David Herbert Lawrence

half a loaf is better than no bread

The present book is a continuation from "Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious." The generality of readers had better just leave it alone. The generality of critics likewise. I really don't want to convince anybody. It is quite in opposition to my whole nature. I don't intend my books for the generality of readers. I count it a mistake of our mistaken democracy, that every man who can read print is allowed to believe that he can read all that is printed. I count it a misfortune that serious books are exposed in the public market, like slaves exposed naked for sale. But there we are, since we live in an age of mistaken democracy, we must go through with it.
I warn the generality of readers, that this present book will seem to them only a rather more revolting mass of wordy nonsense than the last. I would warn the generality of

Science is wretched in its treatment of the human body as a sort of complex mechanism made up of numerous little machines working automatically in a rather unsatisfactory relation to one another.

his pas­sion, all his wild blood, went into this in­ter­course with her, when he talked and con­ceived his work. She brought forth to him his ima­gin­a­tions. She did not un­der­stand, any more than a wo­man un­der­stands when she con­ceives a child in her womb. But this was life for her and for him.

poem was fin­ished; he took the bread out of the oven, ar­ran­ging the burnt loaves at the bot­tom of the pancheon, the good ones at the top. The de­sic­cated loaf re­mained swathed up in the scull­ery.

should have thought,” said Mrs. Morel bit­terly, “that she wouldn’t have oc­cu­pied you

en­tirely as to burn a whole oven­ful of bread.”

“Be­atrice was here as well as she.”

“Very likely. But we know why the bread is spoilt.”

“Why?” he flashed.

“Be­cause you were en­grossed with Miriam,” replied Mrs. Morel hotly.

“Well, what if I do want her—” he replied.

“Why, noth­ing, if it was sens­ible or reas­on­able. But to go trap­se­ing up there miles and miles in the mud, com­ing home at mid­night, and got to go to Not­ting­ham in the morn­ing—”

“If I hadn’t, you’d be just the same.”

“Yes, I should, be­cause there’s no sense in it. Is she so fas­cin­at­ing that you must fol­low her all that way?” Mrs. Morel was bit­terly sar­castic. She sat still, with aver­ted face, strok­ing with a rhythmic, jerked move­ment, the black sateen of her ap­ron. It was a move­ment that hurt Paul to see.

“I do like her,” he said, “but—”

“Like her!” said Mrs. Morel, in the same bit­ing tones. “It seems to me you like noth­ing and nobody else. There’s neither An­nie, nor me, nor any­one now for you.”

“What non­sense, mother—you know I don’t love her—I—I tell you I don’t love her—she doesn’t even walk with my arm, be­cause I don’t want her to.”

“Then why do you fly to her so of­ten?”

“I do like to talk to her—I never said I didn’t. But I don’t love her.”

“Is there nobody else to talk to?”

You’re old, mother, and we’re young.”

He only meant that the in­terests of her age were not the in­terests of his. But he real­ised the mo­ment he had spoken that he had said the wrong thing.

“Yes, I know it well—I am old. And there­fore I may stand aside; I have noth­ing more to do with you. You only want me to wait on you—the rest is for Miriam.”