Best 76 quotes in «victorian era quotes» category

Self-preservation and determination meant she could get away with anything. As her law-abiding, conventionally minded daughter, I secretly envied her this. She was not the clinging-vine type, nor one who could coax sugar from a lemon. Hers was the frontal attack with no inhibitions. She told the Nazis you could not trust Hitler, and they let her go. In the days of chaperones, she hitch-hiked a ride on a French destroyer along the coast of Crete; 'All quite proper, I had my cook with me,' she explained.

Soffia le ultime parole, sorreggendosi a me. È creta tra le mie dita che tremano. Sì, tremano perché vorrebbero farla sentire al sicuro, invece sono io ad angosciarla. Non le rispondo – Cosa potrei risponderle? – ma la forgio al mio petto, tra le pareti di questo corridoio buio più della mia anima, più del nostro futuro, più delle certezze: Rose è la sola luce nella mia esistenza programmata, il solo astro capace di rischiarire le tenebre del cuore.

Sunlight streamed in a steady flow, casting flecks of gold onto the floor, bathing my skin. I inhaled deeply. Already, the air inside my bedroom had been perfumed with nature. A breeze whispered softly and breathed carefully onto my skin.

The rain landed on my skin with a barely audible patter and changed the tempo of its repetitive dance, letting the wind change its course and angle. The cold soon seeped through my dress and into my bones. An iris from my garland fell in my lap.

The boy with the haunted eyes was Dory's secret. Eli. And she knew that she had to see him again.

The coppers, thinking I must be hacked to bits at the bottom of the Thames, now blame both murders on the Ripper. The theory is so ironic I cannot help but snort out a tirade of titters.

The gallant captain vacated his cabin for her, and Manna changed her role from cook to chaperone. All most correct. But it was hardly the done thing to cadge a lift on a torpedo boat. Yet she did it twice in a lifetime.

The Hotel dining-room, like most of the others I was to find in the Highlands, had its walls covered with pictures of all sorts of wild game, living or in the various postures of death that are produced by sport. Between these pictures the walls were alert with the stuffed heads of deer, furnished with antlers of every degree of magnificence. A friend of mine has a theory that these pictures of dying birds and wounded beasts are intended to whet the diner's appetite, and perhaps they did in the more lusty age of Victoria; but I found they had the opposite effect on me, and had to keep my eyes from straying too often to them. In one particular hotel this idea was carried out with such thoroughness that the walls of its dining room looked like a shambles, they presented such an overwhelming array of bleeding birds, beasts and fishes. To find these abominations on the walls of Highland hotels, among a people of such delicacy in other things, is peculiarly revolting, and rubs in with superfluous force that this is a land whose main contemporary industry is the shooting down of wild creatures; not production of any kind but wholesale destruction. This state of things is not the fault of the Highlanders, but of the people who have bought their country and come to it chiefly to kill various forms of life.

The remaining half of my gin stands before me, and yet, no amount of drink can quench this thirst.

The two of us locked up our own little secrets from the real world. We had experienced countless sleepless nights when we would share our fears, our worries, and our passions; when we would gossip about the school and the other girls. We had played too many pranks and snuck out more than enough times to be expelled if the teachers ever found out. We were professionals at the art of being discreet; however, we had never found sneaking out of a residence necessary, especially when the reason was not to play a prank.

There's a bit of a local legend about a jet heart that has turned up over the years," Flynn said. "Any time it turns up, strange things happen.

There was a sudden flash of lightning which brightly illuminated our faces. I squinted against the harsh light. It was soon followed by the crack of thunder. The strong wind whipped our hair around our faces, and the younger girls squealed as they quickly ran across the grass to get inside the school. Rose and I sat up, smiles on our faces as we listened to the weather’s dangerous melody. The third flash of lightning finally ripped open the sky’s belly. Freezing rain cascaded out, drenching us in a matter of seconds, the flower garlands drooping and lying limp on our matted hair.

The street was a sad state in daylight. Electric signs and red lights resisted the brightness of life, stripped of their luster in the colorless day. But in darkness and mist, they pulsed with vibrancy. The streets thrived in a cloak of obscurity, and men took comfort in anonymity. At night they were a motley bunch, a throng of shadowed faces and hungry eyes, milling about brothels and dance halls like rats roaming a sewer.

The sum of their faults was their inability to earn money; but, indeed, that inability does not call for unmingled disdain.

Thus the British Empire came into existence; and thus - for there is no stopping damp; it gets into the inkpot as it gets into the woodwork - sentences swelled, adjectives multiplied, lyrics became epics, and little trifles that had been essays a column long were now encyclopaedias in ten or twenty volumes.

