The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl Quotes

“Friendship and chocolate cake—they do not heal all ills, but they certainly help.”
― Theodora Goss, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

“BEATRICE: Do you truly not know who he was? Mr. Dorian Gray, the lover of Mr. Oscar Wilde, who was sent to Reading Gaol for—well, for holding opinions that society does not approve of! For believing in beauty, and art, and love. What guilt and remorse he must feel, for causing the downfall of the greatest playwright of the age! It was Mr. Gray’s dissolute parties, the antics of his hedonistic friends, that exposed Mr. Wilde to scandal and opprobrium. No wonder he has fallen prey to the narcotic.

MARY: Or he could just like opium. He didn’t seem particularly remorseful, Bea.

JUSTINE: Mr. Gray is not what society deems him to be. He has been greatly misunderstood. He assures me that he had no intention of harming Mr. Wilde.

MARY: He would say that.

CATHERINE: Can we not discuss the Wilde scandal in the middle of my book? You’re going to get it banned in Boston, and such other puritanical places.”
― Theodora Goss, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

“We don’t get into mischief,” said Mary indignantly. “It sort of happens to us, or around us, or in our general vicinity.”
― Theodora Goss, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

“BEATRICE: They are the clothing of the New Woman. They are meant not to be feminine, but practical.

CATHERINE: On women they look like men’s clothing, on men they look like women’s clothing. That’s where the New Woman meets the Dandy.

BEATRICE: Why is it necessary to categorize people in that fashion? Why can we not all wear whatever we wish, whatever is useful and aesthetically pleasing? I believe that someday we shall all wear garments that are light and of a pleasing texture, easy to put on and take off. At the same time, they will express the aspirations of the spirit. They will be like the garments of the Greeks, both graceful and functional. Why can we not dress in such a fashion now?

MRS. POOLE: Because this is England, and you would all catch your deaths of cold.”
― Theodora Goss, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

“MARY: Are our readers going to know what the Athena Club is?

CATHERINE: They will if they read the first two books! Which they should, and I hope if they are reading this volume and have not read the previous ones, they will go right out and purchase them. Two shillings each, a bargain at the price!”
― Theodora Goss, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

“She had wandered the streets of Vienna and Budapest. No wonder she felt different. Perhaps travel did that to you. Mary had come home, but she was not the same Mary who had left—not quite.”
― Theodora Goss, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

“However you feel about maids' uniforms, we don't have time to overthrow the social order today.”
― Theodora Goss, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

“Rosy-fingered dawn indeed! This dawn was wearing gray gloves.”
― Theodora Goss, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

“MARY: My wrath! When do I ever get wrathful?

CATHERINE: It’s your particular kind of wrath. You don’t shout—you just get precise and icy.

MARY: That’s not wrath. I don’t think that counts as wrath.

DIANA: It’s Mary wrath. Your particular kind, as Cat said. Not that I’m scared of it, mind you. But it’s worse than being shouted at.

MARY: I have no idea what either of you are talking about. Alice, am I ever wrathful?

ALICE: Well, yes, actually. If you don’t mind my saying so, miss. When you learned what the Order of the Golden Dawn had done to me and Mr. Holmes—

CATHERINE: Oh no, you don’t! We have chapters to go before you can talk about that. Really, not one of you has any idea of narrative timing.”
― Theodora Goss, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

“As far as Catherine was concerned, autumn in England proved that if God did exist, He was an actively malevolent deity.”
― Theodora Goss, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

“You are all vinegar, my dear Helen. I believe in the judicious application of honey.”
― Theodora Goss, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

“She would sip an elderflower tisane and he would drink a dark, aromatic espresso.”
― Theodora Goss, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

“This was what families should be—their members might not always agree, but they always loved one another.”
― Theodora Goss, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

“but her plants provided her with an uncomplicated joy, whereas her happiness at being with Clarence was always complicated by the care she had to take not to hurt him.”
― Theodora Goss, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

