Winifred Holtby

“ In the most placid of humours, he would have found it somewhat disconcerting to play harvest hymns with a barley whisker tickling the back of his neck. Even if Mrs. Willerby was rejoicing in the end of the strike, she might have decorated the organ loft with greater discretion and less exuberance. The scent of geraniums, which Coast abominated, was mingled with an odour of rotting apples, damp prayer books and perspiring humanity from the choir stalls below. Together they involved him in a nightmare of discomfort.
"Wheat and tares therein are sown,
Unto joy or sorrow grown...." ”

“ You can't wriggle out of responsibility by a metaphor. Your life is your own, Muriel, nobody can take it from you. You may choose to look after your mother; you may choose to pursue a so-called career, or you may choose to marry. You may choose right and you may choose wrong. But the thing that matters is to take your life into your own hands and live it, accepting responsibility for failure or success. The really fatal thing is to let other people make your choices for you, and then to blame them if your schemes should fail and they despise you for the failure. ”

“ April came and brought to Ursula a fine pink boy, whose body, bundled in rolls of shawl, squirmed deliciously in Mary's arms as she cuddled him in a sunny room of the Hardrascliffe nursing-home. Ursula lay on a sofa near the window regarding her offspring with amused satisfaction. Her pale blue gown and lacy cap, and the light rug across her knees mingled so admirably daintiness with discretion, that Mary thought she looked more like an advertisement for somebody's invalid wine than a woman who had recently emerged from the disturbing crisis of motherhood. ”

“ She was sick of living through the long months of the year all on top of Muriel and her mother, sick of scenes with her father, because he would neither let her go away nor give her the allowance that she considered necessary. And she was sick of her mother's fretful hints and of her father's stupid chaffing. She was weary of cinema romances, where true love always triumphed. She was weary of Marshington reality where her school friends and neighbours smirked at her above their diamond half-hoops, or simpered at her over piles of trousseau lingerie. ”

“ Shadows grey and desolate stole from the long curtains. Only in the small, dim woman's voice lay the intensity of realization that has passed despair.
"I used to pray every night that I should never come to a time when nobody wanted me. There's no real need for me in this house. Rachel's only kind to have me here when there's room. Oh, Muriel, my dear, if ever a good man offers you the chance of a home, of children, of some reason for living, don't throw it away, don't, don't." ”

“ The fierce light that beats upon a throne is only a candle's flicker beside the searching glare of village criticism. It consoled her, though, to think that publicity could only further reveal her love for Anderby. And it was pleasant to sit in the dancing firelight, while the dusk crept up the orchard outside, and listen to Mrs. Watts telling her how wonderful she was.
Mrs. Watts knew that Mary found it pleasant. Mrs. Robson, she considered, was a very fine young woman, but as she talked a thousand past acts of kindness, of gratuitous attention, of charitable patronage rose before her. ”

“ But to Muriel the place was magic. She could not believe that real people moved behind those solemn windows. The still winter day, the cold light of the pale sun, the mouldering stonework of the terrace, were all part of a waking dream. A thrush, starting suddenly from a wet bough, shook down the rain-drops on to her face. She woke from her dream. This was the Weare Grange. She and Connie and Clare were going there to tea. This was the amazing adventure which the gods had brought her. ”

“ Mary dressed rather like the worthier type of village school teacher. She wore flannel blouses with high collars. It was time some one took her in hand. "There's something about looking after a parish that makes a woman forget to powder her nose," thought Ursula.
Ursula had come to Anderby on a mission of mercy. She was going to brighten Mary up. Mary had been shut away too long with that extraordinarily dull husband of hers. She thought that the only thing a married woman could do, if she had any time left over from looking after her own household, was to look after some one else's. ”