He mourned his wife more sincerely because he mourned her seldom.
Like his sister and like most young people, he was naturally attracted by the idea of equality, and the undeniable fact that there are different kinds of Emersons annoyed him beyond measure.
He could control the body; it was the tainted soul that mocked his prayers.
Look at this evening. Cousin Kate! Imagine, Cousin Kate! But where have you been off to? Did you succeed in catching the moon in the Ganges?
He did not want Romance to collide with the Porphyrion, still less with Jacky, and people with fuller, happier lives are slow to understand this. To the Schlegels, as to the undergraduate, he was an interesting creature, of whom they wanted to see more. But they to him were denizens of Romance, who must keep to the corner he had assigned them, pictures that must not walk out of their frames.
He was not as courteous as the average rich man, nor as intelligent, nor as healthy, nor as lovable. His mind and his body had been alike underfed, because he was poor, and because he was modern they were always craving better food.
A man does not talk to himself quite truly – not even to himself: the happiness or misery that he secretly feels proceeds from causes that he cannot quite explain, because as soon as he raises them to the level of the explicable they lose their native quality.
They trusted each other, although they were going to part, perhaps because they were going to part.
I don’t want your patronage. I don’t want your tea. I was quite happy. What do you want to unsettle me for?
Life is a mysterious business.
But Love cannot understand this. He cannot comprehend another’s infinity; he is conscious only of his own – flying sunbeam, falling rose, pebble that asks for one quiet plunge below the fretting interplay of space and time. He knows that he will survive at the end of things, and be gathered by Fate as a jewel from the slime, and be handed with admiration round the assembly of the gods.
Round every knob and cushion in the house sentiment gathered, a sentiment that was at times personal, but more often a faint piety to the dead, a prolongation of rites that might have ended at the grave.
Mr. Bebee had lost every one, and had consumed in solitude the tea-basket which he had brought up as a pleasant surprise.
Love was so unlike the article served up in books: the joy, though genuine, was different; the mystery an unexpected mystery.
If they were hypocrites they did not know it, and their hypocrisy had every chance of setting and of becoming true.
Yet he was doing a fine thing – proving on how little a soul can exist. Fed neither by Heaven nor by Earth he was going forward, a lamp that would have blown out, were materialism true. He hadn’t a God, he hadn’t a lover – the two usual incentives to virtue. But on he struggled with his back to ease, because dignity demanded it. There was no one to watch him, nor did he watch himself, but struggles like his are the supreme achievements of humanity, and suppress any legends about Heaven.
Mrs. Munt – such is human nature – determined that she would champion the lovers. She was not going to be bullied by a severe young man.
Every barbarian must give the Acropolis its chance once.
He felt that the English are a comic institution, and enjoyed being misunderstood by them.
England was alive, throbbing through all her estuaries, crying for joy through the mouths of all her gulls, and the north wind, with contrary.