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40b0b04
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Higher than the beasts, lower than the angels, stuck in our idiot Eden.
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Ford Madox Ford |
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b598b0b
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I know nothing - nothing in the world - of the hearts of men. I only know that I am alone - horribly alone.
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loneliness
people
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Ford Madox Ford |
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0144e5c
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You seduced a young woman in order to be able to finish your talks with her. You could not do that without living with her. You could not live with her without seducing her; but that was the by-product. The point is that you can't otherwise talk. You can't finish talks at street corners; in museums; even in drawing-rooms. You mayn't be in the mood when she is in the mood - for the intimate conversation that means the final communion of your..
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Ford Madox Ford |
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8a53700
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The world is full of places to which I want to return
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Ford Madox Ford |
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49db324
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It was an odd friendship, but the oddnesses of friendships are a frequent guarantee of their lasting texture.
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Ford Madox Ford |
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8807cd0
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There is no man who loves a woman that does not desire to come to her for the renewal of his courage, for the cutting asunder of his difficulties. And that will be the mainspring of his desire for her. We are all so afraid, we are all so alone, we all so need from the outside the assurance of our own worthiness to exist.
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Ford Madox Ford |
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7d445be
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Why can't people have what they want? The things were all there to content everybody; yet everybody has the wrong thing.
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Ford Madox Ford |
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c6ca8ea
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He wouldn't write a letter because he couldn't without beginning it 'Dear Sylvia' and ending it 'Yours sincerely' or 'truly' or 'affectionately.' He's that sort of precise imbecile. I tell you he's so formal he can't do without all the conventions there are and so truthful he can't use half of them.
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manners
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Ford Madox Ford |
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d2b4fe3
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If for nine years I have possessed a goodly apple that is rotten at the core and discover its rottenness only in nine years and six months less four days, isn't it true to say that for nine years I possessed a goodly apple?
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Ford Madox Ford |
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3c5f5bb
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But the real fierceness of desire, the real heat of a passion long continued and withering up the soul of a man, is the craving for identity with the woman that he loves. He desires to see with the same eyes, to touch with the same sense of touch, to hear with the same ears, to lose his identity, to be enveloped, to be supported. For, whatever may be said of the relation of the sexes, there is no man who loves a woman that does not desire t..
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Ford Madox Ford |
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209a4fa
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But responsibility hardens the heart. It must.
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Ford Madox Ford |
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74676b1
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she had always known under her mind and now she confessed it: her agony had been, half of it, because one day he would say farewell to her, like that, with the inflexion of a verb. As, just occasionally, using the word 'we' - and perhaps without intention - he had let her know that he loved her.
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Ford Madox Ford |
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ab764b3
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We are all so afraid, we are all so alone, we all so need from the outside the assurance of our own worthiness to exist.
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Ford Madox Ford |
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154c075
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So I shall just imagine myself for a fortnight or so at one side of the fireplace of a country cottage, with a sympathetic soul opposite me. And I shall go on talking, in a low voice while the sea sounds in the distance and overhead the great black flood of wind polishes the bright stars.
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Ford Madox Ford |
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85f4f46
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The war had made a man of him! It had coarsened him and hardened him. There was no other way to look at it. It had made him reach a point at which he would no longer stand unbearable things.
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Ford Madox Ford |
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9b2beb9
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Upon my soul!' Tietjens said to himself, 'that girl down there is the only intelligent living soul I've met for years.' A little pronounced in manner sometimes; faulty in reasoning naturally, but quite intelligent, with a touch of wrong accent now and then. But if she was wanted anywhere, there she'd be! Of good stock, of course: on both sides! But positively, she and Sylvia were the only two human beings he had met for years whom he could ..
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women
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Ford Madox Ford |
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e037972
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It is not merely that people must die and people must suffer, if not here, then there. But what is dreadful is that the world goes on and people go on being stupidly cruel - in the old ways and all the time.
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Ford Madox Ford |
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f136135
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In every man there are two minds that work side by side, the one checking the other; thus emotion stands against reason, intellect corrects passion and first impressions act a little, but very little, before quick reflection.
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man
passion
reason
rational
impression
irrational
reflection
intellect
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Ford Madox Ford |
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249eb0d
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W]e are almost always in one place with our minds somewhere quite other.
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Ford Madox Ford |
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dde956a
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If you hunch your shoulders too long against a storm your shoulders will grow bowed....
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Ford Madox Ford |
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fb8b412
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You have to wait together - for a week, for a year, for a lifetime, before the final intimate conversation may be attained ... and exhausted. So that ... That in effect was love.
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love
tietjens
intimate
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Ford Madox Ford |
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5cb790f
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Yes, a war is inevitable. Firstly, there's you fellows who can't be trusted. And then there's the multitude who mean to have bathrooms and white enamel. Millions of them; all over the world. Not merely here. And there aren't enough bathrooms and white enamel in the world to go round.
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war
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Ford Madox Ford |
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683b44b
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The instances of honesty that one comes across in this world are just as amazing as the instances of dishonesty. After forty-five years of mixing with one's kind, one ought to have acquired the habit of being able to know something about one's fellow beings. But one doesn't
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Ford Madox Ford |
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575ac24
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Men, at any rate, never fulfilled expectations. They might, upon acquaintance, turn out more entertaining than they appeared; but almost always taking up with a man was like reading a book you had read when you had forgotten that you had read it. You had not been for ten minutes in any sort of intimacy with any man before you had said: "But I've read all this before..." You knew the opening, you were already bored by the middle, and, especi..
