Quotes
List here any quote, from Erskine Childers's book The Riddle of the Sands. Quotes that inspire you, or give you a strong visual image, or maybe you just admire the author's use of words
..... poetic, lyrical, straightforward, cultural, etc ...
Friend after friend 'got away' to sport and fresh air, with promises to write and chaffing condolences, and as each deserted the sinking ship, I took a grim delight in my misery, positively almost enjoying the first week or two after my world had been finally dissipated to the four bracing winds of heaven.
ReplyDelete... I knew that I had left in those limpid depths yet another crust of discontent and self-conceit.
ReplyDeleteSteadily she rustled down the calm blue highway whose soft beauty was the introduction to a passage in my life, short, but pregnant with moulding force, through stress and strain, for me and others.
ReplyDeleteTwo men cannot discuss a woman freely without a deep foundation of intimacy ...
ReplyDeleteA pale sun was flickering out of the masses of racing vapour, and through delicate vistas between them the fair land of Schleswig now revealed and withdrew her pretty face, as though smiling adieux to her faithless courtiers.
ReplyDeleteClose to the train of Humour came Romance, veiling her face, but I knew it was the rustle of her robes that I heard in the foam beneath me; I knew that it was she who handed me the cup of sparkling wine and bade me drink and be merry. Strange to me though it was, I knew the taste when it touched my lips. It was not that bastard concoction I had tasted in the pseudo-Bohemias of Soho; it was not the showy but insipid beverage I should have drunk my fill of at Morvan Lodge; it was the purest of her pure vintages, instilling the ancient inspiration which, under many guises, quickens thousands of better brains than mine, but whose essence is always the same; the gay pursuit of a perilous quest.
ReplyDeleteI had always detested the meddlesome alarmist, who veils ignorance under noisiness, and for ever wails his chant of lugubrious pessimism.
ReplyDeleteEvery loose article in the boat became audibly restless. Cans clinked, cupboards rattled, lockers uttered hollow groans. Small things sidled out of dark hiding-places and danced grotesque drunken figures on the floor, like goblins in a haunted glade. The mast whined dolorously at every heel, and the centre-board hiccoughed and choked. Overhead another horde of demons seemed to have been let loose. The deck and mast were conductors which magnified every sound and made the tap-tap of every rope's end resemble the blows of a hammer, and the slapping of the halyards against the mast the rattle of a Maxim gun. The whole tumult beat time to a rhythmical chorus which became maddening.
ReplyDeleteThe night was fair, and when the tide receded we lay perfectly still, the fresh wind only sending a lip-lip of ripples against our sides.
ReplyDeleteHer hair ... Was spangled with moisture, and her rose-brown skin struck a note of delicious colour against the sullen Stygian background.
ReplyDeleteHe loved this girl and he loved his country, two simple passions which for the time absorbed his whole moral capacity. There was no room left for casuistry. To weigh one passion against the other with the discordant voices of honor and expediency dinning in his ear, had too long involved him in fruitless torture. Both were right; neither could be surrendered. If the facts showed them irreconcilable, tant pis pour les faits. A way must be found to satisfy both or neither.
ReplyDeleteTo reduce a romantic ideal to a working plan is a very difficult thing.
ReplyDeleteHe looked as wise as Satan, and you would say he was smiling inwardly.
ReplyDeleteI found the fog bemusing, lost all idea of time and space, and felt like a senseless marionette kicking and jerking to a mad music without tune or time.
ReplyDeleteIn reality I am much more inclined to laugh than shudder over this meeting; for meanwhile the third of our self-invited guests had with stertorous puffing risen to the stage, for all the world like a demon out of a trap door, specially when he entered the zone of that unearthly light.
ReplyDelete