That there are shops abroad, even in Athens, never occurred to them, for they regarded travel as a species of warfare, only to be undertaken by those who have been fully armed at the Haymarket Stores.
As he alighted his name had been called out of dreams. The violence went out of his heart, and a purity that he had never imagined dwelt there instead. His friend had called him. He stood for a moment entranced, then the new emotion found him words, and laying his hand very gently upon the pillows he answered ‘Clive!
When they parted it was in the ordinary way: neither had an impulse to say anything special. The whole day had been ordinary. Yet it had never come before either of them, nor was it to be repeated.
Had he lived some centuries ago, in the brightly coloured civilisations of the past, he would have had a definite status, his rank and his income would have corresponded. But in his day the angel of Democracy had arisen, enshadowing the classes with leathern wings, and proclaiming, “All men are equal – all men, that is to say, who possess umbrellas,” and so he was obliged to assert gentility, lest he slip into the abyss where nothing counts, and the statements of Democracy are inaudible.
I’ve avoided,” said Miss Quested. “Excepting my own servant, I’ve scarcely spoken to an Indian since landing.” “Oh, lucky you.” “But I want to see them.” She became the centre of an amused group of ladies. One said, “Wanting to see Indians! How new that sounds!” Another, “Natives! why, fancy!” A third, more serious, said, “Let me explain. Natives don’t respect one any the more after meeting one, you see.
She “never exactly understood,” she would say in after years, “how he managed to strengthen her. It was as if he had made her see the whole of everything at once.
Why will men have theories about women? I haven’t any about men.
It was nothing to him that Nature had caught up this dropped stitch in order to continue her pattern. While he had love he had kept reason.
That Mrs. Munt should be the first to discover the misfortune was not remarkable, for she was so interested in the flats, that she watched their every mutation with unwearying care. In theory she despised them – they took away that old-world look – they cut off the sun – flats house a flashy type of person.
The wonderful things are over.
Life,’ wrote a friend of mine, ’is a public performance on the violin, in which you must learn the instrument as you go along.
They were his last words, because Maurice had disappeared thereabouts, leaving no trace of his presence except a little pile of the petals of the evening primrose, which mourned from the ground like an expiring fire.
Then she switched off her correspondents, for it was time to deliver her lecture on Australian music. The clumsy system of public gatherings had been long since abandoned; neither.
Few travelled in these days, for, thanks to the advance of science, the earth was exactly alike all over.
But whether the native swaggers or cringes, there’s always something behind every remark he makes, always something, and if nothing else he’s trying to increase his izzat – in plain Anglo-Saxon, to score. Of course there are exceptions.” “You never used to judge people like this at home.” “India isn’t home,” he retorted, rather rudely, but in order to silence her he had been using phrases and arguments that he had picked up from older officials, and he did not feel quite sure of himself.
I can give points to a picture, I dare say,’ said Maurice, having glanced at the Michelangelo. ‘Clive, you’re a silly little fool, and since you’ve brought it up I think you’re beautiful, the only beautiful person I’ve ever seen. I love your voice and everything to do with you, down to your clothes or the room you are sitting in. I adore you.
Let Squalor be turned into Tragedy, whose eyes are the stars, and whose hands hold the sunset and the dawn.
There was indeed something rather incongruous in Lucy’s moral outburst over Mr. Eager. It was as if one should see the Leonardo on the ceiling of the Sistine. He longed to hint to her that not here lay her vocation; that a woman’s power and charm reside in mystery, not in muscular rant. But possibly rant is a sign of vitality: it mars the beautiful creature, but shows that she is alive.
They slept separate at first, as if proximity harassed them, but towards morning a movement began, and they woke deep in each other’s arms.
Maurice did not understand, but the voice soothed him.