“Not only had he looked at me, but he had looked with favour and longing, and though I knew it was only because the truth was hidden from him, yet I was glad of what I had, as a winter bird is, that will come to your hand for a little crumb, though in plenteous times she would but mock you from the topmost bough.”
Precious Bane is a work of English regional fiction that draws upon folklore and the agricultural rhythms of the English countryside. The narrative centers on a protagonist whose cleft lip subjects her to local prejudice and her mother's religious fanaticism, which interprets her condition as divine punishment. The novel examines how communities enforce conformity through fear of the other, while simultaneously portraying the natural world as a source of solace and hidden beauty. Its title derives from a line in John Milton's Paradise Lost, invoking the paradox of something simultaneously damaging and valuable. The book belongs to a tradition of early twentieth-century English literature that elevated rural working-class experience to serious literary subject matter, preceding later developments in social realism. more
“Scarcity makes desire, yes, but scant makes desperation, and satisfaction makes you lazy.”
“The wood is not the fuel. The cold is the fuel. For the cold creates the passion for the fire.”