Puck - His Vicissitudes, Adventures, Observations, Conclusions, Friendships, And Philosophies Quotes

“No doubt the shortness of your memories is a very convenient thing for you; for without it I really don't know how you could have the conscience to repudiate your debts, swear in your witness boxes, take your marriage vows, traverse your divorce petitions, or do half the things that you do do. But, owing to the perfection of our remembrance, I can recall every trifle of the life that I then enjoyed with him.”
― Ouida, Puck

“There's a deal of goodness that the world never sees," said Tussler in conclusion, "as there's a deal of viciousness it never guesses.”
― Ouida, Puck

“Experience is an excellent spyglass; but it has this drawback, that Prejudice very often clouds the lens.”
― Ouida, Puck

“Beautiful she was by the morning light; with her fair, rich color, and her gleaming eyes, and her crown of halfbright, half-dusky hair, like the bronze in which there much mixture of gold. But I thought I never saw anything of so much greed, or so intensely selfish. There was a vivid animal pleasure in the sight of what were dainties to her senses ; but there was no sort of gratitude or feeling at the generous and thoughtful affection which had been thus tender of her in her absence. She ate all there was on the table; seeming to like to draw the pleasure out to its longest span; when ended, she washed the things and set them away, and did a little house-work, all in a very idle, slovenly manner—like one whose heart was not at all in her occupation.”
― Ouida, Puck

“And I knew that she said truly; for indeed to live only to know the pains, the needs, the agonies, and the travails that lie in living, is a hard fate, though it be the fate of millions.”
― Ouida, Puck

“An hour drifted by. The church clock on the cliffs had struck four times; a deep-toned, weary bell, that tolled for every quarter, and must often have been heard, at dead of night, by dying men, drowning unshriven and unhouseled.”
― Ouida, Puck

“There was no sort of change from dawn to sunset. My heart was heavy for all those whom I had lost. It seemed to me that life was but a sequence of tender ties, formed only to be ruptured, and leave the torn heart aching. I missed, moreover, the glad, sweet, summer season in the open air; the freedom of the old fruit gardens and flower-covered ways; the homely, happy sounds of all the stirring bees and chirming birds, of the ducks in the dark cool pond, and the lowing cattle in the poplarbelted meadows.”
― Ouida, Puck

“Men object to the surveillance of a wife, and most justly; but they seem to forget that it is nothing compared to the unscrupulous espionage of a courtesan.”
― Ouida, Puck

“Pearl's temper absolutely unbearable, and caused her to break her ivory hair-brush upon her maid's shoulders.”
― Ouida, Puck

“What? A character almost as awful as Phaedre, and quite as desolate as Antigone, represented by a graceful coquette in point lace and pearls, who will take poison as sweetly as if it were a cup of coffee, and will die with elaborate care not to tumble her train? Preposterous!”
― Ouida, Puck

“Than to suppose that they like what is human and real, he means," said Beltran. "They don't care the least about that; they like a little broad farce, a little rough murder, and a little rosewater sentiment: anything more bothers them. They can't understand it.”
― Ouida, Puck

“I often wondered, by the way, why men, who had their own admirable cooks, and their own elegant abodes, and their own choice, selected wines, were so addicted to coming out to dinner at the Star and Garter, or Ship, or any suburban place, that it was fashionable to dine at in this manner. I often wondered what peculiar attraction existed for them in spending about five times as much on their dinner as it would have cost at home, only for the sake of getting in return a questionable cuisine, lumpy sauces, cold soups, and fifth-rate champagnes at exorbitant prjces.”
― Ouida, Puck

“everybody has' disappeared' who isn't starring and staring before the world's footlights. We are uncommonly fond of our celebrities,—oh, yes,—we buy their photographs and steal their characters with the greatest ardor imaginable. We are always flinging flowers before them, and throwing stones after them, with the most affectionate energy possible. But it's only while they're in the range of our eyesight. If they retire, or pause, or only get sick for a little, we've done with them. Your statesman may have overworked his brain in your service; your painter may have paralysis; your author may have gone to his ' otium cum dignitate,' and your actress may have married or be a dying;—it's all the same; they have disappeared; and the world thinks no more about them.”
― Ouida, Puck

“After a little time they all began to smoke, the Pearl included, though she threw away much more of her cigar than she consumed”
― Ouida, Puck

“I remembered Ben's words when I also entered that abomination of desolation—the eastern half of the city of labor. In the little cottage in the pine wood, even in the dreariness of winter and under the drag of poverty, there had been beauty—beauty in the white, smooth, glittering enow;”
― Ouida, Puck

