The Moon and SixpenceGeorge H. Doran Company, 1919 - 314 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
absinthe answer artist asked Avenue de Clichy beauty Blanche Stroeve Captain Nichols Chapter Charles Strickland cocoa-nut Colonel MacAndrew colour concierge copra Coutras cried damned daugh dinner Dirk Stroeve door El Greco emotion excited eyes face fancy feel felt fool francs friends gave girl give gone hands hated heard heart hesitated husband imagine island knew land laugh looked married Marseilles mind native never night painter painting Papeete pareo Paris passion Paumotus perhaps played poor red beard remember Richard Twining round seemed seen seized shoulders shrugged silent sitting smile someone sometimes soul speak strange streets Strick Strickland lived Stroeve's studio suddenly suppose sympathy Tahiti talk tell there's thing thought Tiaré tion told took Tough Bill turned uncon voice walked wife woman women wondered word
Popular passages
Page 214 - Each one of us is alone in the world. He is shut in a tower of brass, and can communicate with his fellows only by signs, and the signs have no common value, so that their sense is vague and uncertain. We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them.
Page 260 - Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs. Here is the home he sought, and he will settle amid scenes that he has never seen before, among men he has never known, as though they were familiar to him from his birth. Here at last he finds rest.
Page 79 - PEOPLE say they do not care what others think of them, for the most part they deceive themselves. Generally they mean only that they will do as they choose, in the confidence that no one will know their vagaries; and at the utmost only that they are willing to act contrary to the opinion of the majority because they are supported by the approval of their neighbours. It is not difficult to be unconventional in the eyes of the world when your unconventionality is but the convention of your set.
Page 205 - Because women can do nothing except love, they've given it a ridiculous importance. They want to persuade us that it's the whole of life. It's an insignificant part, (I know lust. That's normal and healthy.) Love is a disease.
Page 15 - I forget who it was that recommended men for their soul's good to do each day two things they disliked ... it is a precept that I have followed scrupulously; for every day I have got up and I have gone to bed.
Page 7 - It is still possible to discuss his place in art, and the adulation of his admirers is perhaps no less capricious than the disparagement of his detractors; but one thing can never be doubtful, and that is that he had genius. To my mind the most interesting thing in art is the personality of the artist; and if that is singular, I am willing to excuse a thousand faults.
Page 7 - CONFESS that when first I made acquaintance with Charles Strickland I never for a moment discerned that there was in him anything out of the ordinary. Yet now few will be found to deny his greatness. I do not speak of that greatness which is achieved by the fortunate politician or the successful soldier; that is a quality which belongs to...
Page 80 - ... of its master to crush any half-formed desire to break away from the herd. It will force him to place the good of society before his own. It is the very strong link that attaches the individual to the whole. And man, subservient to interests he has persuaded himself are greater than his own, makes himself a slave to his taskmaster.
Page 224 - his real life consisted of dreams and of tremendously hard work.' But where are the dreams? Strickland gives no hint of them; the young man makes no attempt to divine them. 'He asked nothing from his fellows except that they should leave him alone. He was single-hearted in his aim, and to pursue it he was willing to sacrifice not only himself - many can do that - but others . . . ' But what does the sacrifice matter if you do not care a rap whether the creature on the altar is a little horned ram...
Page 106 - Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul. And when he has made it, it is not given to all to know it.