The Collected Works of George Moore: A mummer's wifesubscribers only, 1917 - Painting, Modern |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
able actor afraid answered arms asked asthma Beaumont began begged better Blackpool Blanche D'Antigny brandy Bret Clairette cried dear Dick Dick's doctor Dolly door dream dress drink Dubois eyes face fear feel felt girls hand Hanley Hayes head hear heard heart hope hour husband Kate Kate's kiss knew lady Lancashire landlady laugh Lennox listened live looked lover Marguerite de Navarre Men of Harlech mind Miss Hender Miss Leslie Montgomery morning Mortimer mother mother-in-law mummer never nice night opera opéra bouffe Opéra Comique passed piece play portmanteau pretty woman Ralph remembered replied Rochdale round seemed silence sing smiled speak spoke stage stopped street talk tell theatre there's thing thought to-morrow told took town turned voice waiting walked watched wife woman women wondered words
Popular passages
Page 242 - It was the close intimacy and atmosphere of the day that mattered to them, and they returned to Leamington thinking of the day that had gone by, a day unique in their experience, one that might never return to them. The ways were filled with Sunday strollers — mothers leading a tired child moved steadily forward ; a drunken man staggered over a heap of stones ; sweethearts chased each other ; occasionally a girl, kissed from behind as she stretched, to reach a honeysuckle, rent the airless evening...
Page 38 - The second period of her sentimental education was when she passed from the authors who deal exclusively with knights, princesses, and kings to those who interest themselves in the love fortunes of doctors and curates. Amid these there was one story that interested her in particular, and caused her deeper emotions than the others. It concerned a beautiful young woman with a lovely oval face, who was married to a very tiresome country doctor. This lady was in the habit of reading Byron and Shelley...
Page 330 - She did not know what she wanted of him, but with a longing that was nearly madness she desired to possess him wholly ; she yearned to bury her poor aching body, throbbing with the anguish of nerves, in that peaceful hulk of fat, so calm, so invulnerable to pain, marching amid, and contented in, its sensualities, as a gainly bull grazing amid the pastures of a succulent meadow.
Page 376 - Her rage had now reached its height. Showing her clenched teeth, she foamed at the mouth, the bloodshot eyes protruded from their sockets, and her voice grew more and more harsh and discordant. But, although the excited brain gave strength to the muscles and energy to the will, unarmed she could do nothing against Dick, and suddenly becoming conscious of this she rushed to the fireplace and seized the poker. With one sweep of the arm she cleared the mantelboard, and the mirror came in for a tremendous...
Page 294 - The cry touched the fat mummer through all the years of gross sensuality, through the indigestion of his big dinner, and, struck by the sense of her words, he shuddered, remembering that it was he who was the cause of this outrageous suffering and not the innocent child.
Page 1 - In the pale obscurity of the room, his bearded cheeks could be seen buried in a heap of tossed pillows. By his bedside sat a young woman. As she dozed, her face drooped until her features were hidden, and the lamp-light made the curious curves of a beautiful ear look like a piece of illuminated porcelain.
Page 58 - Hanley to record the industrial environment behind the plot of A Mummer's Wife, he accurately caught the mixed light and shadow: At the bottom of the valley, right before her eyes, the white gables of Bucknell Rectory, hidden amid masses of trees, glittered now and then in an entangled beam that flickered between chimneys, across brick-banked squares of water darkened by brick walls. Behind Bucknell were more desolate plains full of pits, brick, and smoke; and beyond Bucknell an endless tide of hills...
Page 429 - Knot. But after the love-tokens had been put back in the box, and Kate again asked Mrs. Forest to bring Dick to her, she began to ramble in her speech, and to fancy herself in Hanley. The most diverse scenes were heaped together in the complex confusion of Kate's nightmare ; the most opposed ideas were intermingled. At one moment she told the little girls, Annie and Lizzie, of the immorality of the conversations in the dressing-rooms of theatres ; at another she stopped the rehearsal of an opera...
Page 429 - Lizzie, of the immorality 30 \ of the conversations in the dressing-rooms of theatres; at another she stopped the rehearsal of an opera bouffe to preach to the mummers — in phrases that were remembrances of the extemporaneous prayers in the Wesleyan church — of the advantages of an earnest, working, religious life. It was like a costume ball, where chastity grinned from behind a mask that vice was looking for, while vice hid his nakedness in some of the robes that chastity had let fall.
Page ix - To live for five-and-twenty years is as long an immortality as anyone should set his heart on; for who would wish to be chattered about by the people that will live in these islands three hundred years hence?