Joyce’s Reviews > The Professor > Status Update

if a wife's nature loathes that of the man she is wedded to, marriage must be slavery. Against slavery all right thinkers revolt, and though torture be the price of resistance, torture must be dared: though the only road to freedom lie through the gates of death, those gates must be passed; for freedom is indispensable.

Talk French to me she would, and many a punishment she has had for her wilfulness. I fear the choice of chastisement must have been injudicious, for instead of correcting the fault, it seemed to encourage its renewal.

she was a curious mixture of tractability and firmness

you've only seen the title-page of my happiness; you don't know the tale that follows; you cannot conceive the interest and sweet variety and thrilling excitement of the narrative.

republican, lord-hater as he was, Hunsden was as proud of his old -shire blood, of his descent and family standing, respectable and respected through long generations back, as any peer in the realm of his Norman race and Conquest-dated title. Hunsden would as little have thought of taking a wife from a caste inferior to his own, as a Stanley would think of mating with a Cobden.

That is my little wild strawberry, Hunsden, whose sweetness made me careless of your hothouse grapes.

people who are only in each other's company for amusement, never really like each other so well, or esteem each other so highly, as those who work together, and perhaps suffer together.

Think of my marrying you to be kept by you, ... I could not do it; and how dull my days would be! You would be away teaching in close, noisy school-rooms, from morning till evening, and I should be lingering at home, unemployed and solitary; I should get depressed and sullen, and you would soon tire of me. ... I like a contemplative life, but I like an active life better;

There is something flattering to man's strength, something consonant to his honourable pride, in the idea of becoming the providence of what he loves - feeding and clothing it, as God does the lilies of the field.

"Frances, how much regard have you for me?"

"Mon maitre, j'en ai beaucoup," was the truthful rejoinder.
[My master, I have many (much?)]

"Frances, have you enough to give yourself to me as my wife - to accept me as your husband? .. Will my pupil consent to pass her life with me?"

"Master, I consent to pass my life with you."