"Dubliners" Quotes
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A collection of fifteen short stories that provide glimpses into the lives of ordinary people in early 20th century Dublin.
classics | Published in 1996
Quotes
He had never been in Corless's but he knew the value of the name. He knew that people went there after the theatre to eat oysters and drink liqueurs; and he had heard that the waiters there spoke French and German. Walking swiftly by at night he had seen cabs drawn up before the door and richly dressed ladies, escorted by cavaliers, alight and enter quickly.
And here he was now, years afterwards, turning up his cuffs and looking at the buttocks of a horse
He was indifferent to all affectionate propositions from his mother.
His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.
It was a nun they say invented barbed wire.
The higher power seemed to have called him for a special mission.
He became the prisoner of his own profession: he was still a prisoner. The nets of public favour had caught him in their folds.
He had never been in Corless's but he knew the value of the name. He knew that people went there after the theatre to eat oysters and drink liqueurs; and he had heard that the waiters there spoke French and German. Walking swiftly by at night he had seen cabs drawn up before the door and richly dressed ladies, escorted by cavaliers, alight and enter quickly. They wore noisy dresses and many wraps. Their faces were powdered and they caught up their dresses, when they touched earth, like alarmed Atalantas. He had always passed without turning his head to look. It was his habit to walk swiftly in the street even by day and whenever he found himself in the city late at night he hurried on his pace. The glare of publicity shrank from confronting his exaltation. In the vague pupillage of his impressions the misty, formative influences of the place which he had tried to depict closed round him again and he heard their reproachful monotone.
The boarding school was conducted on traditional lines.
But perhaps the priest would not come. Miss Devlin had said that she would come in the evening. Then he would be alone in the chapel. His heart trembled; his breath came faster and a wild spirit passed over his limbs as though he was soaring sunward. His heart trembled in an ecstasy of fear and his soul swooned softly as he heard the priest approaching.
