Hugh Walpole

“ The children filled the Circus; the policemen were toy policemen, the omnibuses toy omnibuses, the theatres toy theatres.
On every side of him Peter felt the kindliness, the helplessness, the pathos of his vision. They were children; he was a child; the world was only a nursery, after all. The sense of his earlier indignation had left him. It seemed now that anger and condemnation, whether of Robsart, or Temple and his friends, or of himself, were absurd. ”

“ And not only Bomb, but all of us—myself, Peter, young Gale, Alice Galleon, even Maradick. I saw, by my own experience, how we should suffer. I saw slipping away from under my very nose the whole of that magical world that Bomb had created; and above all, that magical London, the fairy palaces, the streets paved with gold, the walls of amethyst; the dark, shuttered windows opened for an instant to betray the gleaming, anxious eyes; the bearded foreigner conveying his sacred charge through the traffic of Trafalgar Square ”

“ She did not mind; that the attention of any one single human being should be centred upon her for herself was a very wonderful, touching thing.
Silence fell between them; the pretty room, grey and silver in the half-light, gathered intimately around them. When at last he went away it seemed that the last ten minutes had added years to their knowledge of one another.
A strange time for Lizzie followed. Edmund Lapsley had rushed into her life with a precipitate urgency that showed how empty before it had been. But there was more than their mere contact in the affair. She was fighting a battle ”

“ There will, I think, be more men and women than anyone now supposes who will look back to that year Nineteen-Nineteen in London as a strangely fantastic one. You might say with some justice that the years during the war, with their air-raids and alarms and excursions, newspaper rumours, and train-loads of wounded and dying at Charing Cross station, must have been infinitely more moving—I think not. In those years, at any rate the stage was set for a play in which we must all, as we knew, act our parts. That year that followed the Armistice was uncanny, uncertain, unaccountable. ”

“ Grenfell."
"If you want to know," cried Lois, suddenly urged on partly by her irritation at being judged, but still more by her anger at herself for feeling Margery's distress, "it is. You're impossible, Margery. You're so selfish. It can't make any difference to you, putting our holiday off. You're selfish. That's what it is."
Then a remarkable thing occurred. Margery did not burst into tears. Only all the colour drained from her face and her eyes fell.
"No, I don't think I'm selfish," said Margery; "I want you to enjoy yourself. You're tired of me, and I don't blame you. ”

“ He was struck, as he watched, by the caution, the hesitation, the apparent helplessness of all the world. Londoners had always been represented as so self-confident, self-assured, but if you watched to-night, it seemed that everyone hesitated. Young men with their girls, women with babies, men, boys; again and again Peter saw in faces that same half-timid, half-friendly glance; felt on every side of him a kindliness that was born of a little terror, a little dread. ”

“ Was I trying to defend lies in general or only Captain Jones's lies in particular? Did I not realise the harm that he did with his stories? What had we all been about that we had not pulled him up long ago?
"Can't you conceive it as possible, Miss Cather," I asked her, "that lies should occasionally do good rather than harm? I don't mean really bad lies, of course—lies told to hurt people—but gorgeous lies, magnificent lies; lies that keep your sense of fantasy, your imagination alive; lies that paint your house a fairy palace and your wife a goddess?" ”

“ Pride grew in his heart, and happiness and contentment.
By the middle of July Hortons was itself again. The crisis was over. Prices were impossible, labour rebellious, the world topsy-turvy, but Hortons was at peace. He sighed, put back his shoulders, patted his little stomach appreciatively, loved all the world and, once again, considered Mrs. Nix.
He would give her now all his time. He would take her out; make her presents; they should have a splendid new life together. ”

“ Yes, even through these ridiculous papers of her aunt's, she could feel the first stirrings, the first trumpetings to battle, voices sounding, only a little distance from her, wonderful new messages of hope and ambition.
This affected her; she began to wonder how she could, through all these four years of war, have stayed so quietly in her remote Hawkesworth. She began to despise herself because she had stayed.
This excitement developed quickly into the same kind of premonition that she had had before leaving Hawkesworth. Something was about to happen to her! What would it be? ”

“ The Circus was wrapped in a pale, honey-coloured evening glow. The stir of the movement of the traffic was dimmed as though it came through a half-open door. Peter felt calm touch his bitter unhappiness as he stood there. He stayed as though someone had a hand on his shoulder and was holding him there. He was conscious for the second time that day of anticipation. Now, having been cheated once, he tried to drive it away, but it would not leave him, and he waited almost as though he were expecting some procession to pass. The shops were closing, and many people were going home. ”

“ Nix, the manager of Hortons, had never been an analyser of the human character: it startled him, therefore, considerably, somewhere about March or April of 1919, to find himself deep in introspection.
What is deep to one may not be deep to another, and Mr. Nix's introspection amounted to little more than that he felt, as he found himself confiding to a friend one evening, as though he "were nothing more or less than a blooming juggler—one of those fellows, Joe, that tosses eight or ten balls in the air at a time. ”

“ These years in Gallipoli and France had saved him. But he, in those desolate, death-ridden places had again and again said to himself, even as Robsart, safe in Hortons, had said: "After the war.... After the war...." After the war Peter would build up his life again. But first, even a month's rest—somewhere that was not dirty and cheap and ill-smelling. Somewhere with good food and kind looks.... Then he smiled as he thought of Maradick and Galleon, his two friends, who could both give him those things. No, he wanted also freedom. ”

