The fox, he felt, had never seen his past disposed of like a fall of water. He had never measured off his day in moments: another-...-another--another. But now, thrown down so deeply in himself, into the darkness of the well, surprised by pain and hunger, might he not revert to an earlier condition, regain capacities which formerly were useless to him, pass from animal to Henry, become human in his prison, X his days, count, wait, listen for another--another--another--another?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Henry James seems most entirely in his element, doing that is to say what everything favours his doing, when it is a question of r...ecollection. The mellow light which swims over the past, the beauty which suffuses even the commonest little figures of that time, the shadow in which the detail of so many things can be discerned which the glare of day flattens out, the depth, the richness, the calm, the humour of the whole pageant--all this seems to have been his natural atmosphere and his most abiding mood.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Ultimate Day really begins the night before, when you sit up until one o'clock trying to get things into trunk and bags. This ...is when you discover the well-known fact that summer air swells articles to twice or three times their original size.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
He that shall see this day and live old age Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors... And say, "Tomorrow is Saint Crispian."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The life in us is like the water in the river. It may rise this year higher than man has ever known it, and flood the parched upla...nds; even this may be the eventful year, which will drown out all our muskrats. It was not always dry land where we dwell. I see far inland the banks which the stream anciently washed, before science began to record its freshets. Every one has heard the story which has gone the rounds of New England, of a strong and beautiful bug which came out of the dry leaf of an old table of apple-tree wood, which had stood in a farmer's kitchen for sixty years, first in Connecticut, and afterward in Massachusetts,--from an egg deposited in the living tree many years earlier still, as appeared by counting the annual layers beyond it; which was heard gnawing out for several weeks, hatched perchance by the heat of an urn. Who does not feel his faith in a resurrection and immortality strengthened by hearing of this? Who knows what beautiful and winged life, whose egg has been buried for ages under many concentric layers of woodenness in the dead dry life of society, deposited at first in the alburnum of the green and living tree, which has been gradually converted into the semblance of its well-seasoned tomb,--heard perchance gnawing out now for years by the astonished family of man, as they sat round the festal board,--may unexpectedly come forth from amidst society's most trivial and handselled furniture, to enjoy its perfect summer life at last! I do not say that John or Jonathan will realize all this; but such is the character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to dawn. The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Benjamin: Are you always this much afraid of being alone? Mrs. Robinson: Yes.... Benjamin: Well, why can't you just lock the doors and go to bed? Mrs. Robinson: I'm very neurotic.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Benjamin: Do you think I'm proud of myself? Do you think I'm proud of this? Mrs. Robinson: I wouldn't know.... Benjamin: Well, I'm not. Mrs. Robinson: You're not? Benjamin: No, sir. I'm not proud that I spend my time with a broken-down alcoholic.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Mr. Maguire: I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Benjamin: Yes, sir.... Mr. Maguire: Are you listening? Benjamin: Yes, I am. Mr. Maguire: Plastics.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Mrs. Robinson: Do you find me undesirable? Benjamin: Oh, no, Mrs. Robinson. I think you're the most attractive of all my pare...nts' friends.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »