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Isabella Tyson, the protagonist of “The Lady in the Looking-glass,” is a mysterious older woman who lives alone in a large and richly-decorated house with a beautiful garden. Though the interior of her home is described in detail throughout the story, little is revealed about the protagonist herself. The story does state that Isabella is wealthy, has traveled extensively collecting objects for her home, and has never married. The narrator, whose relationship to Isabella is unclear, spends the story speculating about the other details of her life, primarily by extrapolating from what is visible in the looking-glass. At different points in the story, the glass reveals different information about Isabella: the fine furniture and décor of her home, her careful attention to the flowers in the garden, the letters that arrive partway through the narrative, and Isabella’s appearance, which the narrator perceives as “old and angular, veined and lined.” Yet despite all this information, Isabella ultimately remains a mystery; for example, it is not clear whether her fine home and expensive possessions have brought her happiness, whether she has close friends, or whether she agrees with the narrator’s harsh assessment of her appearance. In this way, Isabella underscores the story’s theme that perception and reality can vary widely: though the narrator and the reader can see Isabella’s reflection in the looking-glass, this reflection doesn’t reveal much about Isabella’s inner world.
Isabella Tyson Quotes in The Lady in the Looking Glass
The The Lady in the Looking Glass quotes below are all either spoken by Isabella Tyson or refer to Isabella Tyson. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
The Lady in the Looking Glass
Quotes
People should not leave looking-glasses hanging in their rooms any more than they should leave open cheque books or letters confessing some hideous crime. One could not help looking, that summer afternoon, in the long glass that hung outside in the hall.
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But, outside, the looking-glass reflected the hall table, the sun-flowers, the garden path so accurately and so fixedly that they seemed held there in their reality unescapably.
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Such comparisons are worse than idle and superficial—they are cruel even, for they come like the convolvulus itself trembling between one’s eyes and the truth. There must be truth; there must be a wall.
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And, whether it was fancy or not, they seemed to have become not merely a handful of casual letters but to be tablets graven with eternal truth—if one could read them, one would know everything there was to be known about Isabella, yes, and about life, too.
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If she concealed so much and knew so much one must prize her open with the first tool that came to hand—the imagination.
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It was her profounder state of being that one wanted to catch and turn to words, the state that is to the mind what breathing is to the body, what one calls happiness or unhappiness.
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At once the looking-glass began to pour over her a light that seemed to fix her; that seemed like some acid to bite off the unessential and superficial and to leave only the truth. It was an enthralling spectacle.
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People should not leave looking-glasses hanging in their rooms.
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Isabella Tyson Quotes in The Lady in the Looking Glass
The The Lady in the Looking Glass quotes below are all either spoken by Isabella Tyson or refer to Isabella Tyson. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
The Lady in the Looking Glass
Quotes
People should not leave looking-glasses hanging in their rooms any more than they should leave open cheque books or letters confessing some hideous crime. One could not help looking, that summer afternoon, in the long glass that hung outside in the hall.
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Explanation and Analysis:
But, outside, the looking-glass reflected the hall table, the sun-flowers, the garden path so accurately and so fixedly that they seemed held there in their reality unescapably.
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Such comparisons are worse than idle and superficial—they are cruel even, for they come like the convolvulus itself trembling between one’s eyes and the truth. There must be truth; there must be a wall.
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And, whether it was fancy or not, they seemed to have become not merely a handful of casual letters but to be tablets graven with eternal truth—if one could read them, one would know everything there was to be known about Isabella, yes, and about life, too.
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If she concealed so much and knew so much one must prize her open with the first tool that came to hand—the imagination.
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It was her profounder state of being that one wanted to catch and turn to words, the state that is to the mind what breathing is to the body, what one calls happiness or unhappiness.
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At once the looking-glass began to pour over her a light that seemed to fix her; that seemed like some acid to bite off the unessential and superficial and to leave only the truth. It was an enthralling spectacle.
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People should not leave looking-glasses hanging in their rooms.
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