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4666d9a
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How is it that you should feel so vastly superior whenever you do not happen to enter into or understand your neighbour's thoughts when, as a matter of fact, your not being able to do so is less a sign of folly in your neighbour than of incompleteness in yourself?
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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665f985
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The only thing to do with one's old sorrows is to tuck them up neatly in their shroud and turn one's face away from their grave towards what is coming next.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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e33fa1d
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Surely the colour of London was an exquisite thing. It was like a pearl that late afternoon, something very gentle and pale, with faint blue shadows. And as for its smell, she doubted, indeed, whether heaven itself could smell better, certainly not so interesting. "And anyhow," she said to herself, lifting her head a moment in appreciation, "it can't possibly smell more ."
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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acc8d3b
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Rose's own experience was that goodness, the state of being good, was only reached with difficulty and pain. It took a long time to get to it; in fact one never did get to it, or, if for a flashing instant one did, it was only for a flashing instant. Desperate perseverance was needed to struggle along its path, and all the way was dotted with doubts.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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0377752
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Her great dead friends did not seem worth reading that night. They always said the same things now--over and over again they said the same things, and nothing new was to be got out of them any more for ever. No doubt they were greater than any one was now, but they had this immense disadvantage, that they were dead. Nothing further was to be expected of them; while of the living, what might one not still expect?
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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edd4303
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That, thought Mrs. Fisher, her eyes going steadily line by line down the page and not a word of it getting through into her consciousness, is foolish of friends. It is condemning one to a premature death. One should continue (of course with dignity) to develop, however old one may be. She had nothing against developing, against further ripeness, because as long as one was alive one was not dead--obviously, decided Mrs. Fisher, and developme..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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d908d0e
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This is great fun,' she said as he gripped her hand, and she successfully hid the agony caused by her fingers and her rings being crushed together. 'It's heaven,' said Christopher. 'No, no, that's not nearly such fun as--just fun,' she said, furtively rubbing her released hand and making a note in her mind not to wear rings next time her strong young friend was likely to say how do you do.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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f1dbc13
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Was she the same person to-night as last night? Was she two persons? If she was only one, which one? Or was she a mere vessel of receptiveness, a transparent vessel into which other people poured their view of her, and she instantly reflected the exact colour of their opinion?
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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81f5ceb
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When Michael Frere came to see Elizabeth about her autobiography All the Dogs of My Life she found him 'such a boring little man. But it is because we are all growing old, and the bones of our inadequate minds come through the flesh that hid them.' She hadn't always found him boring, and Love, one of her best novels, is largely based on their romance.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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b3397ea
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1922 was a bad year for Elizabeth. She was disappointed by some of the reviews of The Enchanted April although it was to prove the most popular -- excepting the first -- of all her novels. She suffered from depressions that she couldn't throw off. Her doctor diagnosed menopausal symptoms.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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026521a
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The woman has a beak,' he thought, standing red and tongue-tied before her. 'She's a bird of prey. She has got her talons into my Catherine. Linked together! Good God.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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c1e08a5
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Beginnings were not suitable, she felt, after a certain age, especially not for women. Mothers of the married, such as herself and Mrs. Cumfrit, should be concerned rather with endings than beginnings.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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0812acf
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Mrs. Colquhoun was being amiable because she thought Catherine was down and out, and Mrs. Colquhoun was what she was, hard, severe, critical, grudging of happiness, kind to failure so long as it remained failure, simply because there wasn't a soul in the whole world who really loved her. A devoted husband would have done much to bring out her original goodness; a very devoted husband would have done everything.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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6d1782d
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And when he saw the letter, her first letter, the first bit of her handwriting, by his plate at breakfast, he seized it so quickly and turned so red that Lewes was painfully clear as to who had written it. Poor Chris. Cumfrit. Clutches....
