by severe discipline...
...for no average man--no man short of a sensual savage--will molest a woman by day or night, at home or abroad, unless she invites him.
"What is the use of thinking of laws and ordinances, "she burst out, "if they make you miserable when you knew you are committing no sin?"
"It is as culpable to bind yourself to love always as to believe a creed always, and as silly as to vow always to like a particular food or drink!"
The American(2) by Henry James
People are proud only when they have something to lose, and humble when they have something to gain.
...a smile as thin as the edge of a knife.
...the deep liquidity of her voice...
"It is a proof of cleverness to be happy without doing anything."
"Oh, it's very jolly making love to married women," said Lord Deepmere, "because they can't ask you to marry them."
...a smile as thin as the edge of a knife.
...the deep liquidity of her voice...
"It is a proof of cleverness to be happy without doing anything."
"Oh, it's very jolly making love to married women," said Lord Deepmere, "because they can't ask you to marry them."
Thursday, November 22, 2007
The American by Henry James
...and he had sat down with an aesthetic headache.
...he was evidently going through his remnant of life in tiptoe, for fear of waking up the hostile fates.
"I know the best can't be had for mere money."
...she was buying a good conscience, by instalments.
...a woman's first duty is not to be beautiful, but to be pleasing.
"A beauty has no faults in her face; the face of a beautiful woman may have faults that only deepen its charm."
"...she stands alone; she is of a different clay."
One's theories, after all, matter little; it is one's humour that is the great thing.
He was blessed with a natural impulse to disfigure with a direct, unreasoning blow the comely visage of temptation.
It is very well to sneer at money-getting after you have filled your pockets.
He had been tied with so short a rope in his youth that he had now a mortal grudge against family discipline.
"It's a part of one's pleasure to complain."
...he was evidently going through his remnant of life in tiptoe, for fear of waking up the hostile fates.
"I know the best can't be had for mere money."
...she was buying a good conscience, by instalments.
...a woman's first duty is not to be beautiful, but to be pleasing.
"A beauty has no faults in her face; the face of a beautiful woman may have faults that only deepen its charm."
"...she stands alone; she is of a different clay."
One's theories, after all, matter little; it is one's humour that is the great thing.
He was blessed with a natural impulse to disfigure with a direct, unreasoning blow the comely visage of temptation.
It is very well to sneer at money-getting after you have filled your pockets.
He had been tied with so short a rope in his youth that he had now a mortal grudge against family discipline.
"It's a part of one's pleasure to complain."
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Women In Love by DH Lawrence
Ursula wished to be alone, freed from the tightness, the enclosure of Gudrun's presence.
He saw her bowed head, her rapt face, the face of an almost demoniacal ecstatic.
There was a stillness in his motion that hushed the activities of her heart.
His presence was so quiet, almost like a vacancy in the corporate air.
"Isn't the mind--" she said, with the convulsed movement of her body,"isn't it our death? Doesn't it destroy all our spontaneity, all our instincts?"
The two sisters were like a pair of scissors, snipping off everything that came athwart them...
"I should call love a single pure activity."
He held her in the hollow of his will,...
Minette lay in her bed, motionless, her round, blue eyes like stagnant, unhappy pools.
The talk went on like a rattle of small artillery...
She seemed to grip the hours by the throat, to force her life from them.
He saw her bowed head, her rapt face, the face of an almost demoniacal ecstatic.
There was a stillness in his motion that hushed the activities of her heart.
His presence was so quiet, almost like a vacancy in the corporate air.
"Isn't the mind--" she said, with the convulsed movement of her body,"isn't it our death? Doesn't it destroy all our spontaneity, all our instincts?"
The two sisters were like a pair of scissors, snipping off everything that came athwart them...
"I should call love a single pure activity."
He held her in the hollow of his will,...
Minette lay in her bed, motionless, her round, blue eyes like stagnant, unhappy pools.
The talk went on like a rattle of small artillery...
She seemed to grip the hours by the throat, to force her life from them.
