Bokelskere.no

Den nye generasjonen som erobrer media, politikken, næringslivet. De som ikke vet hvem Erik Bye var. De som ikke bryr seg om at de ikke vet det heller.

Ferdamanns kveldssong II

Over alle tindar
er ro
i alle rindar
legg seg no
kvar kveldssus mildt,
småfuglane tagnar i lundar,
vent, om litt blundar
du òg så stilt.

Still, with an unshaken confidence that the English tongue was somehow the mother tongue of the whole world, only the people were too stupid to know it, [...].

The smoke came crookedly out of Mr Flintwinch’s mouth, as if it circulated through the whole of his wry figure and came back by his wry throat, before coming forth to mingle with the smoke from the crooked chimneys and the mists from the crooked river.

The responsible man, with a start, obeyed, and went out on tiptoe. Flora, putting aside her veil with a bashful tremor upon her, proceeded to introduce herself. At the same time a singular combination of perfumes was diffused through the room, as if some brandy had been put by mistake in a lavender-water bottle, or as if some lavender-water had been put by mistake in a brandy bottle.

“he [i.e. Mr Merdle] – the shining wander, the new constellation to be followed by the wise men bringing gifts, until it stopped over certain carrion at the bottom of a bath and disappeared – was simply the greatest Forger and the greatest Thief that had ever cheated the gallows.

Merdle! O ye sun, moon and stars, the great man! The rich man, who had in a manner revised the New Testamen, and already entered into the kingdom of Heaven. The man who could have any one he chose to dine with him, and who had made the money! As he went up the stairs, people were already posted on the lower stairs, that his shadow might fall upon them when he came down. So were the sick brought out and laid in the track of the Apostle – who had not got into the good society, and had not made the good money.

The winter passing on towards the spring while this condition of affairs prevailed, it became necessary for Mr Sparkler to repair to England, and take his appointed part in the expression and direction of its genius, learning, commerce, spirit, and sense. The land of Shakespeare, Milton, Bacon, Newton, Watt, the land of a host of past and present abstract philosophers, natural philosophers, and subduers of Nature and Art in their myriad forms, called to Mr Sparkler to come and take care of it, lest it should perish. Mr Sparkler, unable to resist the agonised cry from the depths of his country’s soul, declared that he must go.

Mr Pancks listened with such interest that, regardless of the charms of the Eastern pipe, he put it in the grate among the fire-irons, and occupied his hands during the whole recital in so erecting the loops and hooks of hair all over his head, that he looked, when it came to a conclusion, like a journeyman Hamlet in conversation with his father's spirit.

Now, Mrs Merdle, who really knew her friend Society pretty well, and who knew what Society's mothers were, and what Society's daughters were, and what Society's matrimonial market was, and how prices ruled in it, and what scheming and counter-scheming took place for the high buyers, and what bargaining and huckstering went on, thought in the depths of her capacious bosom that this was a sufficiently good catch. Knowing, however, what was expected of her, and perceiving the exact nature of the fiction to be nursed, she took it delicately in her arms, and put her required contribution of gloss upon it.

As a kind of faint attempt to convince himself that he was the master of the house, he concluded by presenting his forefinger to the parrot, who expressed his opinion on that subject by instantly driving his bill into it.

’Sounds mercenary, to ask what the gentleman is to get with the lady,’ said Mrs Merdle, ‘but Society is perhaps a little mercenary you know, my dear.’

‘As to marriage on the part of a man, my dear, Society requires that he should retrieve his fortunes by marriage. Society requires that he should gain by marriage. Society requires that he should found a handsome establishment my marriage. Society does not see, otherwise, what he has to do with marriage. Bird, be quiet!’

Mrs Merdle was at home, and was in her nest of crimson and gold, with the parrot on a neighbouring stem watching her with his head on one side, as if he took her for another splendid parrot of larger species.

So, at last, Clennam's purpose in remaining was attained, and he could speak to Little Dorrit with nobody by. Maggy counted as nobody, and she was by.

‘Society,’ said Mrs Merdle, with another curve of her little finger, ‘is so difficult to explain to young persons (indeed is so difficult to explain to most persons), that I am glad to hear that. I wish Society was not so arbitrary, I wish it was not so exacting – Bird, be quiet!’

The parrot had given a most piercing shriek, as if its name were Society and it asserted its right to its exactions.

They spoke to him in very loud voices as if he were stone deaf. They constructed sentences, by way of teaching him the language in its purity, such as were adressed by the savages to Captain Cook, or by Friday to Robinson Crusoe. Mrs Plornish was particularly ingenious in this art; and attained so much celebrity for saying ‘Me ope you leg well soon,’ that it was considered in the Yard but a very short remove indeed from speaking Italian.

Mr Flintwinch was slowly beginning, ‘For a gentleman of your habits, there is not in this immediate neighbourhood any hotel –‘ when Mr Blandois took him up.

‘So much for my habits! my dear sir,’ snapping his fingers. ‘A citizen of the world has no habits. That I am, in my poor way, a gentleman, by Heaven! I will not deny, but I have no unaccommodating prejudiced habits. A clean room, a hot dish for dinner, and a bottle of not absolutely poisonous wine, are all I want to-night. But I want that much, without the trouble of going one unnecessary inch to get it.

Er det ikke nederdrægtigt af «Communen» i Paris at den har gået hen og fordærvet mig min fortræffelige stats-theori – eller rettere – ikke-stats-theori! Nu er ideen ødelagt for lange tider, og jeg kan ikke engang anstændigvis fremsætte den på vers. Men den har en sund kerne i sig, det ser jeg så klart; og engang vil den nok blive praktiseret uden al karrikatur.