The Wanting Seed Race Quotes

Beatrice-Joanna Foxe snuffled a bereaved mother's grief as the little corpse, in its yellow plastic casket, was handed over to two men from the Ministry of Agriculture (Phosphorus Reclamation Department). They were cheerful creatures, coal-faced and with shining dentures, and one of them sang a song which had recently become popular. Much burbled on the television by epicene willowy youths, it sounded incongruous coming from this virile West Indian deep bass throat. (1.1.2)

Miss Herschhorn, a Teutonico-Chinese, rapidly quacked the details into her audiograph; a printed card slid out of a slot; Dr Acheson stamped his signature—flowing, womanly. [. . .] Miss Herschhorn, a plain thin girl with dog's eyes and very lank straight black hair, made a moue at Dr Acheson. (1.1.5-6)

This was the British people; rather, to be more accurate, this was the people that inhabited the British Islands—Eurasian, Euro-African, Euro-Polynesian predominated, the frank light shining on damson, gold, even puce; her own English peach, masked with white flour, was growing rarer. (1.3.5)

Ethnic divisions were no longer important; the world was split into language-groups. Was it, she thought in an instant almost of prophetic power, to be left to her and the few indisputable Anglo-Saxons like her to restore sanity and dignity to the mongrel world? Her race, she seemed to remember, had done it before. (1.3.5)

'One achievement of the Anglo-Saxon race,' said Tristram, 'was parliamentary government, which eventually meant government by party. Later, when it was found that the work of government could be carried on more expeditiously without debate and without the opposition that party government entailed, the nature of the cycle began to be recognized.' (1.4.1)

Tristram left (just a tummy upset) and joined the group waiting at the lift. Old Mr Earthrowl, Phipps, Arthur Spragg, Miss Runting—race-blocks like nutrition blocks: Europe, Africa, Asia mashed together, salted by Polynesia—off to their jobs in the ministries and the national factories [. . .] (2.1.6)

Shonny was a Pancelt, one of the rare survivors of the Celtic Union that, in voluntary exodus, had left the British Isles and, wave after wave, settled in Armorica nearly a century before. In Shonny was a heartening stew of Manx, Glamorgan, Shetland, Ayrshire, and County Cork, but this, as Shonny was hot in pointing out, could not be called miscegenation. (2.9.8)

Tristram's new cell-mate was a massive Nigerian called Charlie Linklater. He was a friendly talkative man, with a mouth so large that it was a wonder he was able to attain any precision in his enunciation of the English vowel sounds. (3.9.1)

A warm dark woman in her thirties came up to Tristram and said, 'How about you and me, duck?' 'Gladly,' said Tristram. 'You look proper sad,' she said, 'as if you was pining away after somebody. Am I right?' 'Another couple of days, with a bit of luck,' said Tristram, 'and I'll be with her. In the meantime—' They rolled into the dance. (4.5.5)

She pressed an electric buzzer on a wall-panel of switches and buzzers; almost at once a cheerful (cheerful as a Tommy) brown girl glided in, bowing in spasms, dressed in servant's black silk-substitute. She was a pretty little orchestra of races and her name was Jane. (5.1.19)