# John Oliver Hobbes

Pearl Mary Teresa Richards (November 3, 1867 – August 13, 1906) was an Anglo-American novelist and dramatist who wrote under the pen-name of John Oliver Hobbes. Though her work fell out of print in the twentieth century, her first book Some Emotions and a Moral was a sensation in its day, selling eighty thousand copies in only a few weeks.

## Quotes

* Ideals, my dear Golightly, are the root of every evil. When a man forgets his ideals he may hope for happiness, but not till then.
** Some Emotions and a Moral (1891), pt. 1, sect. 1
** Cf. Love of money
* Men astonish themselves far more than they astonish their friends.
** Some Emotions and a Moral (1891), pt. 1, sect. 1
* A statesman's words, like butcher's meat, should be well weighed.
** Robert Orange (1900), ch. 3
* We must know the measure of a man's desires before we can sound the depth of his regrets.
** Robert Orange (1900), ch. 11
* People get to like a soul, but a satisfactory hat makes an impression at first sight.
** Love and the Soul Hunters (1902), ch. 13
* There is no misery quite so wearing as the misery of a false position. It seems to slay the body and the soul.
** In John Morgan Richards, The Life of John Oliver Hobbes (1911), ch. 13
* ... there was never a woman so ill-suited to public life as I am. I have had to whip myself, as it were, into society, and the loneliness of it all has been terrific.
** In The Life of John Oliver Hobbes (1911), ch. 13

### The Sinner's Comedy (1892)

* Reader. But where are the Unities? Author. In life there are no Unities, but three Incomprehensibles: Destiny, Man, and Woman.
** epigraph
* He longed to make a mark, or, to express it more vulgarly, cut a figure. Now, fortunately or unfortunately, the number of figures which can be cut in the world is practically unlimited; the only difficulty is to cut precisely the kind of figure one would wish.
** ch. 1
* He did not speak again till just before he died, when he kissed his wife’s hand with singular tenderness and called her "Elizabeth." She had been christened Augusta Frederica; but then, as the doctors explained, dying men often make these mistakes.
** ch. 1
* "Ah," said that gentleman, ever ready to discuss one friend with another—in fact, it was chiefly for this pleasure that he made them...
** ch. 3
* ... he fell a too ready victim to circumstances: he helped to build the altar for his own sacrifice.
** ch. 3
* Men heap together the mistakes of their lives and create a monster which they call Destiny.
** ch. 3
* ... love comes to man through his senses—to woman through her imagination.
** ch. 3
* All is vanity,...discovering it—the greatest vanity.
** ch. 3
* "A man's way of loving is so different from a woman's," sighed Anna. "There ain't nothing," said Mrs. Grimmage, "there ain't nothing that makes them so sulky and turns them against you so soon as saying anything like that."
** ch. 6
* Talking to you...is only thinking to myself—made easier.
** ch. 9
* If the gods have no sense of humour they must weep a great deal.
** ch. 11

### The Herb-Moon (1896)

* All forced virtue is degrading in its effect.
** ch. 1
* A quart of doubt to an ounce of truth is the safest brew.
** ch. 11
* What is beautiful is right: what is unbeautiful is wrong.
** ch. 16
* It is our imagination, not our conscience, which makes us better than the beasts of the field.
** ch. 16

### The Ambassador (1898)

* Disappointments—like fate and love—will not bear to be too much talked about.
** act 1, sc. 1 (loq. Gwendolene)
* Disillusions all come from within...from the failure of some dear and secret hope. The world makes no promises; we only dream it does; and when we wake, we cry!
** act 1, sc. 1 (loq. Alice)
* ... entertainment for entertainment's sake is the most expensive form of death ...
** act 1, sc. 1 (loq. Mrs. Dasney)
* Faults! I adore faults! I can never find too many in any creature.
** act 1, sc. 1 (loq. St. Orbyn)
* Dearest, every man—even the most cynical—has one enthusiasm—he is earnest about some one thing; the all-round trifler does not exist. If there is a skeleton—there is also an idol in the cupboard!
** act 2, sc. 1 (loq. St. Orbyn)
* To die for one's great ideas is glorious—and easy. The horror is to outlive them. That is our worst capability.
** act 2, sc. 1 (loq. St. Orbyn)
* Those who have made unhappy marriages walk on stilts, while the happy ones are on a level with the crowd. No one sees 'em!
** act 2, sc. 1 (loq. St. Oybyn)
* Women may be whole oceans deeper than we are, but they are also a whole paradise better. She may have got us out of Eden, but as a compensation she makes the earth very pleasant.
** act 3, sc. 1 (loq. St. Orbyn)
* Marriage is like a good pie spoilt in the baking. Everything is admirable except the result! It is very heavy... very, very heavy!
** act 3, sc. 1 (loq. Yolande)
* Lascelles: I'd rather be ruled by a liver than by love! St. Orbyn: A liver lasts longer!
** act 3, sc. 1

### The Wisdom of the Wise (1900)

* My dear, a man with a career can have no time to waste upon his wife or his friends—he has to devote himself wholly to his enemies!
** act 1 (loq. Ada)
* What a man has done bores everybody, but what he is going to do is always delightful.
** act 1 (loq. Kate)
* ... every man is practically three men. There is the man you know before he proposes: there is the man you have accepted: there is the man you have married.
** act 1 (loq. Ada)
* If women thought less of their own souls and more about men's tempers, marriage wouldn't he what it is.
** act 1 (loq. Wuthering)
* The wisest are those who can best adjust their disadvantages.
** act 1 (loq. St. Asaph)
* Reason! A fool can give more reasons for his folly than a saint can urge for his wisdom. We have five senses, but only one conscience. That explains everything. The game is unequal.
** act 2 (loq. Appleford)
* ... political reputations are made by saying what you think, and they are kept by saying what you don't think!
** act 2 (loq. St. Asaph)

### Osbern and Ursyne (1900)

* ... I had rather sleep and eat and dance Than hear a nightingale any day o' the week!
** act 1, sc. 1 (loq. Muriel)
* ... unimaginable moments lack Th' appropriate language we would give to them. For daily talk and excellent occasions There is a stock of sentiments all wound Like skeins of wool around our tongues. We hold them Deliciously tinged for every use.
** act 2, sc. 1 (loq. Osbern)
* Not all are blind that feel the scourge of love.
** act 2, sc. 1 (loq. Osbern)
* Ah, it is silliness to pass a wolf because one is hunting foxes.
** act 2 (loq. Alan)
* An enemy's praise heralds all treachery, And grows the sweeter as revenge looks surer!
** act 3, sc. 1 (loq. Ursyne)

## About

* John Oliver Hobbes, with your spasms and throbs, How does your novel grow? With cynical sneers at young Love and his tears, And epigrams all in a row.
** A contemporary verse lampooning her novels. Reported in Martin Seymour-Smith, Hardy (1994), p. 477
** Cf. "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary"

## External links

* Encyclopedic article on John Oliver Hobbes on Wikipedia
* Helena Swan (ed.) Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations: English (London & New York, 1904), pp. 114, 142, 240, 287, 323, 570