Wordy Wednesday: Obscure Antecedents

I finally finished Wolf Hall, but thought I’d share quotes one last week 🙂

He will never tell the cardinal about Mary Boleyn, though the impulse will arise.  Wolsey might laugh, he might be scandalized.  He has to smuggle him the content, without the context.        (pg 124)

 He has never told anyone this story.  He doesn’t mind talking to Richard, to Rafe about his past–within reason–but he doesn’t mean to give away pieces of himself. (pg 330)

“… I heard [Brother Luca Pacioli] lecture in Venice, it will be more than twenty years ago now, I was your age, I suppose. He spoke about proportion.  Proportion in building, in music, in painting, in justice, in the commonwealth, the state; about how rights should be balanced, the power of a prince and his subjects, how the wealthy citizen should keep his books straight and say his prayers and serve the poor.  He spoke about how a printed page should look. How a law should read. Or a face, what makes it beautiful.” (page 336)

“He says your antecedents are obscure, your youth reckless and wild, that you are a heretic of long standing, a disgrace to the officer of councillor; but personally, he finds you a man of good cheer, liberal, openhanded, gracious …” (page 340)

 “And look, Gregory, it’s all very well planning what you will do in six months, what you will do in a year, but it’s no good at all if you don’t have a plan for tomorrow.” (page 519)

The fate of peoples is made like this, two men in small rooms.
Forget the coronations, the conclaves of cardinals, the pomp and
processions. This is how the world changes: a counter pushed across a
table, a pen stroke that alters the force of a phrase, a woman’s sigh as
she passes and leaves on the air a trail of orange flower or rose
water; her hand pulling close the bed curtain, the discreet sigh of
flesh against flesh. (page 566)

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