The Voyage Out (2) by Virginia Woolf
The great darkness had the usual effect of taking away all desire for communication by making their words sound thin and small;...
She did not like to feel herself the victim of unclassified emotions,...
...but why was it so painful being in love, why was there so much pain in happiness?
...and there were soft crescents and diamonds of sunshine upon the plates and the tablecloth.
The afternoon was very hot, so hot that the breaking of the waves on the shore sounded like the repeated sigh of some exhausted creature,...
...dusk was saluted as usual at the hotel by an instantaneous sparkle of electric lights.
"...it doesn't much matter in the long run what one does; people always go their own way--nothing will ever influence them."
She did not like to feel herself the victim of unclassified emotions,...
...but why was it so painful being in love, why was there so much pain in happiness?
...and there were soft crescents and diamonds of sunshine upon the plates and the tablecloth.
The afternoon was very hot, so hot that the breaking of the waves on the shore sounded like the repeated sigh of some exhausted creature,...
...dusk was saluted as usual at the hotel by an instantaneous sparkle of electric lights.
"...it doesn't much matter in the long run what one does; people always go their own way--nothing will ever influence them."
Friday, November 9, 2007
The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf
The shooting motor cars, more like spiders in the moon than terrestrial object,...
...and when you said something to her it would make no more lasting impression than the stroke of a stick upon water.
The table was cheerful with apples...
The sea might give her death or some unexampled joy, and none would know of it.
...the argument was spilt irretrievably about the place like a bucket of milk.
...lying unprotected she looked somehow like a victim dropped from the claws of a bird of prey,...
"There would never be a government if there weren't an opposition."
...the bubles which swam and clustered in the cup seemed to her like the union of their minds.
"I always think religion's like collecting beetles."
Children never forget injustice.
"It's the way of saying things, isn't it, not the things?"
Darkness fell as sharply as a knife in this climate...
...and when you said something to her it would make no more lasting impression than the stroke of a stick upon water.
The table was cheerful with apples...
The sea might give her death or some unexampled joy, and none would know of it.
...the argument was spilt irretrievably about the place like a bucket of milk.
...lying unprotected she looked somehow like a victim dropped from the claws of a bird of prey,...
"There would never be a government if there weren't an opposition."
...the bubles which swam and clustered in the cup seemed to her like the union of their minds.
"I always think religion's like collecting beetles."
Children never forget injustice.
"It's the way of saying things, isn't it, not the things?"
Darkness fell as sharply as a knife in this climate...
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
The popularity of this world is as transient as its glory...
...an offer which Mrs. Hamley received with the open arms of her heart...
But fate is a cunning hussy, and builds up her plans as imperceptibly as a bird builds her nest; and with much the same kind of unconsidered trifles.
...if advice is good it's the best comfort.
...and their greediness of details about persons.
...regarded silence on his own part as a great preservative against long inconsequential arguments.
...his conversation was not so amply sprinkled with critical pepper.
...the soothing syrup of their mother's speeches,...
She ended her sentence with another smile, but it was rather faint and watery.
Poor people acknowledge the inevitableness and the approach of death in a much more straightforward manner than is customary among the more educated.
"Patty, link thy right arm into my left one, then thou'lt be nearer to my heart";...
"A cheerful heart makes its own sunshine."
...an offer which Mrs. Hamley received with the open arms of her heart...
But fate is a cunning hussy, and builds up her plans as imperceptibly as a bird builds her nest; and with much the same kind of unconsidered trifles.
...if advice is good it's the best comfort.
...and their greediness of details about persons.
...regarded silence on his own part as a great preservative against long inconsequential arguments.
...his conversation was not so amply sprinkled with critical pepper.
...the soothing syrup of their mother's speeches,...
She ended her sentence with another smile, but it was rather faint and watery.
Poor people acknowledge the inevitableness and the approach of death in a much more straightforward manner than is customary among the more educated.
"Patty, link thy right arm into my left one, then thou'lt be nearer to my heart";...
"A cheerful heart makes its own sunshine."
Zelda by Nancy Milford (A Zelda Fitzgerald Biography)
"I don't want to live--I want to love first and live incidentally."
