How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
She felt quite safe; Homily liked her to write; Homily encouraged any form of culture. Homily herself, poor ignorant creature, could not even say the alphabet. (2.17)
You know what word jumps out at us here? Culture. Notice that Homily doesn't encourage expression or learning. Just culture. As if that's a ticket to greener pastures.
Quote #2
But I went on about it so. What's a tea cup! Your Uncle Hendreary never drank a thing that wasn't an out of a common acorn cup, and he's lived to a ripe old age and had the strength to emigrate. My mother's family never had nothing but a little bone thimble which they shared around. But it's once you've had a tea cup, if you know what I mean… (3.13)
Shmoop has a hunch that Homily would like this song. Because really, now that she's had a taste for fancy china teacups, how could she go back to drinking from a regular acorn cup?
Quote #3
To go and live like Hendreary and Lupy in a badger's set! The other side of the world, that's where they say it is—all among the earthworms.
[…]
"Nuts, that's what they eat. And berries. I wouldn't wonder if they don't eat mice—" (4.23, 24)
Why do you think Homily is more afraid of emigrating—because of the actual dangers of living on "the other side of the world," or because of how others will see her once she's moved there?
Quote #4
"We were rich then," said Homily. "Oh, we did have some lovely things! You were only a tot, Arrietty, and wouldn't remember. We had a whole suite of walnut furniture out of the doll's house and a set of wine glasses in green glass, and a musical snuffbox, and the cousins would come and we'd have parties. Do you remember, Pod?" (5.28)
So the Clocks used to live large. What happened to all that fancy furniture, and the parties? Why are they living in humbler surroundings, now?
Quote #5
"Oh, you must've heard me talk of the Overmantels," exclaimed Homily, "that stuck-up lot who lived in the wall high up—among the lath and plaster behind the mantelpiece in the morning room. And a queer lot they were. The men smoked all the time because the tobacco jars were kept there […] The women were a conceited lot too, always admiring themselves in all those bits of overmantel looking glass. They never asked anyone up there and I, for one, never wanted to go." (5.30)
We're not so sure we believe Homily when she says she never wanted to go visit their home… In fact, we think she means quite the opposite of what she's saying here, whether she admits it or not.
Quote #6
"Your Aunt Lupy, who married your Uncle Hendreary, was a Harpsichord by marriage and we all know the airs she gave herself […] well, she'd no right to. She was only a Rain-Pipe from the stables before she married Harpsichord." (5.38, 40)
Ah, so here's a glimpse into the strange social hierarchy the borrowers have going on. It's all about where you live and how you marry. Oh wait, that doesn't sound unfamiliar.
Quote #7
"And just because the Harpsichords lived in the drawing room—they moved there, in 1837, to a hole in the wainscot just behind where the harpsichord used to stand, if ever there was one, which I doubt—and were really a family called Linden-Press or some such name and changed it to Harpsichord." (5.50)
Why does it matter that the Harpsichord family was once called Linden-Press? Does that tell us something about them?
Quote #8
"So you can't be too hard on them; their only comfort, poor things, was to show off a bit and wear evening dress and talk like ladies and gentlemen. Did you ever hear your Aunt Lupy talk?
[…]
"Oh, you should have heard her say "Parquet"—that's the stuff the drawing room floor is made of—"Parquet… Parr-r-kay" she'd say. Oh, it was lovely. Come to think of it, your Aunt Lupy was the most stuck-up of them all. (5.52, 54)
Homily is totally putting down Aunt Lupy. But she also kind of seems to be worshipping her. Uh oh. We smell jealousy. And it does not smell good.
Quote #9
"No one could call me house-proud," said Homily. "You couldn't be, not with my kind of family, but I do like," she said, "to keep nice things nice." (12.3)
You know what the saddest part about this little comment is? Homily is dissing her own family—to their faces! She's basically saying she can't be proud of her house, because her family is nothing but a bunch of Clocks. Not cool, Homily.
Quote #10
(She curled her hair nearly every evening nowadays and, since the house was more or less straight, she would occasionally change to dinner into a satin dress; it hung like a sack, but Homily called it "Grecian.") "We could use your painted ceiling," she explained to Arrietty, "and there are quite enough of those toy builder's blocks to make a parquet floor." ("Parkay," she would say. "Par-r-r-kay…," just like a Harpsichord.) (16.8)
Looks like Homily isn't all that different from the relatives she disses.