Wordy Wednesday: Three-Card Trick

This week, I have two more quotes from Wolf Hall. I am enjoying it greatly, but reading it slowly. One of the quotes would be better suited to go with last week’s “Beneath every history, another history.”

Is a woman bound to wifely obedience, when the result will be to turn her out of the estate of wife? He, Cromwell, admires Katherine: he likes to see her moving about the royal palaces, as wide as she is high, stitched into gowns so bristling with gemstones that they look as if they are designed less for beauty than to withstand blows from a sword.  Her auburn hair is faded and streaked with gray, tucked back under her gable hood like the modest wings of a city sparrow.  Under her gowns she wears the habit of a Franciscan nun.  Try always, Wolsey says, to find out what people wear under their clothes.  At an earlier stage in life this would have surprised him; he had thought that under their clothes people wore their skin. (page 77, emphasis mine)

 Cromwell is thinking to himself after the political demise of his patron.  I like the end of the quote, how often do we give ourselves advice that we don’t plan to take?

If he were to give himself a piece of advice for Christmas, he’d say, leave the cardinal now or you’ll be out on the streets again with the three-card trick.  But he only gives advice to those who are likely to take it. (page 157)

Linked to Wednesdays with Words at Ordo-Amoris. Join us with a quote from your current read!