The Wooden Shepherdess Quotes

“So the summer wore on, with sloping planks arranged wherever the house or garden had shallow steps: for by now she had fully recovered the use of her arms and could trundle her chair herself (so Nursemaid Gilbert was more-or-less out of a job). She refused to be helped: she had reached a prickly stage which resented special attentions suspecting pity—and pity was unforgivable. Mary indeed seemed bent by now on impressing the world with how little she differed from you and me, except that she went on wheels where we go on feet. Poor Gilbert durstn’t even so much as pick up some book she had dropped, for Mary had special tongs (whose magnetic tips could even pick up a needle).”
― Richard Hughes, The Wooden Shepherdess

“only denied him the choice of his will’s direction: I never denied him its strength. It’s the strength of will they so signally lack themselves which makes the herd so dependent on him. Themselves they pursue their ends so feebly; but he lets no obstacle stand in the way of their faintest unspoken and even unrealized wishes....”
― Richard Hughes, The Wooden Shepherdess