textualjealousy-blog

[textualjealousy-blog]

But we must remember that James was one of Nature's bachelors. And no ordinary man, looking forward dreamily to a little home of his own with a loving wife putting out his slippers and changing the gramophone record, can realize the intensity of the instinct for self-preservation which animates Nature's bachelors in times of peril. James Rodman had a congenital horror of matrimony. Though a young man, he had allowed himself to develop a great many habits which were as the breath of life to him; and these habits, he knew instinctively, a wife would shoot to pieces within a week of the end of the honeymoon. James like to breakfast in bed; and, having breakfasted, to smoke in bed and knock the ashes out on the carpet. What wife would tolerate this practice? James liked to pass his days in a tennis shirt, grey flannel trousers and slippers. What wife ever rests until she has inclosed her husband in a stiff collar, tight boots and a morning suit and taken him with her to thés musicales?

P.G. Wodehouse, Honeysuckle Cottage (1925)

[textualjealousy-blog]

It was a youth seemingly scarce eighteen, the perfection of whose form and face were unrivalled. He was perfectly naked: a bright star sparkled upon his forehead, two crimson wings extended themselves from his shoulders, and his silken locks were confined by a band of many-coloured fires, which played round his head, formed themselves into a variety of figures, and shone with a brilliance far surpassing that of precious stones. Circlets of diamonds were fastened round his arms and ankles, and in his right hand he bore a silver branch imitating myrtle. His form shone with dazzling glory: he was surrounded by clouds of rose-coloured light, and, at the moment that he appeared, a refreshing air breathed perfumes through the cavern.

Matthew Gregory Lewis, The Monk (1796)

[textualjealousy-blog]

"Now, this gentleman had a younger brother of still better appearance than himself, who had tried life as a Cornet of Dragoons, and found it a bore; and had afterwards tried it in the train of an English minister abroad, and found it a bore; and had then strolled to Jerusalem, and got bored there; and had then gone yachting about the world, and got bored everywhere."

Charles Dickens, Hard Times (1854)

[textualjealousy-blog]

"Sometimes, when the weather was very hot, and he had exhausted himself with the exertion of smoking his German pipe, and reading French novels, he would stroll into the Temple Gardens, and lying in some shady spot, pale and cool, with his shirt collar turned down and a blue silk handkerchief tied loosely about his neck, would tell grave benchers that he had knocked himself up with overwork."

Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley's Secret (1861-2)

[textualjealousy-blog]

"The chief part in this scene was undoubtedly Mr Christian's, although he had hitherto been comparatively silent; but he occupied two chairs with so much grace, throwing his right leg over the seat of the second, and resting his right hand on the back; he held his cigar and displayed a splendid seal-ring with such becoming nonchalance, and had his grey hair arranged with so much taste, that experienced eyes would at once have seen even the great Scales himself to be but a secondary character."

George Eliot, Felix Holt: The Radical (1866)

[textualjealousy-blog]

He was a pale young man in black, with the air of a gentleman.

Henry James, Sir Edmund Orme (1891)