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12dbab7
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He saw things in a way that others did not, so that a city I had lived in all my life seemed a different place, so that a woman became beautiful with the light on her face.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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c1e1357
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You're so calm and quiet, you never say. But there are things inside you. I see them sometimes, hiding in your eyes.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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7ecd269
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Yes, well, life is a folly. If you live long enough, nothing is surprising.
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sweet-valley
teenagers
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Tracy Chevalier |
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558599d
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I had walked along that street all my life, but had never been so aware that my back was to my home
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Tracy Chevalier |
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6de5c72
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Over his shoulder I saw a star fall. It was me.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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fe8b4b1
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We say very little, for we do not need to. We are silent together, each in her own world, knowing the other is just at her back.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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fc3df20
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I wanted to wear the mantle and the pearls. I wanted to know the man who painted her like that.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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0c45292
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I have spent my life waiting for something to happen,' she said. 'And I have come to understand that nothing will. Or it already has, and I blinked during that moment and it's gone. I don't know which is worse -- to have missed it or to know there is nothing to miss.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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1a90450
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He spoke her name as though he held cinnamon in his mouth.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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047724d
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I heard voices outside our front door - a woman's, bright as polished brass, and a man's, low and dark like the wood of the table I was working on. They were the kind of voices we heard rarely in our house. I could hear rich carpets in their voices, books and pearls and fur.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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9d3a9f0
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I could not think of anything but his fingers on my neck, his thumb on my lips.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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fd699c8
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It was not a house where secrets could be kept easily.
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wow
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Tracy Chevalier |
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60028b7
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I have a bed and enough to eat and kind people about me. God is still with me. For these things I am grateful and have no reason to complain
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Tracy Chevalier |
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834ac0b
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My father was often impatient during March, waiting for winter to end, the cold to ease, the sun to reappear. March was an unpredictable month, when it was never clear what might happen. Warm days raised hopes until ice and grey skies shut over the town again.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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5c08edd
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What do you believe, Aunt Elizabeth?' 'I believe. . . I am comfortable with reading the Bible figuratively rather than literally. For instance, I think the six days in Genesis are not literal days, but different periods of creation, so that it took many thousands --- or hundreds of thousands of years --- to create. It does not demean God; it simply gives Him more time to build this extraordinary world.' 'And the ichthyosaurus and plesiosaur..
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Tracy Chevalier |
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1e7c7c7
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I didn't move. I've learned from years of experience that dogs and falcons and ladies come back to you if you stay where you are.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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79f49f5
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There was something different about her, though I could not say exactly what it was. It was as if she were more certain. If someone were sketching her they would use clear, strong lines, whereas before they might have used faint marks and more shading. She was like a fossil that's been cleaned and set so everyone can see what it is.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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767136d
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There followed a time when everything was dull. The things that had meant something lost importance, though they were still there, like bruises on the body that fade to hard lumps under the skin.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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8681571
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You know I don't listen to market gossip," she began, "but it is hard not to hear it when my daughter's name is mentioned."
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Tracy Chevalier |
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86898eb
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He had decided to trust me.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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d9d64f7
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I did not mind the cold so much when he was there.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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533ae1a
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I never said I didn't want to marry. It just didn't happen-Iam not the sort of lady a man chooses to marry, for I am too plain and too serious. Now I am reconciled to being on my own.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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affce9c
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I find that when I come out of the library I'm in what I call the library bliss of being totally taken away from the distractions of life.
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libraries
reading
distractions
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Tracy Chevalier |
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9d8398d
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Pieter would be pleased with the rest of the coins, the debt now settled. I would not have cost him anything. A maid came free.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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6c95463
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I slowed my pace. Years of hauling water, wringing out clothes, scrubbing floors, emptying chamber pots, with no chance of beauty or color or light in my life, stretched before me like a landscape of flat land where, a long way off, the sea is visible but can never be reached.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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6c5d3d5
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I had always thought of the sea as a boundary keeping me in my place on land. Now, though, it became an opening.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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d3fe7fc
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At first I could not meet his eyes. When I did it was like sitting close to a fire that suddenly blazes up.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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a96338f
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Lick your lips, Griet." I licked my lips. "Leave your mouth open." I was so surprised by this request that my mouth remained open of its own will. I blinked back tears. Virtuous women did not open their mouths in paintings."