"I want you to wear me, like a watch--charm or a button hole boquet--to the world."
"I was in love with a whirlwind and I must spin a net big enough to catch it." --F. Scott Fitzgerald
...the first fresh exhilaration of love was a perishable sensation...
There are all kinds of love in the world, but never the same love twice.
I want to marry Anthony because husbands are so often "husbands" and I must marry a lover...
...but youth does not need friends--it needs only crowds...
"I want you to wear me, like a watch--charm or a button hole boquet--to the world."
"I was in love with a whirlwind and I must spin a net big enough to catch it." --F. Scott Fitzgerald
...the first fresh exhilaration of love was a perishable sensation...
There are all kinds of love in the world, but never the same love twice.
I want to marry Anthony because husbands are so often "husbands" and I must marry a lover...
...but youth does not need friends--it needs only crowds...
Beloved Chicago Man(2) by Simone de Beauvoir
I have to find a way of saying the truth without saying it; that is exactly what is literature, after all: clever lies which secretly say the truth.
Writing is not as pleasant as kissing; it is even a little dry, and lonely and sad, but it is better than nothing: I have no choice left.
Your ring goes everywhere with me, it takes soap when I wash myself in the morning, it took sand on the Corsican shores, tomorrow it will catch something of the London dust. So you are mixed with all my life.
I can live on bread and potatoes, water and love.
I always like to see water glittering in the dark, but in daylight it is very dull.
...there was a very reluctant sun hidden behind clouds.
...we'll meet in love and leave in love...
Love was everywhere, in the smell of flowers, and the taste of whisky, in the color of the paperback books so precious, so sweet, and so painful.
Loving you so much means I can suffer very much because of you,...
Well, I will interfere with your freedom: I'll put an electric fence around Wabansia home; I'll poison your skin and lips so that if you touch any woman, she'll fall dead.
...worrying is useless too and you must not vainly brood and worry when you have chosen to live.
Writing is not as pleasant as kissing; it is even a little dry, and lonely and sad, but it is better than nothing: I have no choice left.
Your ring goes everywhere with me, it takes soap when I wash myself in the morning, it took sand on the Corsican shores, tomorrow it will catch something of the London dust. So you are mixed with all my life.
I can live on bread and potatoes, water and love.
I always like to see water glittering in the dark, but in daylight it is very dull.
...there was a very reluctant sun hidden behind clouds.
...we'll meet in love and leave in love...
Love was everywhere, in the smell of flowers, and the taste of whisky, in the color of the paperback books so precious, so sweet, and so painful.
Loving you so much means I can suffer very much because of you,...
Well, I will interfere with your freedom: I'll put an electric fence around Wabansia home; I'll poison your skin and lips so that if you touch any woman, she'll fall dead.
...worrying is useless too and you must not vainly brood and worry when you have chosen to live.
Monday, November 5, 2007
The Small House at Allington by Anthony Trollope
...a man when so treated does feel himself to look like a calf at the altar, ready for the knife,...
He must not teach her to think that they were to live only in the sunlight of each other's eyes...
I think that if those two persons had known more than they did of each other's hearts and minds they might have loved each other better.
You are my bird that I have shot at with my own gun.
...very many who can devote themselves for great sacrifices, cannot bring themselves the endurance of little injuries.
...thought will not at once produce wisdom.
...why should he not enjoy the last remnant of his bachelor life?
Few liars can lie with the full roundness and self-sufficiency of truth.
...was forced to clothe himself in smiles.
He must not teach her to think that they were to live only in the sunlight of each other's eyes...
I think that if those two persons had known more than they did of each other's hearts and minds they might have loved each other better.
You are my bird that I have shot at with my own gun.
...very many who can devote themselves for great sacrifices, cannot bring themselves the endurance of little injuries.
...thought will not at once produce wisdom.
...why should he not enjoy the last remnant of his bachelor life?
Few liars can lie with the full roundness and self-sufficiency of truth.
...was forced to clothe himself in smiles.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)