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It is so difficult—at least, I find it difficult—to understand people who speak the truth.”
I do so always hope that people will be nice.” “I think he is; nice and tiresome.
you know how clergymen generally laugh; Mr. Beebe laughs just like an ordinary man.”
he is not tactful; yet, have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet at the same time—beautiful?”
And yet—there was a rebellious spirit in her which wondered whether the acceptance might not have been less delicate and more beautiful.
The men on the river were fishing. (Untrue; but then, so is most information.)
the ladies bought some hot chestnut paste out of a little shop, because it looked so typical. It tasted partly of the paper in which it was wrapped, partly of hair oil, partly of the great unknown.
Then the pernicious charm of Italy worked on her, and, instead of acquiring information, she began to be happy.
She was determined to be gracious to them, beautiful rather than delicate,
She took refuge in her dignity.
“I only know what it is that’s wrong with him; not why it is.” “And what is it?” asked Lucy fearfully, expecting some harrowing tale. “The old trouble; things won’t fit.”
by the side of the everlasting Why there is a Yes—a
“If Miss Honeychurch ever takes to live as she plays, it will be very exciting both for us and for her.”
“Miss Lavish is so original,” murmured Lucy. This was a stock remark, the supreme achievement of the Pension Bertolini in the way of definition. Miss Lavish was so original. Mr. Beebe had his doubts,
Miss Alan was always thus being charitable against her better judgment.
A delicate pathos perfumed her disconnected remarks, giving them unexpected beauty, just as in the decaying autumn woods there sometimes rise odours reminiscent of spring.
“Mr. Beebe—old Mr. Emerson, is he nice or not nice? I do so want to know.”
It was unladylike. Why? Why were most big things unladylike?
She was conscious of her discontent; it was new to her to be conscious of it. “The world,” she thought, “is certainly full of beautiful things, if only I could come across them.”
It was not surprising that Mrs. Honeychurch disapproved of music, declaring that it always left her daughter peevish, unpractical, and touchy.
It was not exactly that a man had died; something had happened to the living:
she was accustomed to have her thoughts confirmed by others or, at all events, contradicted; it was too dreadful not to know whether she was thinking right or wrong.
She had been a little frightened, both by Miss Lavish and by Mr. Eager, she knew not why. And as they frightened her, she had, strangely enough, ceased to respect them.
Happy Charlotte, who, though greatly troubled over things that did not matter, seemed oblivious to things that did; who could conjecture with admirable delicacy “where things might lead to,” but apparently lost sight of the goal as she approached it.
She recalled the free, pleasant life of her home, where she was allowed to do everything, and where nothing ever happened to her.
And though Miss Bartlett and Miss Lavish had planned all the morning how the people were to sit, at the critical moment when the carriages came round they lost their heads,
and I think—think—I think how little they think what lies so near them.”
Italian in the mouth of Italians is a deep-voiced stream, with unexpected cataracts and boulders to preserve it from monotony.
The party sprang about from tuft to tuft of grass, their anxiety to keep together being only equalled by their desire to go different directions.
she was only at ease amongst those to whom she felt indifferent.
Unselfishness with Miss Bartlett had entirely usurped the functions of enthusiasm.
For a moment they realized vast possibilities of good.
she had been near danger, and so she thought it must be near to every one.
“I want to be truthful,” she whispered. “It is so hard to be absolutely truthful.”
“At last,” thought she, “I shall understand myself. I shan’t again be troubled by things that come out of nothing, and mean I don’t know what.”
“I don’t understand,” she said at last. She understood very well, but she no longer wished to be absolutely truthful.
Charlotte, who was practical without ability,
Without was poured a sea of radiance; within, the glory, though visible, was tempered to the capacities of man.
Cecil must be at once described. He was medieval.
Well educated, well endowed, and not deficient physically, he remained in the grip of a certain devil whom the modern world knows as self-consciousness, and whom the medieval, with dimmer vision, worshipped as asceticism.
Cecil considered the bone and the Maples’ furniture separately; he did not realize that, taken together, they kindled the room into the life that he desired.
“The faults of Freddy—” Cecil continued. “Ah, he has too many. No one but his mother can remember the faults of Freddy.
Lucy was slow to follow what people said, but quick enough to detect what they meant.
Whatever is there to shout over? I forbid you and Cecil to hate any more clergymen.”
expensively simple,
Cecil had been hesitating whether he should despise the villas or despise Sir Harry for despising them.
“I can’t help it. It would be wrong not to loathe that man.”
I connect you with a view—a certain type of view. Why shouldn’t you connect me with a room?”
As he approached her he found time to wish that he could recoil.
Such was the embrace. He considered, with truth, that it had been a failure. Passion should believe itself irresistible. It should forget civility and consideration and all the other curses of a refined nature. Above all, it should never ask for leave where there is a right of way.
