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The Nine Tailors (Lord Peter Wimsey, #9) QUOTES

The Nine Tailors (Lord Peter Wimsey, #9) QUOTES

1 " What can't be cured must be endured. "

― Dorothy L. Sayers , The Nine Tailors (Lord Peter Wimsey, #9)

2 " Man proposes and God disposes. "

― Dorothy L. Sayers , The Nine Tailors (Lord Peter Wimsey, #9)

3 " The bells gave tongue: Gaude, Sabaoth, John, Jericho, Jubilee, Dimity, Batty Thomas and Tailor Paul, rioting and exulting high up in the dark tower, wide mouths rising and falling, brazen tongues clamouring, huge wheels turning to the dance of the leaping ropes. Tin tan din dan bim bam bom bo--tan tin din dan bam bim bo bom--tan dan tin bam din bo bim bom--every bell in her place striking tuneably, hunting up, hunting down, dodging, snapping, laying her blows behind, making her thirds and fourths, working down to lead the dance again. Out over the flat, white wastes of fen, over the spear-straight, steel-dark dykes and the wind-bent, groaning poplar trees, bursting from the snow-choked louvres of the belfry, whirled away southward and westward in gusty blasts of clamour to the sleeping counties went the music of the bells--little Gaude, silver Sabaoth, strong John and Jericho, glad Jubilee, sweet Dimity and old Batty Thomas, with great Tailor Paul bawling and striding like a giant in the midst of them. Up and down went the shadows of the ringers upon the walls, up and down went the scarlet sallies flickering roofwards and floorwards, and up and down, hunting in their courses, went the bells of Fenchurch St. Paul. "

― Dorothy L. Sayers , The Nine Tailors (Lord Peter Wimsey, #9)

4 " The banks of the Thirty-Foot held, but the swollen Wale, receiving the full force of the Upper Waters and the spring tide, gave at every point. Before the cars reached St. Paul, the flood was rising and pursuing them. Wimsey's car--the last to start--was submerged to the axles. They fled through the dusk, and behind and on their left, the great silver sheet of water spread and spread. "

― Dorothy L. Sayers , The Nine Tailors (Lord Peter Wimsey, #9)

5 " The art of change-ringing is peculiar to the English, and, like most English peculiarities, unintelligible to the rest of the world. (The change-ringer's) passion - and it is a passion - finds its satisfaction in mathematical completeness and mechanical perfection, and as his bell weaves her way rhythmically up from lead to hinder place and down again, he is filled with the solemn intoxication that comes of intricate ritual faultlessly performed. "

― Dorothy L. Sayers , The Nine Tailors (Lord Peter Wimsey, #9)

6 " I took the liberty of ascertaining as much beforehand, my lord."
"Of course you did, Bunter. You always ascertain everything. "

― Dorothy L. Sayers , The Nine Tailors (Lord Peter Wimsey, #9)

7 " Bunter: "I assure your lordship that for the firsttime in my existence I regret that I have made no practical study of campanology."
Wimsey: "I am always so delighted to find that there are things you cannot do. "

― Dorothy L. Sayers , The Nine Tailors (Lord Peter Wimsey, #9)

8 " The art of change ringing is peculiar to the English, and, like most English peculiarities, unintelligible to the rest of the world. To the musical Belgian, for example, it appears that the proper thing to do with a carefully tuned ring of bells is to play a tune upon it. By the English campanologist, the playing of tunes is considered to be a childish game, only fit for foreigners; the proper use of bells is to work out mathematical permutations and combinations. "

― Dorothy L. Sayers , The Nine Tailors (Lord Peter Wimsey, #9)

9 " Thank God!’ said Wimsey. ‘Where there is a church, there is civilisation. "

― Dorothy L. Sayers , The Nine Tailors (Lord Peter Wimsey, #9)

10 " he is filled with the solemn intoxication that comes of intricate ritual faultlessly performed. "

― Dorothy L. Sayers , The Nine Tailors (Lord Peter Wimsey, #9)

11 " Five minutes' practice before the glass every day, and you will soon acquire that vacant look so desirable for all rogues, detectives and Government officials. "

― Dorothy L. Sayers , The Nine Tailors (Lord Peter Wimsey, #9)

12 " Bells are like cats and mirrors—they’re always queer, and it doesn’t do to think too much about them. "

― Dorothy L. Sayers , The Nine Tailors (Lord Peter Wimsey, #9)

13 " Yes—but your luck will come more at the end of life than at the beginning, because the other sort of people won’t understand the way your mind works. They will start by thinking you dreamy and romantic, and then they’ll be surprised to discover that you are really hard and heartless, they’ll be quite wrong both times—but they won’t ever know it, and you won’t know it at first, and it’ll worry you. "

― Dorothy L. Sayers , The Nine Tailors (Lord Peter Wimsey, #9)

14 " – what does old Donne say? “God knows in what part of the world every grain of every man’s dust lies "

― Dorothy L. Sayers , The Nine Tailors (Lord Peter Wimsey, #9)

15 " Well, well. What can’t be cured must be endured. This is our last hope gone. We shall be reduced to ringing minors. "

― Dorothy L. Sayers , The Nine Tailors (Lord Peter Wimsey, #9)

16 " you were speaking just now with a good deal of feeling about Treble Bob—you are not, yourself, by any chance, a ringer?” “Well,” said Wimsey, “I used at one time to pull quite a pretty rope. But whether, at this time of day—— "

― Dorothy L. Sayers , The Nine Tailors (Lord Peter Wimsey, #9)

17 " It will come back to you,” cried the Rector, feverishly. “It will come back. Half an hour with the handbells—— "

― Dorothy L. Sayers , The Nine Tailors (Lord Peter Wimsey, #9)

18 " Not in the least, Mrs. Venables. Nothing would please me more than to ring bells all day and all night. I am not tired at all. I really don’t need rest. I would far rather ring bells. The only thing that worries me is whether I shall be able to get through the peal without making stupid mistakes. "

― Dorothy L. Sayers , The Nine Tailors (Lord Peter Wimsey, #9)

19 " I assure your lordship that for the first time in my existence I regret that I have made no practical study of campanology.” “I am always so delighted to find that there are things you cannot do. Did you ever try? "

― Dorothy L. Sayers , The Nine Tailors (Lord Peter Wimsey, #9)

20 " Bells, it may be noted, like ships and kittens, have a way of being female, whatever names they are given. "

― Dorothy L. Sayers , The Nine Tailors (Lord Peter Wimsey, #9)