“ Any widower of over fifty is pleased when any woman wants to come and have tea with him alone. Besides, I liked Miss Cather—liked her surprisingly. In the first place, she liked me, found my mind "truly realistic" and my brain well balanced. But in reality I liked her, I think, because I was beginning to discover in her a certain freshness and childishness and even naïveté of soul which I had certainly not expected at first. But seriousness and balance and austerity of manner did not go nearly as deep as it pretended. She knew not nearly as much about life as she herself fancied. ”

“ Had you told him a week before that within seven days he would be sleeping in Robsart's sumptuous bed closed in by the rich sanctities of Robsart's sumptuous flat, he would have looked at you with that cool contempt that was one of Westcott's worst features; for Westcott in those days was an arrogant man—arrogant through disgust of himself and disgust of the world—two very poor reasons for arrogance. ”

“ Nix's life came a figure. One day a young man who had known Lancelot in France came to see them. His name was Harry Harper. He was little more than a boy, was in the London Joint City and Midland Bank, and was as fresh and charming a lad as you would be likely to find anywhere. Mr. Nix liked him at once. In the first place, he had many new things to tell about Lance, and he told them in just the right way, with sentiment, but not too much, with humour a little, and with real appreciation of Lance's bravery, and his popularity with his men, and his charm with everyone. ”

“ MISS MORGANHURST
It may be that in future years when critics and commentators look back upon the European War, one of the aspects of it that will seem to them strangest will be the attitude of complete indifference that certain people assumed during the course of it. Indifference! That is an inefficient word. It is not too strong to say that hundreds of men and women in London during those horrible years were completely unconscious, save on the rare occasions when rationing or air-raids forced them to attend, that there was any war at all. ”

“ Lucile was talking to him, eagerly, repeating, as she always did, her words over and over again. He was, apparently, looking up at her, a smile on his lips. Morgraunt, so smart with the teasing blue feather in her hat, was looking across at them intent upon what Lucile was saying. He was apparently looking at Lucile, and yet his eyes were dead, sightless, like the eyes of a statue. In his hand he apparently held a cigarette, and yet his hand was of marble, no life ran through the veins. ”

“ Lady Dronda complained that he never wrote to her. "Dear Mother," he replied on a postcard, "jolly busy. Ever so much to do. See you soon."
Young men and young women came to luncheon and dinner. He was happy and merry with them all. Even Fanny, the portress downstairs, adored him. His smile was irresistible.
The strangest fact of all, perhaps, was that the war had really taught him nothing. He had for three years been face to face with Reality, stared into her eyes, studied her features, seeing her for quite the first time. ”

“ Peter answered, laughing. "And I fancy he'd be most indignant if you accused him of it. And the really strange thing is that no one ever does accuse him. I can't remember that a single man in France ever challenged his stories, and they'd pull anyone else up in a moment. You see, he never does any harm. He's the most generous soul alive, thinks the best of everybody, and all his stories go to prove that people are better than they ever possibly could be. I confess, Lester, I have him here deliberately because he feeds my imagination. ”

“ Our incompetence, our cowardice, our selfishness, our wickedness in high places—such were her eternal topics. Fanny, sitting in her hutch at Hortons, saw the evening waiting for her—the horrible evening with their little stuffy, food-smelling, overcrowded room, with the glazed and grinning sideboard, the pink-and-white wool mats, the heavy lace curtains over the window, the hideous oleographs, the large, staring photographs. ”

“ Her aunt was a long time putting on her cloak; people stood in their way, stupid, heavy, idiotic people. When they came into the hall he was not there.... Yes ... he was close to them. For a moment, in the thick crowd, he caught her hand. At the touch of his fingers, rough and strong, upon hers, she seemed to soar above the crowd and to look down upon them all with scornful happiness. He said something that she could not catch, and then Aunt Comstock had hatefully enveloped her. They were in a taxi, and all the world that had been roaring around her was suddenly hushed. ”

“ Young Harper was saying the other day that if only he would tell of some of his stories about himself, his lies wouldn't be so tremendous, but his natural modesty prevents him. He's a dear fellow, and the biggest liar in Europe."
"Well, of course," I said, rather doubtfully, "if he always tells lies it isn't so bad. You know that you need never believe him. It's the half-and-half liars that are so tiresome——"
"No," Peter interrupted. "That isn't quite fair. Lies isn't the true word. He's all imagination—far more imagination than either you or I will ever have, Lester. ”

“ The conversation then was literary, and Temple explained "how things were." Things were very bad. He used the glories of Robsart's rooms as an illustration of his purpose. He waved his hands about. "Look at these things," he seemed to say. "At these temples of gold, this china of great price, these pictures, and then look at me. Here is the contrast between true and false art."
"We want to get rid," he explained to Peter, "of all these false valuations. This wretched war has shown us at least one thing—the difference between the true and the false. The world is in pieces. ”

“ I hate Aggie!—I hate Aggie!" Fanny would sometimes cry to herself in the heart of her hutch, but she could not summon to herself sufficient resolution to go off and live by herself; she had a terror of solitary evenings, all the terror of one who did not care for books, who was soaked in superstition and loved lights and noise. ”