How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"I never thought that walking would make such a difference. Why, when you're walking you want, as it were, a breakfast and luncheon and tea during the night as well, and I'd nothing but a packet of Woodbines. Lord, I did feel bad! Looking back, it wasn't what you may call enjoyment. It was more a case of sticking to it. I did stick. I--I was determined. Oh, hang it all! what's the good--I mean, the good of living in a room for ever? There one goes on day after day, same old game, same up and down to town, until you forget there is any other game. You ought to see once in a way what's going on outside, if it's only nothing particular after all." (14.16)
Leonard expresses here the frustration of being penned up in city life – his adventure in the woods showed him that there's more to life than the monotonous grind of work every day, even though civilization tells us that's what we should all be doing.
Quote #5
"But he must be one of those men who have reconciled science with religion," said Helen slowly. "I don't like those men. They are scientific themselves, and talk of the survival of the fittest, and cut down the salaries of their clerks, and stunt the independence of all who may menace their comfort, but yet they believe that somehow good--and it is always that sloppy 'somehow'--will be the outcome, and that in some mystical way the Mr. Basts of the future will benefit because the Mr. Basts of today are in pain." (22.18)
Helen is opposed to Henry and everything he represents; she sees his way of thinking of things as inhumane and falsely scientific. His point of view, as she sees it, fails to recognize how much harm it does to those discontented lower classes that they theorize about (like Leonard).
Quote #6
"Walking is well enough when a man's in work," he answered. "Oh, I did talk a lot of nonsense once, but there's nothing like a bailiff in the house to drive it out of you. When I saw him fingering my Ruskins and Stevensons, I seemed to see life straight real, and it isn't a pretty sight. My books are back again, thanks to you, but they'll never be the same to me again, and I shan't ever again think night in the woods is wonderful." (27.17)
Poor Leonard. After all of his troubles, he's ready to renounce his ambitions to culture and poetry and real life – he realizes that none of these things are possible without money. His new, harsher perspective on life is grim, to both Helen and us.