Росс Полдарк

"Goodbye, my love. If there's nothing else, give me leave to keep the memory."

Mrs. Teague had not visited Nampara for nearly ten years and was so interested, she said, to see how Ross was managing for himself. Farming was such an engaging hobby, Mr. Teague had always said.

Sometimes, faced by Demelza's probing questions, Prudie felt as if she were in a trap. Prudie knew what was right and wrong, and Demelza did not. And it might be possible to teach some girls to behave themselves without taking care of your own behaviour, but Demelza was not one of them.

Charles exploded again. "God's my life, we all drink! Not to drink is unnatural in a man. Aarf! But we do not become murderous in our cups. To kick a woman in that condition is beyond forgiveness."

Much against her will, Prudie found herself enlisted in a campaign in which she had no personal belief: the war on lice.

"He says, 'There never was an Illuggan man what wasn't the dirty cross-eyed son of an unmarried bitch wi' no chest and spavin shanks out of a knacker's yard.' I thought twas as good as the preacher."

<...> [Jud] was deeply annoyed at having to leave the fair before he was drunk, a thing that had never happened to him since he was ten.

<...> he fought to overcome his jealousy and pain, as one will to overcome a fainting fit. This time he must destroy it once and for all. Either he must do that or leave the county again. He had his own life to live, his own way to go; there were other women in the world, common clay perhaps, but charming enough with their pretty ways and soft bodies.

A girl with four unmarried sisters does not come to her first ball with overweening expectations. To find herself singled out by a man of some distinction was heady wine, and Ross should have been careful with his doses. But he, in a good-natured way, was only pleased to find pleasure in making someone's evening a success

How clean her skin looks; she's like a westerly breeze at sunrise, rare and fresh, and good to get into your lungs and your heart.

I must think of something to say, thought Verity; why have I no small talk like those girls over there; if I could help him to talk, he would like me more; he's shy like me, and I ought to make things easier, not harder. <...> Why can't I just say, la, la, la, and giggle and be fanciful.

Except for his cousin she was the first woman he had talked with who had not relied on a strong scent to drown the odours of the body. In finding a girl who smelt as clean as Verity he felt an impulse of friendship.

"Are you dancing the next with Captain Blamey?" he asked.
"Yes, Ross. Do you mind?"
"Not at all. I am promised to Miss Ruth Teague."
"What, the littlest of them all? How considerate of you."
"The duty of every Englishman," said Ross.

This sunny morning, with the sights and sounds and smells of his own land about him, the war of which he had been a part seemed unsubstantial and far off. He wondered if the real world was that one in which men fought for policies and principles and died or lived gloriously - or more often miserably - for the sake of an abstract word like patriotism or independence, or if reality belonged to the humble people and the common land.

"Ross... I'm certain sure that neither of them wished to do anything unfair. It was just one of the things that happen. You do not argue with the clouds of the rain or the lightning. Well, this was like that. It came from outside of them."

He felt he would like one more look at the sea, which even now was licking at the rocks behind the house. He had no sentimental notions about the sea; he had no regard for its dangers or its beauties; to him it was a close acquaintance whose every virtue and failing, every smile and tantrum he had come to understand.

His conscience had begun to prick him. It was late in the day for the growth of this long-dormant faculty, but he was fond of Ross, and in the long hours of his illness he had begun to wonder whether he should not have done more to keep his son's interests warm.