The woman was not what would be termed an exquisite, or what his grandfather’s generation would have styled ‘a diamond of the first water.’ There was something too primal in her features and her bearing, and her aura shimmered with power. She was a sunset on a mountain peak, or the eerie colors in the sky in the far north of Scotland. She was a vein of gold still glittering inside the rock, her treasure clear but held close, in her own keeping. She would never belong to anyone but herself, and that made him long for her to share that self with him—in every conceivable way.

The world of shadows and superstition that was Victorian England, so well depicted in this 1871 tale, was unique. While the foundations of so much of our present knowledge of subjects like medicine, public health, electricity, chemistry and agriculture, were being, if not laid, at least mapped out, people could still believe in the existence of devils and demons. And why not? A good ghost story is pure entertainment. It was not until well into the twentieth century that ghost stories began to have a deeper significance and to become allegorical; in fact, to lose their charm. No mental effort is required to read 'The Weird Woman', no seeking for hidden meanings; there are no complexities of plot, no allegory on the state of the world. And so it should be. At what other point in literary history could a man, standing over the body of his fiancee, say such a line as this: 'Speak, hound! Or, by heaven, this night shall witness two murders instead of one!' Those were the days. (introduction to "The Weird Woman")

Thinking back on the outing to the theatre, she added, ‘I want a man, not a preening peacock!

Tonight, I'd like to fuck like every other bloody Englishman, with you on your back and me on top groaning and pumping away for a minute or so, then a nice sleep." A sneer touched the edge of her mouth, then Isabeau laughed. "You English, you are so uninspired, a pity for your women. My soul cries for them." "Yes, unimaginative lot that we are, we have somehow managed to colonize much of the world.

Victorian rigidities were such that ladies were not even allowed to blow out candles in mixed company, as that required them to pucker their lips suggestively. They could not say that they were going "to bed"--that planted too stimulating an image--but merely that they were "retiring." It became effectively impossible to discuss clothing in even a clinical sense without resort to euphemisms. Trousers became "nether integuments" or simply "inexpressibles" and underwear was "linen." Women could refer among themselves to petticoats or, in hushed tones, stockings, but could mention almost nothing else that brushed bare flesh.

Upper-class Victorians feared an overabundance of passion, believing it only complicated matters and, more dangerously, led to thoughts of unrealistic liaisons between persons of unequal social stations.

Up the still, glistening beaches, Up the creeks we will hie, Over banks of bright seaweed The ebb-tide leaves dry. We will gaze, from the sand-hills, At the white, sleeping town; At the church on the hill-side— And then come back down. Singing: "There dwells a loved one, But cruel is she! She left lonely for ever The kings of the sea. (from poem 'The Forsaken Merman')

Was it possible to be homesick for a soul?

What do ladies wear beneath their riding trousers?" "I would think an infamous rake would already know." "I was never infamous. In fact, I'm fairly standard as far as rakes go." "The ones who deny it are the worst.

Well, Maud made a mistake, let us say. Dolomore is a clown, and now she knows it.

You took Theo's title and his home," West continued in appalled disbelief, "and now you want his wife." "His widow," Devon muttered. "Have you seduced her?" "Not yet." West clapped his hand to his forehead. "Christ. Don't you think she's suffered enough?

What the hell is this stuff?" he muttered, frowning at the oily spot on the linen cloth. "Pearlman slathered it on me this morning." "It's macassar oil. Gentlemen use it to keep their hair neat. Nicholas used it," she added pointedly. "Well, tomorrow he's giving it up. I smell like a rotten apple." "You do not. And I think it looks rather nice." He sent her an incredulous look. "I look like an otter. And everything I put my head against gets greasy." "That's why someone invented the antimacassar," she told him, almost smiling. "The-aha!" He laughed as he made the connection. "Of course. First they invent something stupid, then something ugly to make up for it. We live in a wondrous age, Annie.

You have a spine of steel and fire in your eyes, Rosalie. To have such a quality, one must be shaken to the foundation of one’s soul and put back together. I want to know how you emerged from hell made of steel and fire.

You make me burn with life, and yearn to set aside my cold and distant, solitary ways.

What if you should forget yourself in the excitement and just peddle straight through the park and out the other end?’ she warns. ‘If you keep your feet on the pedals and don’t stop, where might you end up?’ The idea appeals to Maud more than she can say. She doesn’t want to know where she may ‘end up’.

I am fascinated by history and particularly the Victorian era.

Confound it! It's just because nobody does anything that things have come to this pass!

Abigail had no interest in the dolls themselves. Only in what she could keep from them.

