Beatrice Rappaccini Quotes

“BEATRICE: Do you truly not know who he was? Mr. Dorian Gray, the lover of Mr. Oscar Wilde, who was sent to Reading Gaol for—well, for holding opinions that society does not approve of! For believing in beauty, and art, and love. What guilt and remorse he must feel, for causing the downfall of the greatest playwright of the age! It was Mr. Gray’s dissolute parties, the antics of his hedonistic friends, that exposed Mr. Wilde to scandal and opprobrium. No wonder he has fallen prey to the narcotic.

MARY: Or he could just like opium. He didn’t seem particularly remorseful, Bea.

JUSTINE: Mr. Gray is not what society deems him to be. He has been greatly misunderstood. He assures me that he had no intention of harming Mr. Wilde.

MARY: He would say that.

CATHERINE: Can we not discuss the Wilde scandal in the middle of my book? You’re going to get it banned in Boston, and such other puritanical places.”
― Theodora Goss, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

“One does not have to dress in a way that is unflattering, or even unfashionable, to be rational—and comfortable. How can you expect women to exercise their faculties, nay, their rights, in clothes that confine them? We shall never be men’s equals while we lace ourselves into ill health and drape ourselves in fabric until we can scarcely move. Dress reform is almost as important to our cause as the vote.”
― Theodora Goss, European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman

“BEATRICE: You make me sound so dramatic, Catherine!

CATHERINE: Well, you are dramatic, with your long black hair and the clear olive complexion that marks you a daughter of the sunny south, of Italy, land of poetry and brigands. You would be the perfect romantic heroine, if only you weren’t so contrary about it.

BEATRICE: But I have no desire to be a romantic heroine.

MARY: Brigands? Seriously, Cat, this isn’t the eighteenth century. Nowadays Italy is perfectly civilized.”
― Theodora Goss, European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman

“MARY: I don’t think you have dulcet tones. Dulcet means sweet. When are you ever sweet?

CATHERINE: My most dulcet tones. I was using the superlative. Everyone has a most something, even if it’s not very much.

BEATRICE: I think Catherine can be quite sweet when she wants to.

CATHERINE: I just don’t want to very often.”
― Theodora Goss, European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman

“CATHERINE: Readers who are not familiar with the tale of Beatrice and Giovanni can find it in the first of these adventures of the Athena Club, in an attractive green cloth binding that will appear to advantage in a lady’s or gentleman’s library. Two shillings, as I mentioned before.

BEATRICE: You would use the story of my grief to sell copies of your book?

CATHERINE: Our book. I may be writing it, but you are all as responsible for its contents as I am. What is the point if we don’t reach readers? And honestly, Bea, you’re not the only one whose sorrows are being recorded here. I mean . . . Bea?

MARY: She’s gone back to the conservatory. I think you offended her—seriously offended her. The way you offended Zora.

CATHERINE: Why do you humans have to be so emotional?”
― Theodora Goss, European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman

“MARY: Cat, should you be writing all this? I mean, Irene still lives in Vienna. Her secret room won’t be a secret once this book is published.

CATHERINE: She said I could. Granted, she said no one would believe it anyway, the way no one believes Mrs. Shelly’s biography of Victor Frankenstein. Everyone assumes it’s fiction. She says people rarely believe in what they think to be improbable, although they often believe in the impossible. They find it easier to believe in spiritualism than in the platypus.

BEATRICE: So she thinks our readers might assume this is a work of fiction?

CATHERINE: Bea, you sound upset by that.

BEATRICE: And you are not? Do you not care whether readers understand that this is the truth of our lives?

CATHERINE: As long as they buy the book, no, not much. As long as they pay their two shillings a volume, and I receive royalties . . .”
― Theodora Goss, European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman

“MARY: It’s called a Schloss. That’s what small castles are called in Styria, Laura told me.

CATHERINE: Yes, but do you think our English readers are going to know that? Or our American readers? I’m hoping for some American sales, if the deal with Collier & Son comes through, and there are no Schlosses in America—just teepees and department stores.

BEATRICE: The slaughter of the native population is a shameful stain on American history. Clarence says—

CATHERINE: For goodness’ sake, how are we going to sell to readers in the United States if you go on about the slaughter of the native Americans? Who’s going to want to read about that?

BEATRICE: Those who do not want to read about it are exactly those who should be made aware, Catherine. This may be a story of our adventures, but we must not shy away from confronting the difficult issues of the times. Literature exists to educate as well as entertain, after all.

DIANA: You all went from Schlosses to teepees to a political discussion, and you think I ramble?”
― Theodora Goss, European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman

“BEATRICE: Laura told me it might help if I read aloud. Mina had given us a book of fairy tales. Blue Fairy Tales? Blue Book of Fairy Tales? I do not remember the exact title. I was never given fairy tales to read as a child, only scientific treatises. How I would have enjoyed them! Although I do not understand how a shoe could fit only one woman in an entire kingdom.

DIANA: It was a magical shoe.

BEATRICE: Still, that is not logical. I can accept pumpkins turning into coaches, and lizards into footmen, but a shoe will fit many women of the same size. How could the prince know he was choosing the right one?”
― Theodora Goss, European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman

“Well, there’s one thing that gives me hope.”

“What’s that?” asked Beatrice, shaking out one of the blankets and wrapping it around herself.

Catherine smiled. It was a grim smile. “Diana’s with them. There is no situation so well-planned that Diana can’t introduce chaos into it. Whoever is holding them, wherever they’re being held, is going to regret it.”
― Theodora Goss, European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman