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1 " In the radiance and the silence, she ran on the vast expanse of hard, smooth sand, beside herself with joy. Ah, when you only have a holiday once in a while, what a happiness it is! Each golden minute had to be held and perfected before it was let go. "
― Dorothy Whipple , High Wages
2 " It was awful to have no one belonging to you, and to belong to no one. "
3 " Each soul has its solace. "
4 " Trains passed in the opposite direction, taking back the cotton princes to Tidsley, Elton, Burrows, and further on to Southport, Blackpool, St. Anne's. She could see the occupants of the first-class carriages playing cards, or fallen into unlovely sleep. They did well to avert their eyes from the landscape they had made. They had made it; but they could not, like God, look and see that it was good. Monstrous slag-heaps, like ranges in a burnt-out hell; stretches of waste land rubbed bare to the gritty earth; parallel rows of back-to-back dwellings; great blocks of mill buildings, the chimneys belching smoke as thick and black as eternal night itself; upstanding skeletons of wheels and pulleys. Mills and mines; mills and mines all the way to Manchester, and the brick, the stone, the grass, the very air deadened down to a general drab by the insidious filter of soot.But Jane, Lancashire born and bred, did not find it depressing. It was no feeble, trickling ugliness, but a strong, salient hideousness that was almost exhilarating. "
5 " Why did some people have so much? And yet, compared with Lily, she herself must seem almost rich. Was it all like this? Did every one look with envy at the one above? Funny. And funny, too, that the thought of someone else being worse off than you were yourself should make you feel more cheerful. "
6 " Since Wilfrid had introduced her to H.G. Wells, Jane's life had been different. Her horizons had widened and extended incredibly. H.G. Wells was like wind blowing through her mind. She felt strong and exhilarated after reading him. It didn't matter whether she agreed with him or not. She wasn't sure that he ever pointed out any road that she could follow. It didn't matter. He made her want to get up and fight and go on. "
7 " Youth and enthusiasm can be fatiguing to those who have lost both. "