Perspectives on Ideas March 11, 2007

Character (Continued)
439 In physical endurance and contentment he was cousin to the pine and the rock. Thoreau, Walden.

6 …but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking, a little wistfully, for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.

48 [Gatsby’s smile] …understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.

58 The bored haughty face that she turned to the world concealed something…. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.

81 A phrase began to beat in my ears…: There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.

137 Generally, he [Wilson] was one of those worn-out men: when he wasn’t working, he sat on a chair in the doorway and stared at the people and the cars that passed along the road. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.

180 They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made… Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.

27 What vain weather-cocks we are! E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

47 [Joseph, the servant] He was, and is yet most likely, the wearisomest self-righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses to his neighbors. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

57 Don’t be afraid, it is but a boy—yet the villain scowls so plainly in his face; would it not be a kindness to the country to hang him at once, before he shows his nature in acts as well as features? E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

80 Then personal appearance sympathized with mental deterioration: he acquired a slouching gait, and ignoble look; his naturally reserved disposition was exaggerated into an almost idiotic excess of unsociable moroseness; and he took a grim pleasure, apparently, in exciting the aversion rather than the esteem of his few acquaintances. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

114 Heathcliff, three years later…a half-civilized ferocity lurked yet in the depressed brows and eyes full of black fire, but it was subdued; and his manner was even dignified: quite divested of roughness, though too stern for grace. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

116 Catherine: He [Edgar] always contrives to be sick, at the least cross! E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

122 Pray, don’t imagine that he [Heathcliff] conceals depths of benevolence and affection beneath a stern exterior…not a rough diamond—a pear-containing oyster of rustic: he’s a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man…he’d crush you like a sparrow’s egg, Isabella, if he found you a troublesome charge…that’s my picture” and I’m his friend…. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

135 Your bliss lies, like his, in inflicting misery. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

137 Your presence is a moral poison that would contaminate the most virtuous. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

141 …but I believed a person who could plan the turning of her fits of passion to account, beforehand, might, by exerting her will, manage to control herself tolerably, even while under their influence…. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

182 Heathcliff: …and I’ve sometimes relented, from pure lack of invention, in my experiments on what she [Isabella1] could endure, and still creep shamefully cringing back. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

23 He died true to his character: drunk as a lord. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

325 Heathcliff: It’s odd what a savage feeling I have to anything that seems afraid of me. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

346 She seemed to have made up her mind to enter into the spirit of her future family, and draw pleasure from the griefs of her enemies. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

374 He’s [Hareton] just like a dog…or a cart horse…does his work, eats his food, and sleeps eternally…what a blank, dreary mind he must have! E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.