Sweetmeats and sugarplums

"The end of a novel, like the end of a children's dinner-party, must be made up of sweetmeats and sugar-plums." - Barchester Towers, Anthony Trollope

I love that Trollope tells us exactly what he knows we want to hear...but in a manner so obvious that we feel a little shamed and sheepish when we read it.

Happiness in love

There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel.- Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope

This sentence is a great encapsulation of what I love at Trollope.  Funny, ironic, everything good.

Delicious Insanity

From Kathryn Stockett's The Help:
"I always thought insanity would be a dark, bitter feeling, but it is drenching and delicious"

Return no evil for evil

From Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell's Wives and Daughters:

"...don't repeat evil on any authority unless you can do some good by speaking about it."

Lovely fools!

From Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell:

"But sometimes one likes foolish people for their folly, better than wise people for their wisdom."

And this quote by Mr. Gibson is so true in the case of poor Cynthia -- it is only her foolish love that makes her likable.  Her calculated relationships are what makes the detestable parts of her character.  But her love for Molly is very, very sweet.

Ah...Regret

From Cynthia Kirkpatrick in Elizabeth Gaskell's Wives and Daughters:

"How easy it is to judge rightly after one sees what evil comes from judging wrongly..."

Cynthia's life is not one of forethought, but rather one of regret.

Clergymen

Assume what you will, but I love funny lines poking fun at the clergy.  This is a classic:

"He seems to see good in everyone. No one would take him for a clergyman." - Lucy Honeychurch, Room With a View by EM Forster

Wonder of the World

I have only read around 100 pages of Andrea Levy's Small Island, but already her characters' voices are tumbling around my imagination. While Hortense is unintentionally funny, Gilbert goes for the laughs.

Regarding the shock of bland English food to his Jamaican palate:

"How the English built empires when their armies marched on nothing but mush should be one of the wonders of the world."

Austen at her saucy best

I just finished reading Jane Austen's Lady Susan for the first time.  I've read all the major ones (Emma, S&S, P&P, Mansfield, etc.) many times but had never read this one.  LS seems to me a complete departure.  This heroine is completely unlikable for anything except her infamous schemes and flirtations.  How unlike Lizzy, Emma and Elinor!  Lady Susan has many very funny lines but this one seems to best sum up her character and motivations:

"Where there is a disposition to dislike, a motive will never be wanting." - Lady Susan, letter 5, Lady Susan to Mrs. Johnson

She has determined to make Mr. DeCourcey like her simply because he seems determined no to do so.  And boy, does she!

An evening with my Forsytes

Flipping through one of my favorites tonight.  I love those Forsytes.  This is why:

"When a Forsyte was engaged, married, or born, the Forsytes were present; when a Forsyte died—but no Forsyte had as yet died; they did not die; death being contrary to their principles, they took precautions against it, the instinctive precautions of highly vitalized persons who resent encroachments on their property." - The Forsyte Saga: Man of Property by John Galsworthy


Life as a possession.  Very Forsyte.  Very Galsworthy.

Summertime (or Summer Time)

I cannot keep a schedule this summer. Every day there is either too much fun to be had to keep my time well planned or we're so exhausted from our fun that I just want to do nothing.

From Jane Austen's Mansfield Park:

"Oh! Do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch." 

Oh, Miss Crawford, a rare moment that I agree with you!

Forgiveness without Forgetfulness

From Volume 3, Chapter 15 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice:

Mr. Collins writes of Mr. and Mrs. Wickham: "You ought certainly to forgive them as a christian, but never to admit them in your sight, or allow their names to be mentioned in your hearing."

Mr. Collins, the esteemed rector of Hunsford, gives such an amazing illustration of his notion of Christian forgiveness.  Thou shalt forgive, but apparently, never forget.  This brought to my mind a great post on the Texas Faith blog: What is the sin in your faith?  Read all the responses: very powerful, challenging stuff.