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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710091b
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However, few marriages, he understood, were lasting successes, so that perhaps after all it didn't much matter.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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685e437
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But he felt too confident in Catherine's beautiful nature to be afraid of Ned. Catherine, who loved beauty, who was so much moved by it--witness her rapt face at The Immortal Hour--would never listen to blandishments from anyone with Ned's nose. Besides, Ned was elderly. In spite of the fur rug up to his chin, Christopher had seen that all right. He was an elderly, puffy man. Elderliness and love! He grinned to himself. If only the elderly ..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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5d2f885
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Oh well, I'll be sure to pick you up again somewhere. It isn't a very big island, and you are a conspicuous object, driving round it.' This was true. So long as I was on that island I could not hope to escape Charlotte. I entered Binz in a state of moody acquiescence. Every
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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5549a06
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Frankly, as an oyster's.' 'Really, my dear Charlotte,' I exclaimed, naturally upset. How very unfortunate that I should have hurried away from Gohren. Why had I not stayed there two or three days, as I had at first intended? It was such a safe place; you could get out of it so easily and so quickly. If I were an oyster--curious how much the word disconcerted me--at least I was a happy oyster, which was surely better than being miserable and..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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179e0c4
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Lewes was waiting, always Lewes, making profound and idiotic comments on everything, and wanting to sit up half the night and reason. Reason! He was sick of reason. He wanted some one he could be romantic with, and sentimental with, and poetic, and--yes, religious with, if he felt like it, without having to feel ashamed.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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c5ab29a
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I know no surer way of shaking off the dreary crust formed about the soul by the trying to do one's duty or the patient enduring of having somebody else's duty done to one, than going out alone, either at the bright beginning of the day, when the earth is still unsoiled by the feet of the strenuous and only God is abroad; or in the evening, when the hush has come, out to the blessed stars, and looking up at them wonder at the meanness of th..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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5077c0d
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Something lay in the middle of it a few yards on, a dark object like a little heap of brown leaves. Thinking it was leaves I saw no reason for comment; but Gertrud, whose eyes are very sharp, exclaimed. 'What, do you see August?' I cried. 'No, no--but there in the road--the tea-basket!' It was indeed the tea-basket, shaken out as it naturally would be on the removal of the bodies that had kept it in its place, come to us like the ravens of ..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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147cfa2
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This is very unpleasant, Gertrud,' I remarked, and I wondered what those at home would say if they knew that on the very first day of my driving-tour I had managed to lose the carriage and had had to bear the banter of publicans.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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5205f6f
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The young man smiled--certainly a very personable young man--and explained that the light was no longer strong enough to do any more. Again in this explanation did he call me gnadiges Fraulein, and again was I touched by so much innocence. And his German, too, was touching; it was so conscientiously grammatical, so laboriously put together, so like pieces of Goethe learned by heart. By
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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978d1b0
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remembered how I was only a speck after all in uncomfortably limitless space, of no account whatever in the general scheme of things, but with a horrid private capacity for being often and easily hurt; and how specks have a trick of dying, which I in my turn would presently do, and a fresh speck, not nearly so nice, as I hoped and believed, would immediately start up and fill my vacancy, perhaps so exactly my vacancy that it would even wear..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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2a4c4db
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By the time we had reached the chestnut grove in front of the inn I had said so little that my companion was sure I was one of the most intelligent women he had ever met. I know he thought so, for he turned suddenly to me as we were walking past the Frau Forster's wash-house and rose-garden up to the chestnuts, and said, 'How is it that German women are so infinitely more intellectual than English women?' Intellectual! How nice. And all the..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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a4671cf
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And so at Binz, dragged out of my pleasant dream to night and loneliness, I could not move for a moment for sheer extremity of fright. When I did, when I did put out a shaking hand to feel for the matches, the dread of years became a reality--I touched another hand. Now I think it was very wonderful of me not to scream. I suppose I did not dare. I don't know how I managed it, petrified as I was with terror, but the next thing that happened ..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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cac52c1
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Put out? My dear Gertrud, I have been thinking of very serious things. You cannot expect me to frolic along paths of thought that lead to mighty and unpleasant truths. Why should I always smile? I am not a Cheshire cat.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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86aba2a
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A RIPE EXPERIENCE OF GERMAN pillows in country places leads me to urge the intending traveller to be sure to take his own. The native pillows are mere bags, in which feathers may have been once. There is no substance in them at all. They are of a horrid flabbiness. And they have, of course, the common drawback of all public pillows, they are haunted by the nightmares of other people. A pillow, it is true, takes up a great deal of room in on..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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2829b7c
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Well, it was evident that in ordinary cases, having tired one's host, one would go away. But was this quite an ordinary case? She couldn't think so. She couldn't help remembering, though it was a thing she never thought of, that she had made way without difficulty for Stephen to come and live in this very house, giving him everything--why, with both hands giving him everything--and she couldn't help feeling that to be allowed to stay in it ..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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5c3b031
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THE next morning Catherine went to church for the last time--for when Stephen was in London, and not there to invite her to accompany him, which he solemnly before each separate service did, there would be no more need to go--and for the last time mingled her psalms with Mrs. Colquhoun's.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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df83c39
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Virginia had, however, long felt that her mother was not truly religious--not truly and seriously, as she and Stephen were. No doubt she thought she was, and perhaps she was, in some queer way; but were queer ways of being religious permissible? Weren't they as bad, really, as no ways at all?
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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ee0720c
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can never see two people contradicting each other without feeling wretched. Why contradict? Why argue at all? Only one's Best-Beloved, one's Closest and Most Understanding should be contradicted and argued with. How simple to keep quiet with all the rest and agree to everything they say.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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3d27f40
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It is not only unkind, it is simply wicked. For how shall we ever be anything but tools and drudges if we don't co-operate, if we don't stand shoulder to shoulder? Oh my heart goes out to all women! I never see one without feeling I must do all in my power to get to know her, to help her, to show her what she must do, so that when her youth is gone there will still be something left, a so much nobler happiness, a so much truer joy.' 'Than w..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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73d1fe9
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the sky paled to green, a few stars looked out faintly, a light twinkled in the solitary house on Vilm, and the waiter came down and asked if he should bring a lamp. A lamp! As though all one ever wanted was to see the tiny circle round oneself, to be able to read the evening paper, or write postcards to one's friends, or sew. I have a peculiar capacity for doing nothing and yet enjoying myself. To
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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5b2998e
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He stood staring round him, and telling himself that he knew how it had happened--oh yes, he could see it all--how at the moment of George's death Catherine, flooded with pity, with grief, perhaps with love now that she was no longer obliged to love, had clung on to his arrangements, not suffering a thing to be touched or moved or altered, pathetically anxious to keep it exactly as he used to, to keep him still alive at least in his furnitu..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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af415ce
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A train was nearly due, and intending passengers were sitting in front of the hotels drinking beer while they waited, and various conveyances had stopped there on their way to Gohren or Sellin, and the Lonely One seemed a very noisy, busy one to me as we rattled by over the stones, and I was glad to turn off to the left at a sign-post pointing towards Gohren and get on to the deep, sandy, silent forest roads. The forest,
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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d378e72
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Oh, I have been thankful often in my life, deeply thankful, but never more deeply than when I found that man was in. Together we carried my unhappy little dog to the operating table, where, quieter by then, he lay as he was put, his eyes fixed on me to whom, strong and well, he had paid so little heed. In this last dreadful moment I was his only hope--and what a hope! Somebody who could do nothing for him except stroke his poor head and whi..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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71cda25
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That was a strange thing, the death of Coco. Not that he should die, for owing to the unexpected folly of the concierge it was inevitable that he should, but his manner of doing it. Even at this distance of time, the remembrance agonises me. There
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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05dcf3b
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She had gone to sleep on these facts years ago, after a period of much misery, her head resting on them as on a pillow; and she had a great dread of being awakened out of so simple and untroublesome a condition. Therefore it was that she searched with earnestness for a heading under which to put Mrs. Wilkins, and in this way illumine and steady her own mind; and sitting there looking at her uneasily after her last remark, and feeling hersel..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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b1196b6
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Coco?" I whispered, standing still, hardly able to believe it. "Oh--Coco?" "It is impossible to imagine," a voice behind seemed to be saying from a great distance away, "how the dog could have reached this spot. For three days he has been immovable in his kennel." I dropped on my knees, and took his paw in my hand. He gave the faintest wag of his tail, and tried to raise his head; but it fell back again, and he could only look at me. For an..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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e3c2f29
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For years she had been able to be happy only by forgetting happiness. She wanted to stay like that. She wanted to shut out everything that would remind her of beautiful things, that might set her off again long, desiring . . .
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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5c03537
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Strange how tightly one's body could be held, how close to somebody else's heart, and yet one wasn't anywhere near the holder. They locked you up in prisons that way, holding your body tight and thinking they had got you, and all the while your mind--you--was as free as the wind and the sunlight. She couldn't help it, she struggled hard to feel as she had felt when she woke up and saw him sitting near her; but the way he had refused to be f..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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20e48d0
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for I saw them, while I was still struggling through the bushes, looking out of the back window,--and yet drove on indifferently? Did he suppose that in all the wide world there could be forgiveness for such people? He shrugged his shoulders. "Apres tout, madame," he said, "cc n'est qu'un chien." It seemed to me as I drove home, with Woosie wrapped in a cloth I had begged of the vet, at my feet--Woosie so quiet now, who had never yet been q..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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8a5cb8f
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It seemed, however, that I had. I didn't want any more, so I got them. And now I am glad, for if, as I had sometimes wished at that time, I could have finished with a consciousness become unbearable, if, in other words, I had then died, I would never have known a great many very beautiful and delightful things. Evidently, then, it is wise not too soon to lose patience with life, but to wait and see what it may have round its next corner. I
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Elizabeth von Arnim |