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One of Murdoch’s abiding lessons was the difficulty and necessity of imagining other people, with centres of consciousness as real as our own, and different.
‘And what a splendid subject!’ said the man. ‘If you’re an engineer you’ve got an honest trade that you can take with you anywhere in the world. It’s the curse of modern life that people don’t have real trades any more. A man is his work. In the old days we were all butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers, weren’t we?’
He remembered being told that one never sufficiently realizes at the time the wonder of being young.
As Dora looked round the room it occurred to her how nice it was to live once more in a confined space which one was free to organize, with small resources, as one pleased.
‘You see, we don’t normally allow any sort of personal decoration in the rooms,’ said Mrs Mark. ‘We try to imitate the monastic life in certain ways as closely as we can. We believe it’s a sound discipline to give up that particular sort of self-expression. It’s a small sacrifice, after all, isn’t it?’
I did not see this coming.
‘Why can’t the animals all be good to each other and live at peace?’ said Dora, twirling the parasol. ‘Why can’t human beings?’ said Michael to Toby, who was walking beside him.
I remember Kant says how disappointed your guests are when they discover that the after-dinner nightingale is a small boy posted in the grove.’ ‘A case of the natural attractiveness of truth,’ said Michael.
The good man does what seems right, what the rule enjoins, without considering the consequences, without calculation or prevarication, knowing that God will make all for the best.
He does the best thing, breaking through the complexities of situations, and knows that God will make that best thing fruitful.
But the man without faith calculates. He finds the world too complicated for the best thing, and he does the second best thing, thinking that this in time will bring forth the best.
‘I cannot agree with Milton,’ James was saying, ‘when he refuses to praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue. Virtue, innocence, should be valued whatever its history. It has a radiance which enlightens and purifies and which is not to be dimmed by foolish talk about the worth of experience. How false it is to tell our young people to seek experience! They should rather be told to value and to retain their innocence: that is enough of a task, enough of an adventure! And if we can keep our innocence for long enough, the gift of knowledge will be added to it, a deeper and more precise knowledge
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Now there is an unusual take on the subject of innocence vs experience.
That laugh moved Toby strangely. Of course there was no reason why nuns shouldn’t laugh, though he never normally imagined them laughing. But such a laugh, he thought, must be a very very good thing: one of the best things in the world. To be good and gay was surely the highest of human destinies.
Toby felt himself caught in something messy and emotional and he hated it.
He is an aspiring engineer; so yes, emotions are icky.
A thrill of terror and excitement went through her, a premonition of the act before she consciously knew what the act would be.
filled him with fear and with a sense of guilt which was vague and menacing, full of as yet unspoken indictments.
No one had inspired her to place the least value on herself; she still felt herself to be a socially unacceptable waif, and what made her unpretentious also made her irresponsible and unreliable.
He felt, in the case of Dora too, that there was little point in forcing her willy-nilly into a machine of sin and repentance which was alien to her nature. Perhaps Dora would repent after her own fashion; perhaps she would be saved after her own fashion.
He watched Dora, turning towards life and happiness like a strong plant towards the sun, assimilating all that lay in her way.