Rapid Passion vs. Slowly Building Affection

To me, this is a common theme in so many Austen novels.  The happiest couples are the ones who do not rush into a passionate affair, but take their time in getting to know the character of their partners.  Think, in this instance, of Lydia and Wickham vs. Lizzy and Darcy.  Or Mr. and Mrs. Collins vs. Jane and Bingley.

And in the midst of the Wickham/Lydia elopement, Lizzy has this thought in chapter 50 of Pride and Prejudice:

"But how little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue, she could easily conjecture."

Lovely Chapter 14

Chapter 14 of Northanger Abbey holds two of my very favorite Jane Austen quotes.  So much brilliance in one little chapter!

Catherine takes a walk in the country with Mr. and Miss Tilney.  First they discuss novels.  Surely Mr. Tilney does not like novels as Catherine does.  He has more important things to read.  Mr. Tilney answers thus:

"The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid."

I pull this one out of my brain to use against people as often as possible.

Also, this one:

"A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can."

Folks unfamiliar with Austen assume that her writing is stiff, archaic, formal.  This last line proves what I love best about her.  When her tongue is planted in cheek, she is at her best. To me, she is as valuable for her wit as she is for her romance.

More wine!

From Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey: 

"There is not the hundredth part of the wine consumed in this kingdom that there ought to be." - John Thorpe

And there we have the one and only admirable thought spoken by John Thorpe in the entire novel.

the fate of Marianne

From Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility:

"Marianne Dashwood was born to an extraordinary fate.  She was born to discover the falsehood of her own opinions, and to counteract, by her own conduct, her most favourite maxims."


I have just finished re-reading Sense and Sensibility.  I haven't read it as many times as Pride and Prejudice, maybe only twice before.  But these sentences never shouted out to me before as they did during this recent reading.

These sentences appear in the closing paragraphs of the novel; but to me, they could easily stand on their own at the beginning of an entirely different story: one whose heroine is Marianne, not Elinor.  These words remind me so much of the opening of P&P.  You know the words by heart, I'm sure:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." 

Just as this opening of P&P tells the entire story in one sentence, so these lines from S&S give us Marianne's journey in a few simple words.  Magical!

Patience & Resolution

"This is the story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and what a Man's resolution can achieve."

I love that this is the way Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White begins.  The first narrator of this creepy, sensational story lets the reader know in the first sentence that when it's all over, everything will turn out okay.  But still the reader reads on, compelled to turn the page and shudder every time Count Fosco enters the scene.  Genius!

Courage in the Face of Intimidation

“My courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me.”

When Elizabeth Bennet utters this phrase in Pride and Prejudice, she fully illustrates for so many readers, her most admirable characteristic.  She is easy-going, even in the face of an intimidating social situation.  How many times I've wished I had a little Eliza in my veins!

Rocks and Mountains

In the same chapter as the previous post, Elizabeth Bennet further professes her opinion of men.  (At least her current opinion in this point in the novel.)  When her aunt invites her to tour the lake country with her, Elizabeth's effusive response includes this little Pride and Prejudice gem:

“What are men to rocks and mountains?”

Men worth knowing

I don't think this quote of Eliza Bennet's needs any explanation about how truly funny and how wittily true it is.

"Stupid men are the only ones worth knowing, after all." - Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

General Incivility

From Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice:

Elizabeth Bennet: "Is not general incivility the very essence of love?"

 Today demands a Pride and Prejudice quote.  Today, the greatest film adaptation of Jane Austen's classic novel is re-released on DVD in a restored condition.  Mine shipped last night.  I cannot wait to get it, play it on our big flatscreen and revel in its very Firth-ness!  (And the price is pretty incredible too!)

Sleepless in Manchester

From Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton:

"A sleepless bed is a haunted place."

I have often had this same thought but could never have expressed it as well and as simply as Gaskell has here.

So apt...

From Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton:

"...she could not abide fire-arms, they were so apt to shoot people."

This should really be the slogan of all of the gun-control advocates....

books and dancing

I love Elizabeth Bennet. I'm re-reading Pride and Prejudice, for the hundredth time, with a group of friends who have never read it. We're on Chapter 18 of the first volume and I'm already telling them this is my favorite chapter. Of course, I'll likely tell them another is my favorite and have probably already told them that a previous was a favorite too.