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Ford Madox Ford |
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934a1e4
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Mind, I am not preaching anything contrary to accepted morality. I am not advocating free love in this or any other case. Society must go on, I suppose, and society can only exist if the normal, if the virtuous, and the slightly deceitful flourish, and if the passionate, the headstrong, and the too-truthful are condemned to suicide and madness.
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Ford Madox Ford |
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2317436
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He thought he suddenly understood. For the Lincon-shire sergeant-major the word Peace meant that a man could stand up on a hill. For him it meant someone to talk to.
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tietjens
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Ford Madox Ford |
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b7bccd9
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With each new woman that a man is attracted to there appears to come a broadening of the outlook, or, if you like, an acquiring of new territory. A turn of the eyebrow, a tone of the voice, a queer characteristic gesture--all these things, and it is these things that cause to arise the passion of love.
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Ford Madox Ford |
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4b9a50e
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And it was a most remarkable, a most moving glance, as if for a moment a lighthouse had looked at me.
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Ford Madox Ford |
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195a14f
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You see in such a world as this, an idealist -or perhaps it's only a sentimentalist-must be stoned to death. He makes the others so uncomfortable. He haunts them at their golf.
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Ford Madox Ford |
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5363a7d
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That's all right! That's all right!' But for a minute or two it wasn't really. All feminine claws, he said to himself, are sheathed in velvet; but they can hurt a good deal if they touch you on the sore places of the defects of your qualities - even merely with the velvet. He added: 'Your mother works you very hard.
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woman-s-strength
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Ford Madox Ford |
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099f9b7
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Isn't there any heaven where old beautiful dances, old beautiful intimacies prolong themselves?
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Ford Madox Ford |
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ead59f4
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He was a successful general because he knew men. He knew that all men will go to hell over three things: alcohol, money . . . and sex. This fellow apparently hadn't. Better for him if he had!
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tietjens
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Ford Madox Ford |
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aa6d870
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He was grotesque, really. But joy radiated from his homespuns when you walked beside him. It welled out; it enveloped you.
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tietjens
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Ford Madox Ford |
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c9aa620
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What did you do on Armistice Night? My beloved is mine and I am his!
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tietjens
valentine-wannop
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Ford Madox Ford |
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dcb929f
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She was certainly now obsessing him! Beyond bearing or belief. His whole being was overwhelmed by her... by her mentality, really. For of course the physical resemblance of the lance-corporal was mere subterfuge. Lance-corporals do not resemble young ladies.
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Ford Madox Ford |
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fad1822
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Damn it all, it's the first duty of a soldier - it's the first duty of all Englishmen - to be able to tell a good lie in answer to a charge.
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Ford Madox Ford |
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e98c3e1
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The room where they were dancing was very dark.... It was queer to be in his arms.... She had known better dancers.... He had looked ill.... Perhaps he was.... Oh, poor Valentine-Elisabeth.... What a funny position!.... The good gramophone played.... .... You see, father! ... In his arms! Of course, dancing is not really.... But so near the real thing! So near!... 'Good luck to the special intention!...' She had almost kissed him on the li..
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tietjens
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Ford Madox Ford |
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be37bc0
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Well she was bright; and she danced...And my function in life was to keep that bright thing in existence. And it was almost as difficult as trying to catch with your hand that dancing reflection. And the task lasted for years.
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women-and-men
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Ford Madox Ford |
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fc2a942
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This, Tietjens thought, is England! A man and a maid walk through Kentish grass fields: the grass ripe for the scythe. The man honourable, clean, upright; the maid virtuous, clean, vigorous; he of good birth; she of birth quite as good; each filled with a too good breakfast that each could yet capably digest. Each come just from an admirably appointed establishment: a table surrounded by the best people, their promenade sanctioned, as it we..
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Ford Madox Ford |
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26fc77e
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This is the saddest story I have ever heard.
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Ford Madox Ford |
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4048cb1
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Well, then, he ought to write her a letter. He ought to say: 'This is to tell you that I propose to live with you as soon as this show is over. You will be prepared immediately on cessation of active hostilities to put yourself at my disposal; please. Signed, Xtopher Tietjens, Acting O.C. 9th Glams. A proper military communication.
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romantic
tietjens
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Ford Madox Ford |
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de83414
|
If he had uttered the word "come" she would have followed him to the bitter ends of the earth; if he had said, "There is no hope," she would have known the finality of despair."
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Ford Madox Ford |
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7fc4a6a
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Father Consett sighed. 'I told you this was an evil place,' he said. 'In the deep forests. She'd not have such evil thoughts in another place.' Mrs Satterthwaite said: 'I'd rather you didn't say that, Father. Sylvia would have evil thoughts in any place.' 'Sometimes,' the priest said, 'at night I think I hear the claws of evil things scratching on the shutters. This was the last place in Europe to be Christianised. Perhaps it wasn't ever ev..
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Ford Madox Ford |
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36cfb63
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He was in a beastly hole. But decency demanded that he shouldn't act in panic. He had a mechanical, normal panic that made him divest himself of money. Gentlemen don't earn money. Gentlemen, as a matter of fact, don't do anything. They exist. Perfuming the air like Madonna lilies. Money comes into them as air through petals and foliage. Thus the world is made better and brighter. And, of course, thus political life can be kept clean!... So ..
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tietjens
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Ford Madox Ford |