Bokelskere.no

Når valget står mellom liv og død, velger de fleste livet.

Velger du å leve, velger du også å dø.

"[...]", said Mrs Plymdale, a round-eyed sharp little woman, like a tamed falcon.

Mig har for resten den politiske udviklingsgang deroppe aldeles ikke beredt nogen skuffelse. Hvad der er sket er ikke andet, end hvad jeg var forberedt på. Jeg vidste på forhånd at således og ikke anderledes måtte det naturnødvendigt komme. Men vort venstrepartis ledere mangler aldeles verdenserfaring og havde som følge deraf hengivet sig til de urimeligste illusioner.

I Norge vilde det være mig rent umuligt at slå mig ned for alvor. Intet steds vilde jeg føle mig mere hjemløs end deroppe. For et nogenlunde åndsudviklet menneske strækker ikke nutildags det gamle fædrelandsbegrep til.

The arrangement between Mr Boffin and his literary man, Mr Silas Wegg, so far altered with the altered habits of Mr Boffin's life, as that the Roman Empire usually declined in the morning and in the eminently aristocratic family mansion, rather than in the evening, as of yore, and in Boffin's Bower.

Marriage, which was to bring guidance into worthy and imperative occupation, had not yet freed her from the gentlewoman's oppressive liberty: it had not even filled her leisure with the ruminant joy of unchecked tenderness. Her blooming full-pulsed youth stood there in a moral imprisonment which made itself one with the chill, colorless, narrowed landscape, with the shrunken furniture, the never-read books, and the ghostly stag in a pale fantastic world that seemed to be vanishing from the daylight.

there may be no occasion for me to say this, but a father trembles for his daughter

De politiske forholde hjemme forekommer mig højst sørgelige. Men jeg håber på et omslag ved næste valg.

His classification of human employments was rather crude, and, like the categories of more celebrated men, would not be acceptable in these advanced times. He divided them into “business, politics, preaching, learning, and amusement.” He had nothing to say against the last four; but he regarded them as a reverential pagan regarded other gods than his own.

Mrs. Garth, with her sleeves turned above her elbows, deftly handling her pastry — applying her rolling-pin and giving ornamental pinches, while she expounded with grammatical fervor what were the right views about the concord of verbs and pronouns with "nouns of multitude or signifying many," was a sight agreeably amusing. She was of the same curly-haired, square-faced type as Mary, but handsomer, with more delicacy of feature, a pale skin, a solid matronly figure, and a remarkable firmness of glance. In her snowy-frilled cap she reminded one of that delightful Frenchwoman whom we have all seen marketing, basket on arm. Looking at the mother, you might hope that the daughter would become like her, which is a prospective advantage equal to a dowry — the mother too often standing behind the daughter like a malignant prophecy — "Such as I am, she will shortly be."
"Now let us go through that once more," said Mrs. Garth, pinching an apple-puff which seemed to distract Ben, an energetic young male with a heavy brow, from due attention to the lesson. "'Not without regard to the import of the word as conveying unity or plurality of idea' — tell me again what that means, Ben."
(Mrs. Garth, like more celebrated educators, had her favorite ancient paths, and in a general wreck of society would have tried to hold her "Lindley Murray" above the waves.)
"Oh — it means — you must think what you mean," said Ben, rather peevishly. "I hate grammar. What's the use of it?"
"To teach you to speak and write correctly, so that you can be understood," said Mrs. Garth, with severe precision. "Should you like to speak as old Job does?"
"Yes," said Ben, stoutly; "it's funnier. He says, 'Yo goo' — that's just as good as 'You go.'"
"But he says, 'A ship's in the garden,' instead of 'a sheep,'" said Letty, with an air of superiority. "You might think he meant a ship off the sea."
"No, you mightn't, if you weren't silly," said Ben. "How could a ship off the sea come there?"
"These things belong only to pronunciation, which is the least part of grammar," said Mrs. Garth. "That apple-peel is to be eaten by the pigs, Ben; if you eat it, I must give them your piece of pasty. Job has only to speak about very plain things. How do you think you would write or speak about anything more difficult, if you knew no more of grammar than he does? You would use wrong words, and put words in the wrong places, and instead of making people understand you, they would turn away from you as a tiresome person. What would you do then?"
"I shouldn't care, I should leave off," said Ben, with a sense that this was an agreeable issue where grammar was concerned.
"I see you are getting tired and stupid, Ben," said Mrs. Garth, accustomed to these obstructive arguments from her male offspring. Having finished her pies, she moved towards the clothes-horse, and said, "Come here and tell me the story I told you on Wednesday, about Cincinnatus."

[...] just as when a youthful nobleman steals jewellery we call the act kleptomania, speak of it with a philosophical smile, and never think of his being sent to the house of correction as if he were a ragged boy who had stolen turnips.

'But I am more than a lad,' said Bradley, with his clutching hand, 'and I WILL be heard, sir.'
'As a schoolmaster,' said Eugene, 'you are always being heard. That ought to content you.'