Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned." (ceremony of innocence?)
...somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs
[as it] slouches towards Bethlehem to be born "
"Oh, please don't quote 'Little Women'!" cried Marjorie impatiently.
"That's out of style."
"You think so?"
"Heavens, yes! What modern girl could live like those inane females?" 125
"Do you mean to say that men notice eyebrows?"
"Yes-;subconsciously. And when you go home you ought to have your teeth straightened a little. It's almost imperceptible, still---"
"But I thought, interrupted Bernice in bewilderment, "that you despised little dainty feminine things like that."
"I hate dainty minds," answered Marjorie. "But a girl has to be dainty in person. If she looks like a million dollars she can talk about Russia, pingpong, or the League of Nations and get away with it." 126
Youth in this jazz-nourished generation is temperamentally restless, and the idea of fox-trotting more than one full fox trot with the same girl is distasteful, not to say odious. 119
If you talk so well to them that they forget they're stuck with you, you've done something. They'll come back next time, and gradually so many sad birds will dance with you that the attractive boys will see that there is no danger of being stuck--;then they'll dance with you." 127
An etermity of minutes later, riding down-town through the late afternoon beside Warren, the others following in Roberta's car close behind, Bernice had all the sensations of Marie Antoinette bound for the guillotine in a tumbrel. Vaguely she wondered w hy she did not cry out that it was all a mistake. 135
It was a guillotine indeed, and the hangman was the first barber . . . Would they blindfold her? No, but they would tie a white cloth around her neck lest any of her blood-nonsense-hair-should get on her clothes. 135
After a minute's brisk walk she discovered that her left hand still held the two blond braids. She laughed unexpectedly- had to shut her mouth hard to keep from emitting an absolute peal. She was passing Warren's house now, and on impulse she set down her baggage, and swinging the braids like pieces of rope flung them at the wooden porch, where they landed with a slight thud. She laughed again, no longer restraining herself.
"Huh!" she giggled wildly, "Scalp the selfish thing!"
Then picking up her suitcase she set off at a half-run down the moonlit street." 140
"I am separated from my husband," she began. "We have lived apart for a year, and he is not contributing to the support of our five year old son. . . I wish you would take the matter up with him."
"I'll be glad to," I said, looking at her attentively. "But tell me, Mrs. Smith, what is your real reason for coming to see me?" 103
"Sex misunderstanding," I observed, "are the cause of most divorces and separations&emdash;whatever may be the reasons given in public. Usually they result from ignorance, and the failure of the man and woman to understand themselves or each other." 104
"I'm going to her right now," he cried.
"Hold hard," I said. "You'll do nothing of the kind. First you'll have a talk with the medicine man, and learn how to exorcise this demon lover, or whatever he is. And if you can't do it by the time he gets through telling you things you've never learned before, why you're less worth helping than I thought. "
"All right," he laughed. "Make an appointment for me right away." 111
Iignorance, second-had, traditional thinking, and our sedulous censorship on
books that give any genuine information on sex, can turn the splendid possibilities
of the most promising marriage into a miserable failure." 112