All the carriages filed out in single file but in a fashion that seemed to mean that they were competing against each other. The only sound that could be heard for a while was the pounding of the horses’ hooves and the squeal and groan of the wheels against the road. Their hooves kicked up dirt, creating a storm of dust. Once the miniature storm and the sound of galloping horses subsided, I could only see one last person. He glared up at me and mouthed, “Next time.” Christopher dug his boots into Dawn’s muscled flank. She reared up and broke into a gallop through the sparse forest, heading for escape. The last trace of them was the particles of floating dust, bright like floating fire.

An unhappy woman with access to weed killer had to be watched carefully.

But the loneliness of her life had developed in her a sensitiveness which could not endure situations such as the present; difficulties which are of small account to people who take their part in active social life, harassed her to the destruction of all peace.

...and yet, the only thing about this year, he thinks, the only times that he has been completely honest with himself are on the nights he's spent here. Only among the crowd of the failed has he felt comfortable living inside his own defeat.

As a general rule, political talk appears to me to be of all talk the most dreary and the most profitless.

But she had learnt, in those solemn hours of thought, that she herself must one day answer for her own life, and what she had done with it; and she tried to settle that most difficult problem, how much was to be utterly merged in obedience to authority, and how much might be set apart for freedom in working.

But what if Oscar—” “Breathes fire and threatens to cook you over a grill?” “I was thinking what if he gets mad, but I think your way works as well.” “Then you shall make for a tasty meal.

Firstly, Inspector,” Miss Trent interrupted. “The safety of the Society’s members is paramount to me. Secondly, I have the utmost trust in Lady Owston and Mr Locke. They would’ve intervened had Miss Webster not returned when expected. Therefore, your accusations are without foundation. They are also symptomatic of your categorical hatred of the Bow Street Society, and of what we are trying to do.” “Which is what, exactly?” “Ensuring justice is served for those who ask for it.” “And putting your members’ lives at risk in the process!” “Enough, Inspector!” Miss Trent stood and glared down at him. In a heartbeat, he, too, was on his feet. Towering over her five feet seven inches with his six feet four, he bellowed, “You will listen to me, Miss Trent, and you will listen carefully!” Miss Trent put her hand on her hip but remained silent. “If you and your Society insist on facing danger unnecessarily, you will do so under my terms. You will give me a full list of your members so I, and the Metropolitan Police, can stop them from being murdered, attacked, and robbed. Try to justify what you do as much as you like, Miss Trent, but, at the end of the day, you are all just bloody civilians playing at a copper’s game!” “And yet, we are the ones people look to when the police refuse to help them,” Miss Trent retorted as she stepped closer to the desk. Leaning forward, so their faces were mere inches apart, she went on, “Not every case we investigate is a crime, Inspector, and our clients expect discretion with the confidences they grant us.

Dickens' London was a place of the mind, but it was also a real place. Much of what we take today to be the marvellous imaginings of a visionary novelist turn out on inspection to be the reportage of a great observer.

Erano morbide e piene, le labbra di James. Sapevano di un che di dolciastro, che ben si sposava con il sapore salato delle labbra di Sebastian, rese tali dalle lacrime che non aveva saputo trattenere nella sua corsa disperata fino al fiume. Aveva baciato tante ragazze nella sua giovane vita, a Oxford o appartandosi durante ricevimenti che i Moran tenevano regolarmente. Ma baciare il suo migliore amico fu qualcosa di sorprendentemente diverso.

Father has taught me that when something is lost, whether dear or not, giving up the search is sometimes best and often enough the lost article finds its owner.

Go find your own hiding spot!” I hissed. “The seat is not wide enough to hold me and that whale you call a nightgown.” Also, we were better off if whoever was coming caught one of us – and by one of us, I meant Rose.

For reasons I have yet to define, Signor Arpelli stood out from his colleagues. The curled brim of his hat, perhaps. A certain mingling of gravity and levity- I thought the masks of Janus had merged in his eyes.

Ho amato nella mia vita solo una volta, ho amato Rose da quando ho incontrato il suo sguardo battagliero e triste, e sapevo che non sarei stato il principe delle fiabe, eppure ho varcato il limite imposto dalle regole della nostra dimensione. Sono diventato io il suo cavaliere, un cavaliere povero, ma che avrebbe sacrificato se stesso come il Re aveva già fatto…

Has anyone been corrupted or defiled?" "Since the age of twelve," West said. "I wasn't asking you, I was asking the girls." "Not yet," Cassandra replied cheerfully.

Hello, Bow Street Society, Miss Rebecca Trent, Society clerk speaking.

Honour looked so much like a child herself, confined to bed, a white nightgown, like one of those maudlin Victorian dolls. Her cheeks were red, like someone had painted them, but I knew it was from rubbing, wiping away her melancholy.