My Victorian Year #11

This week I continued reading Anthony Trollope's Orley Farm. I also made a strong effort in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. The premise of Crime and Punishment is a dark one. The narrator, our "hero," is a bit mad. He's got a notion in his head of committing murder and seeing if he can get away with it. The crime has been committed now, and I'm just awaiting whatever "punishment" may be coming next. Assuming that the title tells all!

Quotes from Crime and Punishment:

One death to a hundred lives--I mean, there's arithmetic for you! And anyway, what does the life of that horrible, stupid, consumptive old woman count for when weighed in the common balance? No more than the life of a louse, a cockroach, and it's not even worth that, because the old woman is harmful. (80)

To be quite honest, if one goes into all the ins and outs of everyone, are there really going to be all that many good people left? (162)

One can always forgive a man for telling lies; lying's a harmless activity, because it leads to the truth. (163)

"We've got facts," they say. But facts aren't everything: at least half the battle consists in how one makes use of them! (164)

 Quotes from Orley Farm:

Mr. Furnival might feel himself sufficient to secure the acquittal of an innocent person, or even of a guilty person, under ordinary circumstances; but if any man in England could secure the acquittal of a guilty person under extraordinary circumstances, it would be Mr. Chaffanbrass.

Why should I not? Such had been the question which Sir Peregrine Orme had asked himself over and over again, in these latter days, since Lady Mason had been staying at his house; and the purport of the question was this: — Why should he not make Lady Mason his wife?

I and my readers can probably see very many reasons why he should not do so; but then we are not in love with Lady Mason. Her charms and her sorrows, — her soft, sad smile and her more lovely tears have not operated upon us.

Lady Mason was rich with female charms, and she used them partly with the innocence of the dove, but partly also with the wisdom of the serpent.

“You have every right. You shall have every right if you will accept it. Lady Mason, I am an old man, — some would say a very old man. But I am not too old to love you. Can, you accept the love of an old man like me?”

“It shall not be withdrawn. Do not let that feeling actuate you. Answer me out of your heart, and however your heart may answer, remember this, that my friendship and support shall be the same. If you will take me for your husband, as your husband will I stand by you. If you cannot, — then I will stand by you as your father.”

© 2018 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews