Commonplace Book

'"Claverley, I don't know what to make of that young man," she began; "it seems to me that he is very nervous and excitable, and talks a great deal of nonsense."

"Believe me, my dear Henrietta," Lord Claverley replied, "it is the fashion - quite the rage, in fact - nowadays to talk nonsense; and all the clever people of today are nervous, and what is called highly strung."

"They'd be strung still higher if I had my way," said her ladyship grimly.'

from Kate of Kate Hall by Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler and Alfred Laurence Felkin (Chapter XXI)

Memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini (1728)

These memoirs are justifiably famous for their braggadocio. Cellini was, to all accounts, an amazing sculptor and metalworker with an era-eclipsing depth of style and capability, to which he was not afraid to own up! From his earliest days trying to evade his father's wish for him to be a musician (and being brilliant at it; the music and the evasion) he takes us onward into his in-depth relationships with various Italian noblemen; these are essentially the same warlike dukes, popes and princes of which Machiavelli spoke. Cellini describes himself being offered commissions, diddled out of payment, betrayed by rivals, adored by the influential when the works are finally displayed. The works themselves he describes in some detail - it would be very interesting to find out how many of them are still extant. He also describes with great assiduity many of his personal relationships, from the innumerable apprentices who were either grateful fine young men or mean, lazy dolts, to the various nobles and fellow-artists who either betrayed him evilly or were loyal and kind supporters. Added to this toward the middle of the book are several instances where trouble came gold-plated; word-fights which led to fist-fights which led to knife-fights which led to deaths. He is quite open about the facts. And this leads me to one main question: this book is always celebrated as the work of a braggart, with wild exaggeration and delusive avoidance-skills well in use. But what might be more interesting is not how much of this is false, but how much is true? The one, it seems to me, seems to outdazzle the other. There are many quieter sequences here where I wouldn't be at all surprised to discover that he was sailing very close to the truth. This was written from 1558 to 1566 and then apparently went the rounds of renaissance libraries and scholars in manuscript form for a couple of centuries. It was finally published in a defective edition in 1728 from a copy of the manuscript. The real thing was rescued from an antique-dealer's shop subsequently and truer editions resulted. Whatever its faults, a deeply involving and fascinating glimpse into an artist's life in those times.

Commonplace Book

'"...To my mind the very expression, 'a happy marriage,' is a contradiction in terms. You might just as well talk about a square circle or a flat mountain or a sensible man."'

from Kate of Kate Hall by Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler and Alfred Laurence Felkin (Chapter XIV)

Commonplace Book

'...There are people who can keep the facts that front them absent from their contemplation by not framing them in speech; and much benevolence of the passive order may be traced to a disinclination to inflict pain upon oneself...'

from Sandra Belloni by George Meredith (Chapter XLII)

Commonplace Book

'...At this Kate would fiercely remark that she hated men, and she would like to see the man whom she would swear to honour and obey. With a mournful shake of her head, Lady Dunbar agreed with her; men were by no means better than they should be; it was no doubt a ridiculous thing to put such a word as obey in the marriage service; no nice man would ever expect such a thing from his wife; still Kate was no doubt right in thinking that husbands as a rule were queer creatures, and the less a girl had to do with them the better.'

from Kate of Kate Hall by Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler and Alfred Laurence Felkin (Chapter XII)

Commonplace Book

'Kate walked to the door, her head in the air. "Nothing will induce me to marry, so I tell you so once for all. I hate men, and I'm not going to have one always dangling from my chatelaine to please anybody."

"Tut, tut, my dear, you are endowed with the capacity of making any man supremely miserable. It is a pity that so much talent should be wasted."'

from Kate of Kate Hall by Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler and Alfred Laurence Felkin (Chapter VIII)

Commonplace Book

'...she was not yet old enough to have discovered that a man's eye rather than his tongue points out the way which his heart will probably take. When a man talks to one woman and looks at another, the former need not trouble herself to scintillate: for she may rest assured that her most brilliant remarks are irretrievably foredoomed to oblivion.'

from Kate of Kate Hall by Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler and Alfred Laurence Felkin (Chapter VI)