Victorian – Page 2

I think of myself

I think of myself now as a writer, although I wouldn’t go as far as to say ‘novelist’ because that sounds like a Victorian person. Dawn French

There are many things in this world that are an outrage, to be sure, but death at our current life expectancy doesn’t strike me as one of them. Maybe I sound like some Victorian who felt that forty years ought to be enough for any man, but one of the marks of a life well … Read more

For those who reject

For those who reject it, the Victorian experience is something to feel embarrassed about, to apologise for, to escape from, and never to repeat. But to those who remain enthralled, it is a fabulous story of oustanding success and splendid achievement, by comparison with which Britain’s 20th century records seems at best unimpressive, and often … Read more

The only acceptable way

The only acceptable way to solve ecological problems is if you can persuade people to have fewer children. In the Victorian times, there were families of 15 children. Someone like Edward Lear, he was the last of 21 children. And so what we have to think about is offering people the alternative choice. And in … Read more

One of Dickens’ biggest

One of Dickens’ biggest influences was the growth of London as a Victorian city, and the extremes being created as it expanded. Danny Boyle

The great crime which

The great crime which the moneyed classes and promoters of industry committed in the palmy Victorian days was the condemning of the workers to ugliness, ugliness, ugliness: meanness and formless and ugly surroundings, ugly ideals, ugly religion, ugly hope, ugly love, ugly clothes, ugly furniture, ugly houses, ugly relationship between workers and employers. The human … Read more

The Bible does not

The Bible does not tell us that life in this world will be fair. Evil and sin are not Victorian gentlemen; they do not play fair. D. A. Carson

The reason Victorian society

The reason Victorian society was so restricted and repressed was that it was impossible to move without knocking something over. Connie Willis

I was never going

I was never going to get any sleep. I was going to have Alice in Wonderland conversation after Alice in Wonderland conversation until I died of exhaustion. Here, in the restful, idyllic Victorian era. Connie Willis

A Grand Design we

A Grand Design we couldn’t see because we were part of it. A Grand Design we only got occasional, fleeting glimpses of. A Grand Design involving the entire course of history and all of time and space that, for some unfathomable reason, chose to work out its designs with cats and croquet mallets and penwipers, … Read more