But when Lizzy and Darcy dance together for the first time at the Netherfield ball, their conversation is fire and ice, electricity, fireworks...amazing. I could copy the whole conversation here but instead I'll just pull one of my favorite Lizzy one-liners. This one proves that sometimes she allows herself to just be a young girl, enjoying the company of handsome men.

"I cannot talk of books in a ball-room; my head is always full of something else."

Sweet Sixteen

From Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton

"...trust a girl of sixteen for knowing it well if she is pretty; concerning her plainness she may be ignorant."

Gaskell certainly describes even most modern 16-year-old girls perfectly!

Long letters

From chapter 10 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice:

"...a person who can write a long letter, with ease, cannot write ill."

I have loved this quote for so long. We are a modern people who love all things concise. I've never been able to write anything but long so I'm very happy to have Ms. Austen's approval. I suppose this approval actually comes from Miss Bingley, but I'll take what I can get!

Complete truth

Emma by Jane Austen

"Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken."

Complete truth...what's that? Between out-and-out lies, deception, white lies, agenda, bad information, bending the truth, softening-the-blow and propaganda; I'm very sure Miss Austen was right.

Miss Jenkyns

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

"Miss Jenkyns wore a cravat, and a little bonnet like a jockey-cap, and altogether had the appearance of a strong-minded woman; although she would have despised the modern idea of women being equal to men. Equal, indeed! she knew they were superior."

Elegant Economy!

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

In Cranford...

...economy was always "elegant," and money-spending always "vulgar and ostentatious"; a sort of sour-grapeism which made us very peaceful and satisfied.

Beware...

I was thinking about the "ides of March" today since it comes tomorrow. So I started browsing Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

From Act II, Scene 2:

"CAESAR: Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once."

Untidy human undertakings

“The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy” - from chapter one of Over the River by John Galsworthy

I'll tell you what was untidy: my reaction to this, the very last of the nine volume Forsyte Saga. If it's possible to fall in love with books, I certainly fell in love with these. So my untidy crying was truly ugly as I read the closing pages of this novel. I never wanted it to end.

John Galsworthy, you are still beautiful.

The Old Order Changeth

Over the River (John Galsworthy)

Uncle Adrian on the future:

"'The old order changeth' – yes, but we ought to be able to preserve beauty and dignity, and the sense of service, and manners – things that have come very slowly, and can be made to vanish very fast if we aren't set on preserving them somehow."

Clare on unrequited love

Over the River (John Galsworthy)

"Even when they are not in love, women are grateful for being loved."

Sadly very, very true.

Dinny muses her religion

Maid in Waiting (John Galsworthy)

"Was religion belief in reward? If so, it seemed vulgar."

...and childish...

Theology from Galsworthy's Millie

Maid in Waiting (John Galsworthy)

"And then, if there's a God, why is he called He? It puts me against Him, I know. Callin' God 'He' gets girls treated as they are, I think. ...A he can't get on with creation without a she, anyway."

Wise words from a girl from the slums who was once suspected of prostitution.

England in 3400 AD

Swan Song (John Galsworthy)

Soames goes to Dorking to see the old family homestead, the origination of the modern Forsytes, and reflects upon the future:

"He had read somewhere that people would live underground, and come up to take the air in their flying machines on Sundays."

And it continues...

"People that wrote those prophetic articles were always forgetting that people had passions. He would make a bet that the passions of the English in 3400 A.D. would still be: playing golf, cursing the weather, sitting in draughts, and revising the prayer-book."

Michael Mont on perfect marital harmony

Swan Song (John Galsworthy)

Michael reflects on his relationship with his wife, Fleur: "Fleur and he were on such perfect terms that they had no real knowledge of each other's thoughts."

Ignorance is bliss?

Soames on America

Swan Song (John Galsworthy)

Soames Forsyte visits New York and his impression is essentially favorable, except for one thing:

"Of course the place was full of Americans, but that was unavoidable."