Цитаты из книги «Росс Полдарк», страница 8

"Are you dancing the next with Captain Blamey?" he asked.

"Yes, Ross. Do you mind?"

"Not at all. I am promised to Miss Ruth Teague."

"What, the littlest of them all? How considerate of you."

"The duty of every Englishman," said Ross.

This sunny morning, with the sights and sounds and smells of his own land about him, the war of which he had been a part seemed unsubstantial and far off. He wondered if the real world was that one in which men fought for policies and principles and died or lived gloriously - or more often miserably - for the sake of an abstract word like patriotism or independence, or if reality belonged to the humble people and the common land.

"Ross... I'm certain sure that neither of them wished to do anything unfair. It was just one of the things that happen. You do not argue with the clouds of the rain or the lightning. Well, this was like that. It came from outside of them."

Ill usage makes the sweetest of us vicious.

He felt he would like one more look at the sea, which even now was licking at the rocks behind the house. He had no sentimental notions about the sea; he had no regard for its dangers or its beauties; to him it was a close acquaintance whose every virtue and failing, every smile and tantrum he had come to understand.

His conscience had begun to prick him. It was late in the day for the growth of this long-dormant faculty, but he was fond of Ross, and in the long hours of his illness he had begun to wonder whether he should not have done more to keep his son's interests warm.