Daily Pym

‘Poor Mr. Driver — it seems unkind to leave him all alone this evening.’ 

‘Yes,’ Miss Doggett agreed. ‘One does feel that men need company more than women do. A woman has a thousand and one little tasks in the house, and then her knitting or sewing.’

Jane, who did not seem to have these things, made no answer.

— Jane & Prudence, chapter eleven

‘I suppose I ought not to say this, but she was a bit keen on me at one time.’

Penelope smiled to herself at the old-fashioned phrase ‘a bit keen on me’. It seemed to make him rather ‘caddish’ in a way that men weren’t nowadays. She took a sip of brandy, wondering what he expected her to say. Then she realised that he was smiling at her indulgently and it suddenly occurred to her that he was one of those men who imagine that all women are running after them. So she had got herself into another of her ludicrous situations.

— An Unsuitable Attachment, chapter fifteen

There may be an unlimited number of things that can happen to the ordinary person, but there are only a few twists to the man-woman story.

— A Few Green Leaves, chapter fourteen

‘…I thought it would be nice if you got to know each other better, became friends, you know.’

‘Yes, men do seem to like the women they know to become friends,’ I remarked, but then it occurred to me that of course it is usually their old and new loves whom they wish to force into friendship. I even remembered Bernard Hatherley, the lay-reader bank clerk, saying about the girl he had met on holiday in Torquay, ‘You would like her so much — I hope you’ll become friends.’ But as I had been at home in my village and she had been in Torquay the acquaintance had never prospered.

— Excellent Women, chapter fifteen

Barbara was an intelligent girl, but she had never been in love with anyone of her own age and had cherished many impossible, romantic passions for people she scarcely knew, or had perhaps seen only once. She was not interested in undergraduates; they were so unintelligent and lumpish, and the few that weren’t were so conceited and effeminate that one couldn’t possibly take them seriously.

— Crampton Hodnet, “Spring, the Sweet Spring”

‘I think it’s much better to keep men in the dark about one’s plans, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ I said uncertainly, feeling myself at a disadvantage in never having been in the position to keep a man in the dark about anything.

— Excellent Women, chapter fourteen

‘Are they tall?’

‘Digby is very tall — over six feet, I should say. Mark is of medium height, perhaps a little shorter than Tom.’

‘Well, that sounds ideal.’ Mrs. Beddoes put on her gloves and then suddenly said in a confidential tone, ‘My dear, there is this terrible difficulty of getting hold of enough suitable young men. The regular ones get so blasé and often don’t turn up at all, and poor Lalage is five foot eleven — girls seem to be enormous these days, don’t they.’

— Less Than Angels, chapter eleven

It was a Saturday morning and we had assembled in the choir vestry before decorating the church for Whit-Sunday. It was the usual gathering…The only man present, apart from the clergy, was Jim Storry, a feeble-minded youth who made himself useful in harmless little ways and would sometimes arrange the wire frames on the window-sills for us or fill jam jars with water.

— Excellent Women, chapter thirteen

‘Oh, Dulcie, perhaps it was a mistake, our breaking it off like that!’

Perhaps? She said to herself. He might have sounded a little more sure. After all, it was he who had done the breaking — he who had said that he was unworthy of her love. Did he now consider that he was worthy? Or that her own standard was less high?

— No Fond Return of Love, chapter thirteen