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Curious words for one Hercule Poirot, detective, to overhear on his first night in Jerusalem. ‘Decidedly, wherever I go, there is something to remind me of crime!’ he murmured to himself.
‘My dear young lady, are any of us quite normal?
Small black smouldering eyes they were, but something came from them, a power, a definite force, a wave of evil malignancy. Dr Gerard knew something about the power of personality. He realized that this was no spoilt tyrannical invalid indulging petty whims. This old woman was a definite force. In the malignancy of her glare he felt a resemblance to the effect produced by a cobra.
And he understood now what that undercurrent to the harmless family talk had been. It was hatred—a dark eddying stream of hatred.
palpably
Clearly
As Dr Gerard knew by experience, Americans are disposed to be a friendly race.
Glad to hear something nice about us!!
The illusion that freedom is the prerogative of one’s own particular race is fairly widespread. Dr Gerard was wiser. He knew that no race, no country and no individual could be described as free. But he also knew that there were different degrees of bondage.
She does not love tyranny because she has been a wardress. Let us rather say that she became a wardress because she loved tyranny.
‘I am almost sure of it. I think she rejoices in the infliction of pain—mental pain, mind you, not physical. That is very much rarer and very much more difficult to deal with. She likes to have control of other human beings and she likes to make them suffer.’
‘I believe at least in one of the chief tenets of the Christian faith—contentment with a lowly place. I am a doctor and I know that ambition—the desire to succeed—to have power—leads to most ills of the human soul.
Young people have the courage of their ideals and convictions—their values are more theoretical than practical. They have not experienced, as yet, that fact contradicts theory! If you have a belief in yourself and in the rightness of what you are doing, you can often accomplish things that are well worth while! (Incidentally, you often do a good deal of harm!) On
the other hand, the middle-aged person has experience—he has found that harm as well as, and perhaps more often than, good comes of trying to interfere and so—very wisely, he refrains! So the result is even—the earnest young do both harm and good—the prudent middle-aged do neither!’
For fear of doing harm, we often do nothing.
On the whole, you know, people tell you the truth. Because it is easier! Because it is less strain on the inventive faculties! You can tell one lie—or two lies—or three lies—or even four
lies—but you cannot lie all the time. And so—the truth becomes plain.’
mountebank!’
noun 1. a person who deceives others, especially in order to trick them out of their money; a charlatan. 2. ‹historical› a person who sold patent medicines in public places. II. derivatives mountebankery /-ˌbaNGkərē / noun– origin late 16th cent.: from Italian montambanco, from the imperative phrase monta in banco! ‘climb on the bench!’ (with allusion to the raised platform used to attract an audience).
‘Yes, there is a doubt! There is the doubt that any man, who is honest, would be likely to feel.’
To take human nature at its best, and the world as a pleasant place is undoubtedly the easiest course in life!
