This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Let thy west wind sleep on the lake; speak silence with thy glimmering eyes, and wash the dusk with silver.
Maybe in that earlier phase I was painting the woman in me. Art isn't a wholly masculine occupation, you know.
The house to which Phelim and his father directed themselves was, like their own, of the humblest description. The floor of it was about sixteen feet by twelve; its furniture rude and scanty. To the right of the fire was a bed, the four posts of [xii] which ran up to the low roof; it was curtained by straw mats, with the exception of an opening about a foot and a half wide on the side next the fire, through which those who slept in it passed. A little below the foot of the bed were ranged a few shelves of deal, supported by pins of wood driven into the wall. These constituted the dresser. In the lower end of the house stood a potato-bin, made up of stakes driven into the floor, and wrought with strong wicker-work. Tied to another stake beside this bin stood a cow, whose hinder part projected so close to the door, that those who entered the cabin were compelled to push her over out of their way. This, indeed, was effected without much difficulty, for the animal became so habituated to the necessity of moving aside that it was only necessary to lay a hand upon her. Above the door in the inside, almost touching the roof, was the hen-roost, made also of wickerwork; and opposite the bed, on the other side of the fire, stood a meal chest, its lid on a level with the little pane of glass which served as a window. An old straw chair, a few stools, a couple of pots, some wooden vessels and crockery, completed the furniture of the house. The pig to which Sheelah alluded was not kept within the cabin, that filthy custom being now less common than formerly.
Boys | Giving | Humanity | Little | Mind | Will | Woman | Work |
You are all camphire and frankincense, all chastity and odour.
William Bolitho, pen name for Charles William Ryall
Adventure is the vitaminizing element in histories both individual and social.
Impression | Woman |
Wilkie Collins, fully William Wilkie Collins
The woman who first gives life, light, and form to our shadowy conceptions of beauty, fills a void in our spiritual nature that has remained unknown to us till she appeared. Sympathies that lie too deep for words, too deep almost for thoughts, are touched, at such times, by other charms than those which the senses feel and which the resources of expression can realize. The mystery which underlies the beauty of women is never raised above the reach of all expression until it has claimed kindred with the deeper mystery in our own souls.
Wilkie Collins, fully William Wilkie Collins
True remorse depends, to my mind, on a man's accurate knowledge of his own motives.
Contradiction | Time | Woman |
Wilkie Collins, fully William Wilkie Collins
Is it necessary to say what my first impression was when I looked at my visitor's card? Surely not! My sister having married a foreigner, there was but one impression that any man in his senses could possibly feel. Of course the Count had come to borrow money of me. Louis, I said, do you think he would go away if you gave him five shillings?
Wilkie Collins, fully William Wilkie Collins
A woman's courage rises with the greatness of the emergency.
Wilkie Collins, fully William Wilkie Collins
Not the shadow of a doubt crossed my mind of the purpose for which the Count had left the theatre. His escape from us, that evening, was beyond all question the preliminary only to his escape from London. The mark of the Brotherhood was on his arm-I felt as certain of it as if he had shown me the brand; and the betrayal of the Brotherhood was on his conscience-I had seen it in his recognition of Pesca.
Admiration | Enough | Men | Woman |
Wilkie Collins, fully William Wilkie Collins
Women can resist a man's love, a man's fame, a man's personal appearance, and a man's money, but they cannot resist a man's tongue when he knows how to talk to them.
Wilkie Collins, fully William Wilkie Collins
Are there, infinitely varying with each individual, inbred forces of Good and Evil in all of us, deep down below the reach of mortal encouragement and mortal repression -- hidden Good and hidden Evil, both alike at the mercy of the liberating opportunity and the sufficient temptation?
Wilkie Collins, fully William Wilkie Collins
When two members of a family or two intimate friends are separated, and one goes abroad and one remains at home, the return of the relative or friend who has been travelling always seems to place the relative or friend who has been staying at home at a painful disadvantage when the two first meet. The sudden encounter of the new thoughts and new habits eagerly gained in the one case, with the old thoughts and old habits passively preserved in the other, seems at first to part the sympathies of the most loving relatives and the fondest friends, and to set a sudden strangeness, unexpected by both and uncontrollable by both, between them on either side.