Too Late the Phalarope Quotes

“But to punish and not to restore, that is the greatest of all offences.”
― Alan Paton, Too Late the Phalarope

“There's a hard law, mejuffrou, that when a deep injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive.”
― Alan Paton, Too Late the Phalarope

“But perhaps when you were too obedient, and did not do openly what others did, and were quiet in church and hard-working at school, then some unknown rebellion brewed in you, doing harm to you, though how I do not understand.”
― Alan Paton, Too Late the Phalarope

“Meneer, said the captain, if man takes unto himself God's right to punish, then he must also take upon himself God's promise to restore.”
― Alan Paton, Too Late the Phalarope

“The fierce old man struck the arm of his chair and said, I would shoot him like a dog.
Then because no one spoke, he said to the captain, wouldn't you?
And the captain said, No.
—You wouldn't?
—No.
—But he has offended against the race.
Then the captain said trembling, Meneer, as a policeman I know an offence against the law, and as a Christian I know an offence against God; but I do not know an offence against the race.”
― Alan Paton, Too Late the Phalarope

“Ag, what things are moods, that come and go like the wind that blows where it lists. For a man can be happy and free, and be cast down by a word. And a woman can be in the depths of misery, and be lifted up by an asking for forgiveness. So one goes from joy to dejection, and hurt to exaltation, and certainty to doubt, as when with some summer storm the whole world is dark and sombre, till suddenly the sun breaks through, almost at its setting, and bathes tree and grass and hill in green and yellow light, the link of which, as the English say, was never seen on land or sea.”
― Alan Paton, Too Late the Phalarope

“And that next day, he was in the black mood, what we call the swartgalligheid, which is the black gall. And the heart is black too, and the world is black, and one can tell oneself that it will pass, but these are only words that one speaks to oneself, for while it is there it is no comfort that it will pass.”
― Alan Paton, Too Late the Phalarope

“No one would have murdered the girl out of greed, for she had nothing; nor out of jealousy, for she had no lovers; nor out of anger, for she was submissive and gentle by nature. Therefore it was done from fear. And if a man of her own race and colour had made her with child, he would not have been afraid and murdered her, but would have gone shamefaced to her father, to confess and make reparation, as was their custom. Therefore it was a white man; and who, in that lonely and deserted place, but the man who was her master?”
― Alan Paton, Too Late the Phalarope

“So the great waves of fear rose yet higher and higher, and all his strength was drained out of his body, and his face was white as death, so that it would have been God's mercy for him to die. He was afraid he might stumble and fall there in the street, so he went into our little park, which is no park at all but only a piece of the grass country fenced in and planted with trees, and there he sat on a seat and said, God have mercy upon me, O Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon me. And all the people went by in the street, and saw only the lieutenant taking a few moments from his duty to sit on a seat in the park, and did not know it was a man in agony, calling on God for mercy. For to them the sun was shining, and the doves were calling in the trees, and they had no trouble greater than General Smuts or the Government, or the rumor that the black people were planning a great strike and procession in Johannesburg.”
― Alan Paton, Too Late the Phalarope

“And Kappie sat there like a man with a puzzle with a hundred pieces, with a picture all but complete, with six or seven pieces that would not fit at all, whatever way you turned them; so that you knew this could not be the picture at all, but that the real picture must be something strange and different, and that the parts that looked complete must be something quite other, if these six or seven pieces were to be made to fit.”
― Alan Paton, Too Late the Phalarope