Walter Morel Quotes

“Not feeling him so much part of herself, but merely part of her circumstances.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“He danced well, as if it were natural and joyous in him to dance... Gertrude herself was rather contemptuous of dancing: she had not the slightest inclination towards that accomplishment, and had never learned even a Roger de Coverley... Therefore the dusky, golden softness of this man's sensuous flame of life, that flowed from off his flesh like the flame from a candle, not baffled and gripped into incandescence by thought and spirit as her life was, seemed to her something wonderful, beyond her.
He came and bowed above her. A warmth radiated through her as if she had drunk wine.
"Now do come and have this one wi' me," he said, caressively. "It's easy, you know. I'm pining to see you dance."
She had told him before she could not dance. She glanced at his humility, and smiled. Her smile was very beautiful. It moved the man so that he forgot everything.
"No, I won't dance," she said softly. Her words came clean and ringing.
Not knowing what he was doing - he often did the right thing, by instinct - he sat beside her, inclining reverentially.
"But you mustn't miss your dance," she reproved.
"Nay, I don't want to dance that - it's not one as I care about."
"Yet you invited me to it."
He laughed very heartily at this.
"I never thought o' that. Tha'rt not long in taking the curl out of me."
It was her turn to laugh quickly.
"You don't look as if you'd come much uncurled," she said.
"I'm a pig's tail, I curl because I canna help it," he laughed - rather boisterously.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“She could not be content with the little he might be, she would have him the much that he ought to be. So, in seeking to make him nobler than he could be, she destroyed him.”
― D.H. Lawrence

“When she was twenty three years old she met, at a christmas party, a young man from the Erewash Valley. Morel was then twenty-seven years old. He was well-set-up, erect and very smart. He had wavy, black hair that shone again, and a vigorous black beard that had never been shaved. His cheeks were ruddy, and his red moist mouth was noticeable because he laughed so often and so heartily. He had that rare thing, a rich, ringing laugh. Gertrude Coppard had watched him fascinated. He was so full of colour and animation, his voice ran so easily into comic grotesque, he was so ready and so pleasant with everybody... Walter Morel seemed melted away before her. She was to the miner that thing of mystery and fascination, a lady.”
― D.H. Lawrence, D.H. Lawrence

“William was only one year old, and his mother was proud of him, he was so pretty... He was a joy to her, the twining wisps of hair clustering round his head. Mrs Morel lay listening, one Sunday morning, to the chatter of the two. Then she dozed off. When she came downstairs... seated in his armchair, against the chimney piece, sat Morel, rather timid: and standing between his legs, the child - cropped like a sheep, with such an odd round poll - looking wondering at her: and on a newspaper spread out upon the hearth rug, a myriad of crescent-shaped curls, like the petals of a marigold scattered in the reddening firelight.
Mrs Morel stood still. It was her first baby. She went very white, and was unable to speak.
"What dost think on 'im?" Morel laughed uneasily.
She gripped her two fists, lifted them, and came forward. Morel shrank back...
Her lip trembled, her face broke, and, snatching up the child, she buried her face in his shoulder and cried painfully. She was one of those women who cannot cry: whom it hurts as it hurts a man. It was like the ripping something out of her, her sobbing...
She went about her work with closed mouth and very quiet... She spoke to him civilly, and never alluded to what he had done. But he felt something final had happened.
...But she knew, and Morel knew, that that act had caused something momentous to take place in her soul. She remembered that scene all her life, as one in which she had suffered the most intensely.
This act of masculine clumsiness was a spear through the side of her love for Morel.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“He went straight to the sink where his wife was washing up.
"What, are thee there!" he said boisterously. "Sluther off an' let me wesh my-sen."
"You may wait till I've finished," said his wife.
"Oh mun I? - An' what if I shonna?"
This good-humoured threat amused Mrs Morel.
"Then you can go and wash yourself in the soft water tub."...
With which he stood watching her a moment, then went away to wait for her.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“I've brought thee a sup o' tea, lass," he said.
"Well you needn't, for you know I don't like it," she replied.
"Drink it up, it'll pop thee off to sleep again."
She accepted the tea. It pleased him to see her take it and sip it.
"I'll back my life there's no sugar in," she said.
"Yi - there's one big un," he replied, injured.
"It's a wonder," she said sipping again.
She had a winsome face when her hair was loose. He loved her to grumble at him in this manner.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“Later, when the time for the baby grew nearer, he would bustle round in his slovenly fashion, poking out the ashes, rubbing the fire-place, sweeping the house before he went to work. Then, feeling very self-righteous, he went upstairs.
"Now I'n cleaned up for thee: that's no 'casions ter stir a peg all day, but sit and read thy books."
Which made her laugh, in spite of her indignation.
"And the dinner cooks itself?" she answered.
"Eh, I know nowt about th' dinner."
"You'd know if there weren't any."
"Ay, 'appen so," he answered, departing.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“Dismissed, he wanted to kiss her, but he dared not. She half wanted him to kiss her, but could not bring herself to give any signs.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“After one inflamed evening... he shouted at her:
"I'll make you tremble at the sound of my footstep."
It was a historical phrase in her life. She had sat down and laughed till she was quite good-humoured and merry at the idea. He had stood bursting with fury and ignominy. And, by giving her as little money as possible, by drinking much and going out with men who brutalised him and his idea of women, he paid her back.”
― D.H. Lawrence

“The silences between them were peculiar. There would be the swift, slight 'cluck' of her needle, the shard 'pop' of his lips as he let out the smoke, the warmth, the sizzle on the bars as he spar in the fire. Then her thoughts turned to William... she saw him a man, young, full of vigour, making the world glow again for her.
And Morel sitting there, quite alone, and having nothing to think about, would be feeling vaguely uncomfortable. His soul would reach out in its blind way to her, and find her gone. He felt a sort of emptiness, almost like a vacuum in his soul. He was unsettled and restless. Soon he could not live in that atmosphere, and he affected his wife. Both felt an oppression on their breathing, when they were left together for some time. Then he went to bed, and she settled down to enjoy herself alone, working, thinking, living.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“In front of the house was a huge old ash-tree. The west wind, sweeping from Derbyshire, caught the houses with full force, and the tree shrieked again. Morel liked it.
"It's music," he said. "It sends me to sleep."
But Paul and Arthur and Annie hated it. To Paul, it became an almost demonical noise.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“The children lay silent in suspense, waiting for a lull in the wind to hear what their father was doing. He might hit their mother again... And then, came the horror of the sudden silence: silence everywhere, outside, and downstairs. What was it?- was it a silence of blood? What had he done.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“She was grieved, and bitterly sorry for the man who was hurt so much. But still, in her heart of hearts, where the love should have burned, there was a blank. Now, when all her woman's pity was roused to its full extent, when she would have slaved herself to death to nurse him and to save him, when she would have taken the pain herself, if she could, somewhere far away inside her she felt indifferent to him and to his suffering. It hurt her most of all, this failure to love him.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“They're all alike. They're large in promises, but it's precious little fulfillment you get... I wonder who ever brought me a gold bangle."
"Well, you never wanted one."
"No, I didn't - but it would have been all the same if I had."
"Didn't my father ever buy you things?"
"Yes - one half-pound of apples - and that was all - every penny he spent on me, before we were married."
"Why?"
"Because I was silly, and when he said 'What should I buy thee?' I told him 'Nothing'. But bring me anything! - it never occurred to him.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“Morel fell into a slow ruin. His body, which had been beautiful in movement and in being, shrank, did not seem to ripen with the years, but to get mean and rather despicable.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers