Quotes from book
Seven Gothic Tales

Name: Seven Gothic Tales
Author: Karen Blixen

Seven Gothic Tales is a collection of short stories by the Danish author Karen Blixen , first published in 1934, three years before her memoir Out of Africa. The collection, consisting of stories set mostly in the nineteenth century, contains her tales "The Deluge at Norderney" and "The Supper at Elsinore".

“"Do you know a cure for me?" "Why yes," he said, "I know a cure for everything. Salt water." "Salt water?" I asked him. "Yes," he said, "in one way or the other. Sweat, or tears, or the salt sea."”

Karen Blixen book Seven Gothic Tales

"The Deluge at Norderney"
Source: Seven Gothic Tales (1934)

“My love was both humble and audacious, like that of a page for his lady…”

Karen Blixen book Seven Gothic Tales

"The Old Chevalier"
Seven Gothic Tales (1934)

“Love, with very young people, is a heartless business. We drink at that age from thirst, or to get drunk; it is only later in life that we occupy ourselves with the individuality of our wine. A young man in love is essentially enraptured by the forces within himself.”

Karen Blixen book Seven Gothic Tales

"The Old Chevalier"
Seven Gothic Tales (1934)

“What is man, when you come to think upon him, but a minutely set, ingenious machine for turning, with infinite artfulness, the red wine of Shiraz into urine?”

Karen Blixen book Seven Gothic Tales

"The Dreamers"
Seven Gothic Tales (1934)

“God made the world, My Lord, and looked at it, and saw that it was good. Yes. But what if the world had looked back at him, to see whether he was good or not?”

Karen Blixen book Seven Gothic Tales

"The Deluge at Norderney"
Seven Gothic Tales (1934)

“During the first quarter of the last century, seaside resorts became the fashion, even in those countries of Northern Europe within the minds of whose people the sea had hitherto held the role of the devil, the cold and voracious hereditary foe of humanity.”

Karen Blixen book Seven Gothic Tales

"The Deluge at Norderney"
Seven Gothic Tales (1934)

“I do not know if you remember the tale of the girl who saves the ship under mutiny by sitting on the powder barrel with her lighted torch … and all the time knowing that it is empty? This has seemed to me a charming image of the women of my time. There they were, keeping the world in order … by sitting on the mystery of life, and knowing themselves that there was no mystery.”

Karen Blixen book Seven Gothic Tales

"The Old Chevalier"
Seven Gothic Tales (1934)

“Let physicians and confectioners and servants in the great houses be judged by what they have done, and even by what they have meant to do; the great people themselves are judged by what they are.”

Karen Blixen book Seven Gothic Tales

"The Dreamers"
Seven Gothic Tales (1934)
Context: The consolations of the vulgar are bitter in the royal ear. Let physicians and confectioners and servants in the great houses be judged by what they have done, and even by what they have meant to do; the great people themselves are judged by what they are. I have been told that lions, trapped and shut up in cages, grieve from shame more than from hunger.