Giant’s Bread quotes

The individualist who endures through Stone and Iron and who though civilizations crumble and die, fights his way through yet another Glacial Age to rise in a new civilization of which we do not dream.”

“As I grow older I am more and more convinced that there is nothing so pathetic, so ridiculous, so absurd, and so absolutely wonderful as Man.”

He paused by the doorway, his hand on the knob.

“One wonders,” he said, “what has gone to the making of a thing like the Giant? What produces it? What feeds it?

Heredity shapes the instrument⁠—environment polishes and rounds it off⁠—sex wakens it⁠ ⁠…

But there’s more than that. There’s its food.

There were only three people of real importance in Vernon’s world: Nurse, God and Mr. Green.

There were, of course, the nursemaids. Winnie, the present one, and behind her Jane and Annie and Sarah and Gladys. Those were all the ones that Vernon could remember, but there were lots more.

After Nurse there was God. God was also very real to Vernon mainly because he bulked so largely in Nurse’s conversation. Nurse knew most things that you did, but God knew everything, and God was, if anything, more particular than Nurse.

You couldn’t see God, which, Vernon always felt, gave him rather an unfair advantage over you, because he could see you.

Even in the dark, he could see you. Sometimes when Vernon was in bed at night, the thought of God looking down at him through the darkness used to give him a creepy feeling down the spine.

Nurse had picked up the stitch. She looked at Vernon over the top of her spectacles. She was serene—unruffled.

“It’s not likely,” she remarked, “that the Almighty will take any notice of what a naughty little boy says. Winnie, give me those scissors, if you please.”

Vernon retired crestfallen. It was no good. You couldn’t down Nurse. He might have known.

“Oh! well,” said Nina vaguely.

“There are different ways of being musical.”

Which, Myra thought, was so like the silly sort of thing the Deyre family would say. Either one was musical and played pieces, or one was not. Vernon clearly was not.

“What’s the matter, Master Vernon?”

You must always say “Nothing.” You could never tell. Because, if you did, no one ever knew what you meant⁠ ⁠…

Under the reign of Susan Isabel, the nursery was quite different. You could be, and quite frequently were, naughty. Susan told you not to do things and you did them just the same! Susan would say: “I’ll tell your mother.” But she never did.

Vernon was silent. He had thought the same until a few days ago. But he was beginning to perceive that it was not true. You needn’t do as you were told.

It all depended on who told you.

It was not a question of punishment. He was continually being sat on chairs, stood in the corner, and deprived of sweets by Susan.

“You ran away—which was rather a pity, wasn’t it? It would have been much better to have stayed and looked. Then you’d have seen the men, and would have known just what it was.

It’s always a good thing to look. Then you can run away afterwards if you still want to⁠—but you usually don’t.

And Vernon, I’ll tell you something else.”

“

Things are never so frightening in front of you as they are behind you.

Remember that. Anything seems frightening when it’s behind your back and you can’t see it. That’s why it’s always better to turn and face things—and then very often you find they are nothing at all.”

“Things are never so frightening in front of you as they are behind you. Remember that.

Anything seems frightening when it’s behind your back and you can’t see it.

That’s why it’s always better to turn and face things—and then very often you find they are nothing at all.”

“Why worse luck for me?”

“Because the Deyres, Vernon, are neither happy nor successful. And they can’t make good.”

What funny things Aunt Nina said! She said them half laughingly, so perhaps she didn’t mean them. And yet, somehow, there was something in them that, though he didn’t understand, made him afraid.

There was a faint flicker in Walter Deyre’s eyes, and suddenly Vernon realized something that his mother did not.

He had understood very little of the actual words of the conversation though he had grasped the essentials.

Aunt Nina was ill or unhappy somewhere and Mummy was angry about it. She had said that if Aunt Nina came to Abbots Puissants, she would go back to Uncle Sydney at Birmingham.

And he began to notice a curious phenomenon.

After each scene his mother looked larger and his father looked smaller.

Emotional storms of reproach and invective exhilarated Myra mentally and physically. She emerged from them refreshed, soothed—full of good will towards all the world.

He opened the schoolroom door and went in. Josephine was sitting on the windowsill swinging her legs. She stared at him and Vernon’s attitude of kindly condescension fell from him.

She was a squarely built child of about his own age.

She had dead black hair cut very straight across her forehead. Her jaw stuck out a little in a determined way. She had a very white skin and enormous eyelashes.

She was a squarely built child of about his own age. She had dead black hair cut very straight across her forehead. Her jaw stuck out a little in a determined way.

She had a very white skin and enormous eyelashes.

Although she was two months younger than Vernon, she had the sophistication of twice his years—a kind of mixture of weariness and defiance.

“Hullo,” said Vernon, rather feebly.

They went on looking at each other, suspiciously, as is the manner of children and dogs.

“I suppose you’re my cousin Josephine,” said Vernon.