“My little brain was teeming with a myriad of visions—dogs have very vivid fancies, as you may tell by the excitement of our dreams.”
― Ouida, Puck

“Whatever good I have kept in me—and in the world it is very hard to keep any—I owe it to Ben on those still Sunday mornings in those deep, old, quiet, green woods.”
― Ouida, Puck

“Trust was right, as, looking back on that time, I know now, in thinking that Ben had some touch in him of the poet. Not of the poet's utterance, surely; I do not think he could have strung a line of words together to save his existence; but of the poet's temperament, of the poet's feeling.”
― Ouida, Puck

“This was thoroughly irrational in me, of course. The happiness of our very early years is quite unconscious, and derives its peace from that very unconsciousness. If a child, or a puppy, knew he were happy, he would be analytical; and with the first moment of self-analysis the first shadow of discomfort would fall.”
― Ouida, Puck

“Then he went straightway to the presence-chamber; and he spoke in the speech of men; and he told his lord of that frail wife's dishonor, and said, 'Arise I cast her off, and be strong as thou ever hast been.' But the king, mad with rage, would not hearken; he leaped down from his ivory throne, and drew bis dagger out from his girdle, and thrust it into the heart of Ilderiui. 'So serve I the foes of my angel!' he cried; and Ilderim fell at his feet. 'I forgive,' he said simply,—and died.”
― Ouida, Puck

“Even the sheep think, I do believe, though they look so stupid. Everything in creation thinks, that's my idea. Look at a little beetle, how clever it is, how cunning in defense, how patient in labor, how full of disquiet;—but you cannot understand, you are only a nursling.”
― Ouida, Puck

“Genius is oftentimes but a poor fool, who clinging to a thing that belongs to no age, Truth, does oftentimes live on a pittance and die in a hospital: but whosoever has the gift to measure aright their generation is invincible —living, they shall enjoy all the vices undetected; and dead, on their tombstones they shall possess all the virtues.”
― Ouida, Puck

“We are ever mindful of succor bestowed, of hospitality received; where we have eaten bread there do we ever go with remembrance and thanksgiving; wo have not learned your art of oblivion, your science of neglect; we cannot turn upon the hand that once tendered us food; we cannot make a mockery of the kindliness that onco befriended us; we cannot emulate you there—we are but dogs.”
― Ouida, Puck

“the world says, with a polite sneer, of the lives in which it beholds no blazoned achievement, no public success. And yet,—if it were keener of sight, it might see that those lives, not seldom, may seem to have missed of their mark, because their aim was high over the heads of the multitude; or because the arrow was sped by too eager a hand in too rash a youth, and the bow lies unstrung in that hand when matured. It might sec that those lives which look so lost, so purposeless, so barren of attainment, so devoid of object or fruition, have sometimes nobler deeds in them and purer sacrifice than lies in the home-range of its own narrowed vision.”
― Ouida, Puck

“Beltran does not heed that I am near. But I can watch him, follow him, guard him in his sleep—it is enough. I ask no more. I am only a dog—I dare to love, I dare not even seek to be loved in answer.”
― Ouida, Puck

“Do you imagine that a corrupt age cannot revere, that an artificial age cannot be stirred by truth, that an abject age cannot rise to comprehension under the compelling force of genius ?—you are wrong to doubt. Was it not the vilest of the Pagan ages that gave credence, and foothold, and tenure, to the faiths and the philosophies of Paul 1”
― Ouida, Puck

“make the House of Commons a cage for 500 parrots and apes, and complain of the decadence of oratory and of statecraft 1 And, indeed," he added with a grim chuckle, "the parrots and apes would more nearly resemble the politicians they would displace, than do the players of our day resemble the art which they affect to represent.”
― Ouida, Puck

“When we read Othello, we only behold the tempest of the passions and the wreck of a great soul; but when we see Othello, we are affronted by the color of the Moor's skin, and we are brought face to face with the vulgarities of the bolster!”
― Ouida, Puck

“Well, besides—I was wondering whether Caesar was true to his Order when he said it was not enough for his wife to be pure, since she was not also above public suspicion; or whether he was but a cowardly cur, who cloaked social timidity in a grand period, and shrank before the mud pellets of social opinion. Which was it—eh?”
― Ouida, Puck

“I never met them. I have heard a very great many men and women call the crows carrion birds, and the jackals carrion beasts, with an infinite deal of disgust and much fine horror at what they were pleased to term 'feasting on corpses;' but I never yet heard any one of them admit their own appetite for the rotten 'corpse' of a pheasant, or the putrid haunch of a deer, to be anything except the choice taste of an epicure!" "But they do cook the corpses!" I remonstrated; whereupon she grinned with more meaning than ever.”
― Ouida, Puck