Sad Cypress (Hercule Poirot, #22)

by Agatha Christie

As a result of her education, you’d never take her for old Gerrard’s daughter.” “Gone all ladylike, has she?” “Yes. I think, as a result of that, she doesn’t get on very well at the lodge. Mrs. Gerrard died some years ago, you know, and Mary and her father don’t get on. He jeers at her schooling and her ‘fine ways.’” Roddy said irritably: “People never dream what harm they may do by ‘educating’ someone! Often it’s cruelty, not kindness!”

Or maybe the problem is people being classist

When Nurse Hopkins, pleasantly stimulated by tea and romantic speculation, finally left the house,

“Oh, no, Mrs. Welman, Dr. Lord says you may live for years.” “I’m not at all anxious to, thank you! I told him the other day that in a decently civilized state, all there would be to do would be for me to intimate to him that I wished to end it, and he’d finish me off painlessly with some nice drug. ‘And if you’d any courage, Doctor,’ I said, ‘you’d do it, anyway!’”

To care passionately for another human creature brings always more sorrow than joy; but all the same, Elinor, one would not be without that experience. Anyone who has never really loved has never really lived….”

“The point is that one’s got an instinct to live. One doesn’t live because one’s reason assents to living. People who, as we say, ‘would be better dead,’ don’t want to die! People who apparently have got everything to live for just let themselves fade out of life because they haven’t got the energy to fight.”

“No, I like my job. I like people, you know, and I like ordinary everyday diseases. I don’t really want to pin down the rare bacillus of an obscure disease. I like measles and chicken pox and all the rest of it. I like seeing how different bodies react to them. I like seeing if I can’t improve on recognized treatment. The trouble with me is I’ve got absolutely no ambition. I shall stay here till I grow side-whiskers and people begin saying, ‘Of course, we’ve always had Dr. Lord, and he’s a nice old man: but he is very old-fashioned in his methods and perhaps we’d better call in young so-and-so, who’s so very up to date….’”

But of course, he’s very nice.” “H’m,” said Nurse Hopkins. “He wouldn’t be my fancy! One of those men who are finicky and a bundle of nerves. Fussy about their food, too, as likely as not. Men aren’t much at the best of times. Don’t be in too much of a hurry, Mary, my dear.

Rather a funny crowd of people, but I don’t mix much. You told me once that I wasn’t a good mixer. I’m afraid it’s true. I find most of the human race extraordinarily repulsive. They probably reciprocate this feeling.

“I want some paste for sandwiches, please.” “Certainly, Miss Carlisle.” Mr. Abbott himself bustled forward, elbowing aside his junior apprentice. “What would you like? Salmon and shrimp? Turkey and tongue? Salmon and sardine? Ham and tongue?”

Barf.

“In spite of their names, I always think they taste much alike.” Mr. Abbott agreed instantly. “Well, perhaps they do, in a way. Yes, in a way. But, of course, they’re very tasty—very tasty.” Elinor said: “One used to be rather afraid of eating fish pastes. There have been cases of ptomaine poisoning from them, haven’t there?”

“Ah, but life is like that! It does not permit you to arrange and order it as you will. It will not permit you to escape emotion, to live by the intellect and by reason! You cannot say, ‘I will feel so much and no more.’ Life, Mr. Welman, whatever else it is, is not reasonable!”

in the Blue Tit Café, we were at the time.

👀

“It does not matter.” She was puzzled. “Not matter?” “No. For lies, Mademoiselle, tell a listener just as much as truth can. Sometimes they tell more.

It is not for me to run here and there, doing amateurishly the things that for a small sum someone else can do with professional skill.

“There were twenty tablets, each containing half grain morphine hydrochloride.”

I’m so confused by what “grain” means here.

“Can you not accept facts? She loved Roderick Welman. What of it? With you, she can be happy….”