Thoughts on { Servants | James Joyce / Dodie Smith / Marcel Proust / Dejan Stojanovic / Michael Bassey Johnson
“A person who is another man’s slave is better than one who is a slave to lust.”
Michael Bassey Johnson
“Different languages, the same thoughts; servant to thoughts and their masters.”
Dejan Stojanovic, The Sun Watches the Sun, 2012
“It was in the defects that they [servants] invariably acquired that I learned of my own natural,
invariable defects, and their character presented me with a sort of negative proof of my own.”
Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way, 1920-21
“I pulled my mind off the table and stared into the dimness beyond, and then I gradually saw
the servants as real people, watching us, whispering instructions to each other, exchanging
glances. I noticed a girl from Godsend village and gave her a tiny wink – and wished I hadn’t,
because she let out a little snort of laughter and then looked in terror at the butler.”
Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle, 1948
“It is a symbol of Irish art. The cracked looking-glass of a servant.”
James Joyce