“Diana had her knife. She was looking forward to using it. No one stole her sister! Mary was annoying, Mary was a bore, but Mary was her annoying bore.”
― Theodora Goss, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

“I am a good Catholic,” said Beatrice. “But somehow, I have always though that my soul would return to the Earth and come up as some sort of plant—a flower, a tree. Perhaps I do not have a soul as others do. I would like to sink down into the dark soil and come up again each spring. That would be Heaven enough for me.”
― Theodora Goss, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

“As she stepped on the wet, moonlit stones, she offered up a small prayer: Dear Lord, let me not drown tonight. If I have to die, let it be tomorrow, on dry land. Amen.”
― Theodora Goss, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

“have a willow bark powder,” said Beatrice. “You can take it with water, and it should help in about half an hour. But really I think you need some breakfast. That will help you more than one of my medications. You are worried, and therefore you are clenching your jaw. That is giving you a headache. You need to chew on something, such as a piece of toast.”
― Theodora Goss, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

“He was, among other things, a hypocrite—a nationalist and racial supremacist making money off people he regarded as vermin.”
― Theodora Goss, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

“Place obols on my tongue and over my eyes so I can pay Charon. Put a biscuit in my hand so I can placate Cerberus. In my other hand put a sprig of olive flowers so I can present them to Queen Persephone. And let me go.”
― Theodora Goss, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

“BEATRICE: Why is it necessary to categorize people in that fashion? Why can we not all wear whatever we wish, whatever is useful and aesthetically pleasing? I believe that someday we shall all wear garments that are light and of a pleasing texture, easy to put on and take off. At the same time, they will express the aspirations of the spirit.”
― Theodora Goss, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

“For the first time in a month, she was attired in women’s clothes. They felt strange—not uncomfortable, but as though she could no longer move freely and easily about in the world. She was aware of restrictions, limitations”
― Theodora Goss, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

“She felt, once again, a deep sense of guilt that he was sitting here with her, when he could be with any number of women who were not poisonous and with whom he could have an ordinary relationship. She had told him that once—he had replied, touching her cheek for just a moment, not long enough for his fingertips to blister, “I don’t want ordinary, Bea. I want you.”
― Theodora Goss, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

“Priestess of the Goddess with a Thousand Names, Bringer of Light and Abundance, Who Produces the Fruit of the Land,”
― Theodora Goss, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

“If she was not accepted into the temple, her father would arrange a marriage for her. Did she want to be married? Judging by her brothers, from her mother and her father’s other wives, boys were in general a great bore. They were always boasting, or going out to hunt, or getting drunk on honey wine. So perhaps it would be best after all to serve the Goddess here at Philae?”
― Theodora Goss, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

“Mary.' The voice was familiar, but oh, so tired. Startled, she looked up. Sherlock Holmes was awake! He was looking at her with kind, grey eyes.

'I shot you. I almost killed you!' She wanted to make sure he knew that, her culpability.

'I know. I remember.'

'I don't expect you to forgive me. You could have died.'

He reached up and touched her cheek. 'Mary.'

'If you wish me to hand in my letter of resignation, I will, of course, do so. I can't imagine that you would want to work with me after—'

'Mary, come here.' He pulled her down toward him.

And suddenly, it seemed so natural, so inevitable, that she should lean down and kiss him with all the longing of the last few days, the last few months.”
― Theodora Goss, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

“Mary, it is sometimes permissible to lie to others, but it is never wise to lie to oneself.”
― Theodora Goss, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

“There is modesty, and there is propriety. The former is a natural instinct, given to us when Adam and Eve left the garden and realized their nakedness. The latter is merely a social construct. Although as human beings we wish to consort with our fellows, and therefore yield to their judgments in matters of dress and behavior, surely we may break the rules of propriety when they interfere with the important matters of our lives, so long as modesty is not thereby wounded.”
― Theodora Goss, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl