The Silver Cord (1933)

Laura Hope Crews: Mrs. Phelps

Photos 

Quotes 

• Mrs. Phelps : Now, tell me about your job. I don't like to say profession. That has such a sinister sound for a woman.

• Mrs. Phelps : I used to watch David and Robert's photographs, just as I did their weight. I felt that I wanted a record of the development of their little minds and souls, as well as, their bodies. So, they were photographed every three months until they were 12 years old.

  Hester : Good heavens! What an awful lot of photographs.

  David Phelps : Now mother will be getting out the old family album. I remember one of me sitting in a shell.

  Christina Phelps : In the nude?

• Mrs. Phelps : I've always suspected there was insanity in her family. She had a brother who was an aviator in the war. Everybody knows aviators are lunatics.

• Mrs. Phelps : Science is hardly a profession, is it? It's - more of a hobby.

• Mrs. Phelps : A fine man is a frank man.

• Mrs. Phelps : I offer a mother's love. I bet you scoff at that.

  Christina Phelps : Not if it's kept within bounds. I expect to love my baby with as much and as deep respect as I hope my baby will feel for me - if I deserve its respect. To love my baby unpossessively and, above all, unromantically.

• Mrs. Phelps : Seeing this big boy again, quite took me off my feet.

• Mrs. Phelps : Delia, will you help me off with my furs, so that I can really do my duty in comfort.

• Mrs. Phelps : It seems to me, you might chose a *pleasanter* place to live than - New York.

• Mrs. Phelps : Take your hat off, so that I can *really* see you. I've never seen a lady scientist before.

• Mrs. Phelps : In my day, we considered a girl immensely courageous and independent who taught school or - who gave music lessons. But, nowadays, girls sell real estate and become *scientists* - and think nothing of it. Give us our due, Christina. We weren't all bustles and smelling salts. We girls who did not go out into the the world, we made a great profession, which I fear is in some danger of vanishing from the face of the earth. We made a profession - of motherhood. That may sound old fashioned to you. Believe me, it had its value.

• Mrs. Phelps : Now, now tell me about your plans. If you have any plans. I hope you haven't; because, I've been making so many for you - and such *perfect* ones.

• Mrs. Phelps : You think I'm selfish. If there's one thing I pride myself on: I'm not selfish. I haven't a selfish hair in my head.

• Mrs. Phelps : You are the only person in the world who's ever forced me to do an undignified thing. I shall not forget.

• Christina Phelps : The third time I refused Dave, he asked me for a reason. And I told him, I couldn't throw myself away on a big frog in a small puddle.

  Mrs. Phelps : Yes, but, you don't mean - you want him a small frog, a mere pollywog, in a great ocean like New York?

  Christina Phelps : Yes, I'm afraid that's just what I do mean.

• Mrs. Phelps : I can't cope with him. He'll slip back to drinking and fast women.

• Mrs. Phelps : Now, isn't your mother your best friend?

  David Phelps : You bet you are, Mommy.

  Mrs. Phelps : Oh, how long its been since you've called me that. Bless you my dear, dear boy

  [leans down to David lying in his bed and kisses him on the lips] 

• Mrs. Phelps : I won't have to be lonely now. I won't have to be lonely now.

  Robert Phelps : No, mother. No.

  Mrs. Phelps : Kiss me.

  [leans down to Robert, who has his head on her bosom, and kisses him on the lips] 

• Mrs. Phelps : What is it you're about to say, Hester?

  Hester : Why, I was just looking at Christina's dress and I was just about to say, well, of all the lovely dresses I've ever seen, that's the loveliest.

  Christina Phelps : Yes, it is nice, isn't it.

  Mrs. Phelps : I know who that dress would look well on. Dave, do you remember Clara Judd? What a exquisite figure Clara always had and such distinction. That dress needs distinctions and a figure.

• Mrs. Phelps : Everyone said I'd made a great match. And I thought I had. But, before I'd been married a week, I saw all my illusions shattered. I knew at the end of a week how miserable and unhappy my marriage was. He was good to me. He made very few demands on me. But, he never dreamed of bringing the least atom of happiness or romance into my life. Only a woman who's lived without romance knows how to value it. And that isn't true of my life. I didn't live without romance. I found it. And I'm proud to have found it where you say it doesn't belong - in motherhood. I found it in my two babies.

• David Phelps : You scared me to death.

  Mrs. Phelps : I scare myself sometimes.