"“How dare you contradict their opinions! You are only a common servant.” “Yes, miss,” he said wearily. “You should be dismissed for being insolent to your betters.” There was a long pause, and then Baine said, “All the diary entries and dismissals in the world cannot change the truth. Galileo recanted under threat of torture, but that did not make the sun revolve round the earth. If you dismiss me, the vase will still be vulgar, I will still be right, and your taste will still be plebeian, no matter what you write in your diary.” “Plebeian?” Tossie said, bright pink. “How dare you speak like that to your mistress? You are dismissed.” She pointed imperiously at the house. “Pack your things immediately.” “Yes, miss,” Baine said. “E pur si muove.” “What?” Tossie said, bright red with rage. “What did you say?” “I said, now that finally have dismissed me, I am no longer a member of the servant class and am therefore in a position to speak freely,” he said calmly. “You are not in a position to speak to me at all,” Tossie said, raising her diary like a weapon. “Leave at once.” “I dared to speak the truth to you because I felt you were deserving of it,” Baine said seriously. “I had only your best interests at heart, as I have always had. You have been blessed with great riches; not only with the riches of wealth, position, and beauty, but with a bright mind and a keen sensibility, as well as with a fine spirit. And yet you squander those riches on croquet and organdies and trumpery works of art. You have at your disposal a library of the great minds of the past, and yet you read the foolish novels of Charlotte Yonge and Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Given the opportunity to study science, you converse with conjurors wearing cheesecloth and phosphorescent paint. Confronted by the glories of Gothic architecture, you admire instead a cheap imitation of it, and confronted by the truth, you stamp your foot like a spoilt child and demand to be told fairy stories.”"
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Fantasy authorsScience fiction authors from the United StatesNovelists from the United StatesPostmodern authorsPeople from Denver
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Chapter 22 (p. 374)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Connie_Willis
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Connie Willis
39 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Connie Willis →
Related Quotes
"A cage is a safe place as long as nobody has the key."
"He sorted all the mail into three piles of “for” and “against” and “wildly insane,” then threw all of them into the w…"
"Do you suppose Walter Hunt would have invented the safety pin if he had known that punk rockers would stick them thro…"
"“Fifty-nine,” Mr. Mowen said. “That’s too many coincidences to just be a coincidence.”"
"“Do you like Denver?” “Sure,” I said. I found the pocket-sized recorder and laid it on the table. “Smog, oil refineri…"
"“I’m a scientist, not a psychiatrist. I don’t believe dreams have a ‘real’ meaning. They’re a physical process, and a…"
"“In my opinion, dream interpretation as practiced by most Freudian psychiatrists, including some of mine at the Insti…"
"One of the greatest difficulties I encounter in my research is that people want to believe that their dreams mean som…"
"“Why is it,” Joss said, “that whenever I find you, you are always about to hop in bed with my employer?”"
"I would never save her. I looked at the woman mopping up the tea, and it came to me that I could not save her either.…"