chevalier_mal_fet MollyGoLightly pg 315 "The boy thought that there was something wrong with him. All through his life-even when he was a great man with the world at his feet--he was to feel this gap: something at the bottom of his heart of which he was aware, and ashamed, but which he did not understand. There is no need for us to understand it. We do not have to dabble in a place which he preferred to keep secret." pg 317 "He had already decided that that when he was a grown knight he would give himself a melancholy title. He was the eldest son, so he was bound to be knighted, but he would not call himself Sir Lancelot. He would call himself Chevalier Mal Fet--the Ill-Made Knight." T.H. White, from "The Once and Future King" 000525 ... MollyGoLightly pg 320 "Three years may seem like a long time for a boy to spend in one room, if he only goes out of it to eat and sleep and to practise tilting in the field. It is even difficult to imagine a boy who would do it, unless you realize from the start that Lancelot was not romantic and debonair. Tennyson and the Pre-Rapaelites would have found it difficult to recognise this sullen and unsatisfactory child, with the ugly face, who did not disclose to anybody that he was living in dreams and prayers. They might have wondered what store of ferocity he had against himself, that could set him to break his own body so young. They might have wondered why he was so strange." 000525 ... MollyGoLightly pgs 322-323 "...he gave thirty-six months to another man's idea because he was in love with it." 000525 ... MollyGoLightly pg 331 "'Now,' said the King, putting their hands together. 'This is Lancelot, the one I have told you about. He is going to be the best knight I have. I never saw such a fall as he gave me. I want you to be kind to him, Gwen. His father is one of my oldest friends.' He kissed the Queen's hand coldly." 000525 ... phil tilt 030210 what's it to you? who go blather from