30
" Where is your false, your treacherous, and cursed wife?" " She's gone forrard to the Police Office," returns Mr Bucket. " You'll see her there, my dear." " I would like to kiss her!" exclaims Mademoiselle Hortense, panting tigress-like. " You'd bite her, I suspect," says Mr Bucket." I would!" making her eyes very large. " I would love to tear her, limb from limb." " Bless you, darling," says Mr Bucket, with the greatest composure; " I'm fully prepared to hear that. Your sex have such a surprising animosity against one another, when you do differ. "
33
" B-but, Mr Jimson, I w-want to be an artist.'
'Of course you do,' I said, 'everybody does once. But they get over it, thank God, like the measles and the chickenpox. Go home and go to bed and take some hot lemonade and put on three blankets and sweat it out.'
'But Mr J-Jimson, there must be artists.'
'Yes, and lunatics and lepers, but why go and live in an asylum before you're sent for? If you find life a bit dull at home,' I said, 'and want to amuse yourself, put a stick of dynamite in the kitchen fire, or shoot a policeman. Volunteer for a test pilot, or dive off Tower Bridge with five bob's worth of roman candles in each pocket. You'd get twice the fun at about one-tenth of the risk. "
― Joyce Cary , The Horse's Mouth
38
" We are thankful to come here for rest, sir," said Jenny. " You see, you don't know what the rest of this place is to us; does he, Lizzie? It's the quiet, and the air." " The quiet!" repeated Fledgeby, with a contemptuous turn of his head towards the City's roar. " And the air!" with a " Poof!" at the smoke." Ah!" said Jenny. " But it's so high. And you see the clouds rushing on above the narrow streets, not minding them, and you see the golden arrows pointing at the mountains in the sky from which the wind comes, and you feel as if you were dead." The little creature looked above her, holding up her slight transparent hand." How do you feel when you are dead?" asked Fledgeby, much perplexed." Oh, so tranquil!" cried the little creature, smiling. " Oh, so peaceful and so thankful! And you hear the people who are alive, crying, and working, and calling to one another down in the close dark streets, and you seem to pity them so! And such a chain has fallen from you, and such a strange good sorrowful happiness comes upon you!" Her eyes fell on the old man, who, with his hands folded, quietly looked on." Why it was only just now," said the little creature, pointing at him, " that I fancied I saw him come out of his grave! He toiled out at that low door so bent and worn, and then he took his breath and stood upright, and looked all round him at the sky, and the wind blew upon him, and his life down in the dark was over!—Till he was called back to life," she added, looking round at Fledgeby with that lower look of sharpness. " Why did you call him back?" " He was long enough coming, anyhow," grumbled Fledgeby." But you are not dead, you know," said Jenny Wren. " Get down to life!" Mr Fledgeby seemed to think it rather a good suggestion, and with a nod turned round. As Riah followed to attend him down the stairs, the little creature called out to the Jew in a silvery tone, " Don't be long gone. Come back, and be dead!" And still as they went down they heard the little sweet voice, more and more faintly, half calling and half singing, " Come back and be dead, Come back and be dead! "
39
" My dear Mr FitzGeorge!' cried Lady Slane. 'You really mustn't talk as though my life had been a tragedy. I had everything that most women would covet: position, comfort, children, and a husband I loved. I had nothing to complain of - nothing.'
'Except that you were defrauded of the one thing that mattered. Nothing matters to an artist except the fulfilment of his gift. You know that as well as I do. Frustrated, he grows crooked like a tree twisted into an unnatural shape. All meaning goes out of life, and life becomes existence - a makeshift. Face it, Lady Slane. Your children, your husband, your splendour, were nothing but obstacles that kept you from yourself. They were what you chose to substitute for your real vocation. You were too young, I suppose, to know any better, but when you chose that life you sinned against the light. "
― Vita Sackville-West , All Passion Spent
40
" Liza Hempstock, who had been Bod's friend for the last six years, was different in another way; she was less likely to be there for him when Bod went down to the nettle patch to see her, and on the rare occasions when she was, she would be short-tempered, argumentative and often downright rude.Bod talked to Mr Owens about this, and after a few moments' reflection, his father said, " It's just women, I reckon. She liked you as a boy, probably isn't sure who you are now you're a young man. I used to play with one little girl down by the duck pond every day until she turned about your age, and then she threw an apple at my head and did not say another word to me until I was seventeen." Mrs Owens stiffened. " It was a pear I threw," she said, tartly, " and I was talking to you again soon enough, for we danced a measure at your cousin Ned's wedding, and that was but two days after your sixteenth birthday." Mr Owens said, " Of course you are right, my dear." He winked at Bod, to tell him that it was none of it serious. And then mouthed " Seventeen" to show that, really, it was. "