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Tracy Chevalier |
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aea03ff
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There is a difference between Catholic and Protestant attitudes to painting," he explained as he worked, "but it is not necessarily as great as you may think. Paintings may serve a spiritual purpose for Catholics, but remember too that Protestants see God everywhere, in everything. By painting everyday things-tables and chairs, bowls and pitchers, soldiers and maids-are they not celebrating God's creation as well?"
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Tracy Chevalier |
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09158de
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have noticed that people do not change which feature they lead with, any more than they change in character.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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bd49ed0
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Warp threads are thicker than the weft, and made of a coarser wool as well. I think of them as like wives. Their work is not obvious - all you can see are the ridges they make under the colorful weft threads. But if they weren't there, there would be no tapestry. Georges would unravel without me.
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weaving
tapestry
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Tracy Chevalier |
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651c4e6
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It is less distracting in the silence," she said. "Sustained silence allows one truly to listen to what is deep inside. We call it waiting in expectation."
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Tracy Chevalier |
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0e15a78
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That's how fossil hunting is: It takes over, like a hunger, and nothing else matters but what you find. And even when you find it, you still start looking again the next minute, because there might be something even better waiting.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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bfda547
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I felt as if my parents had pushed me into the street, that a deal had been made and I was being passed into the hands of a man. At least he is a good man, I thought, even if his hands are not as clean as they could be.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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d133a80
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He made me feel an idiot, even when I knew he was a bigger one than I.
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wisdom
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Tracy Chevalier |
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59a6224
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What made him most attractive was that he was attracted to her. Another's interest can be a powerful stimulant. She could feel his eyes on her as an almost physical pressure.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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3ef4e41
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he was a collector rather than a hunter, buying his knowledge rather than seeking it with his own eyes and hands. I
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Tracy Chevalier |
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eca5f18
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It seemed to me that the baker had an honest response to the painting. Van Ruijven tried too hard when he looked at paintings, with his honeyed words and studied expressions. He was too aware of having an audience to perform for, whereas the baker merely said what he thought.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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274b33d
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I knew I should believe him, as he taught at Oxford, but his answers did not feel complete. It was like having a meal and not getting quite enough to eat.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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2482d7d
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This was the sort of situation that she read about in the novels she favored, by authors such as Miss Jane Austen, whom Margaret was sure she'd met long ago at the Assembly Rooms the first time we visited Lyme. One of Miss Austen's books had even featured Lyme Regis, but I did not read fiction and could not be persuaded to try it. Life itself was far messier and didn't end so tidily with the heroine making the right match. We Philpot sister..
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Tracy Chevalier |
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e67a2dd
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Perhaps thee will best understand what Abigail is like if I tell thee that when she quilts she prefers to stitch in the ditch, hiding her poor stitches in the seams between the blocks.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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7b8afa1
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This is not your land," William Lobb said. "Oh, it is, it is. I got the papers. I can show you, back at the camp." "This is Indian land, if it's anyone's." William Lobb spoke as if he hadn't heard Billie Lapham. "Those Miwoks encamped just south of here - they've been here longer than you. It's theirs, or it's God's land - take your pick."
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native-americans
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Tracy Chevalier |
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0ff5d90
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For myself, it took only the early discovery of a golden ammonite, glittering on the beach between Lyme and Charmouth, for me to succumb to the seductive thrill of finding unexpected treasure.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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23b161d
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Truly to appreciate what fossils are requires a leap of imagination he was not capable of making.
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Tracy Chevalier |