We stayed at much better hotels with Colonel Anstey, Arthur was very poor. If I ever do get soppy about a man when I grow up, I shall take care that he’s rich. It makes things so much easier.”

“Oh! Father was a devil⁠—Mother said so. He hated us both.”

Joe wrinkled her straight black brows in perplexity.

“I do,” said Joe.

“I want things to be exciting the whole time without ever stopping.”

Joe and Vernon had few other children to play with. The Vicar, whose children Vernon had played with when he was younger, had gone to another living, and his successor was unmarried.

“You think I’m mad? I suppose it must sound like that. But I’m not. And oh! Joe, it’s the most awful relief.

As though you had been pretending for years, and now you needn’t pretend any more.

I’ve been horribly afraid of music—always. Now—”

“Pooh!—I didn’t mean this kind of marriage. Society girl—I know what they are.”

“Sorry, my boy, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. But that kind of girl wants to marry money. You’ll be no use to her for many years to come.”

Vernon paused. He felt ashamed, uncomfortable.

When he had finished, she said:

“You do expect life to be rather a fairy story, don’t you?”

“Just that. You want to be able to live in the house of your forefathers, and to marry the girl you love, and to grow immensely rich, and to be a great composer.

I dare say you might manage to do one of those four things if you give your whole mind to it. But it’s not likely that you’ll have everything, you know.

Life isn’t like a penny novelette.

”

She paused a minute and then said: “

A difficult, dangerous, but endlessly interesting adventure.

”

“What can I do?” said Nell hopelessly.

“Well, you can either marry this other man you were talking of and be reasonably happy, or you can marry Vernon and be actively unhappy with periods of bliss.”

“What would you do?” she whispered.

“You always put me in the wrong,” said Vernon savagely. “Or at any rate you try to.”

“Well, it annoys me to see you put yourself on a pedestal and stand admiring yourself for nothing at all,” said Jane calmly.

“You expect Nell to sacrifice her friends and life to you, but you wouldn’t make your sacrifice for her.”

He thought bitterly, “

There’s always some woman to pull you out of a pit, but nobody will come and keep you company on a mountain peak, and yet you may be damned lonely there.

”

If she and Vernon didn’t really like each other, they concealed the fact quite creditably, and as a matter of fact, had only met once since the marriage. It had all been so easy.

Perhaps, if you had courage, things were always easy. Perhaps that was the great secret of life.

Nell pondered, then waking from her reverie plunged once more into the conversation.

It was a dull unhappy life for Nell. Worried over money, not strong enough to undertake fresh work, nothing to do but sit and brood.

Poverty combined with love in a cottage was one thing. Poverty without love to soften it was another.

Sometimes Nell wondered how she was ever going to get through a life that stretched drear and bleak ahead of her. She couldn’t bear things. She simply couldn’t.

Jane, however, did not seem aware of bad luck. She was sprawling back on the sofa in an attitude of easy unconcern, looking round the room with keen appreciation.

“Hullo, Nell,” she said. “Well, you seem to have dug yourself in pretty comfortably.”

It was an outrageous remark. Nell stiffened. She couldn’t think for a moment of what to say. She met Jane’s eyes which were full of a mocking maliciousness. They shook hands and Nell said at the same time, “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I know. Everything turns out for the best. They tell you so when you’re a child and later you find it out for yourself. God does know best.”

“What do you know about God, Nell Chetwynd?”

There was savagery in the question that brought Nell’s eyes to Jane in astonishment. She looked menacing—fiercely accusing. The gentleness of a minute ago was gone.

She paused and then said quietly: “I’ll go now. I shouldn’t have come. But I wanted to see Vernon’s home. I apologize for what I’ve said.

But you’re so damned smug, Nell.

You don’t know it, but you are. Smug—that’s the word. Life to you means yourself and yourself only. What about Vernon? Was it best for him? Do you think he wanted to die right at the beginning of everything he cared for?”

“I wasn’t thinking of his happiness. I was thinking of his music. You and Abbots Puissants—what do you matter? Vernon had genius. That’s the wrong way of putting it—he belonged to his genius.

And genius is the hardest master there is⁠—everything has got to be sacrificed to it.

Your trumpery happiness, even, would have had to go if it stood in the way. Genius has got to be served. Music wanted Vernon—and he’s dead. That’s the crying shame, the thing that matters, the thing you never even consider.

“Don’t worry, Nell. You’re much the strongest of us all.

Protective colouring! I told Sebastian so long ago, and I was right. You’ll endure when we’ve all perished.

Goodbye. I’m sorry I’ve been a devil, but I’m made that way.”

“It doesn’t upset you in any way?”

“You can’t be upset by a thing you don’t remember.”

He paused, as though really considering the matter for the first time. “Was Mr. Deyre—I mean, was I—fond of her?”

But she made no sound or movement.

Four years of soft living fettered her will, stifled her voice, and paralysed her body.