Anne Douglas Sedgwick

Name: The Little French Girl — Part 2. Chapter 11
Author: Anne Douglas Sedgwick

The Little French Girl — Part 2… (1924)

Summary

“The Little French Girl — Part 2. Chapter 11”, published in 1924, is a work by Anne Douglas Sedgwick. It explores elements such as Vervier, Alix and Giles.

Quotes from The Little French Girl — Part 2… (Anne Douglas Sedgwick)

Anne Douglas Sedgwick, The Little French Girl — Part 2… (1924)

“ My mother, for instance, would never think of such a thing, and if Alix came back to us she'd be like one of my sisters; trained, if you like, to a profession. Marriage would only be by chance; for her, as for them.”
“Dieu! You are a strange people!” said madame Vervier. “To leave to chance what is of the most vital importance in a woman's life! No; you are not serious. You live dans le brouillard. Life must be less difficult a thing with you since it is possible to face it so lightly. I should not, it is evident, care to leave Alix among you unless it were in the hope of marriage. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Anne Douglas Sedgwick, The Little French Girl — Part 2… (1924)

“ I admire their enterprise,” smiled madame Vervier. “Young men do not know how to make occasions, and since the English mother feels it beneath her dignity to make them, it is left for the girl to combine the rôle of mother and daughter. It is a difference of mœurs, that is all, and I wish Alix to have the advantage of your mœurs while keeping the immunities of her own. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Anne Douglas Sedgwick, The Little French Girl — Part 2… (1924)

“ And she is still a child; singularly still a child. We may for a year or two put the question of Alix's feelings aside. At her age one has no feelings. It lies with you, and with me, to see that when the time comes they are the right ones. She is devoted to you”—madame Vervier enlarged her assurance. “That is unquestionable.”
“But I care for somebody else!” Giles heard himself almost shouting. It was unbelievable that he should have to say to madame Vervier what he had never explicitly said to himself; unbelievable that he must set the sacred figure of Toppie between them. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Anne Douglas Sedgwick, The Little French Girl — Part 2… (1924)

“ Giles objected. “I don't see myself as a matchmaker, you know; I can't promise to do anything at all in that line for Alix.”
“You were not asked to be Old Dog Tray. You were asked to be le Prince Charmant,” madame Vervier returned, a hint of the caustic in her kindness. “And I do not now ask you to trot. I ask you only, if an occasion offers, to see that she does not miss it. She has not the heredity of the English girl. She will not know how to make, or take, occasions for herself.” ”

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Source: Wikisource

Anne Douglas Sedgwick, The Little French Girl — Part 2… (1924)

“ The tone should have been kept to the tone of Cannes. Ah, it is indeed a pity that he showed so little resource!”
“I don't suppose Owen was in a state of mind to feel resourceful,” said Giles sombrely. When madame Vervier spoke like this, chasms opened between them. But were there not just such chasms between him and Alix? “I think I like him the better for it,” said Giles.
“Ah—and I do not love him the less!” madame Vervier returned with an effect of quickness, though she spoke quietly. “I do not love him the less. I do not even blame him. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Anne Douglas Sedgwick, The Little French Girl — Part 2… (1924)

“ Family and position count for everything here in France. It is not one little individual choosing another little individual; we are more serious than you in that. It is one family choosing another. It is two foyers coming together to found a third. I have spoiled all this for Alix.” Madame Vervier took up her stone again, again weighing it in her hand, and now it was as if she weighed the sense of her culpability towards her child. “I have spoiled it. Money would have helped me to atone; but not only was I not philosophe at twenty-three ”

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Source: Wikisource

Anne Douglas Sedgwick, The Little French Girl — Part 2… (1924)

“ An artist's life is happier; but I hope that my Alix may find the happiest life; the life of a woman married well. So, if she returns to England, it is for the sake of the chances, and you, I believe, will help to make them for her. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Anne Douglas Sedgwick, The Little French Girl — Part 2… (1924)

“ Giles now commented. He and madame Vervier were on strangely intimate terms and could deal out friendly irony to one another. “The English young man counts for something after all. What we hope for, we romantic English, is that he will make the occasion.” ”

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Source: Wikisource

Anne Douglas Sedgwick, The Little French Girl — Part 2… (1924)

“ I could myself have her trained to a profession. If I gave her up again, it would be because I hoped for something better. I am not féministe. I think a professional life deplorable for a woman. A necessity in many cases, no doubt ”

Anne Douglas Sedgwick

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Quotes from The Little French Girl — Part 2… (Anne Douglas Sedgwick)

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