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e494eb4
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and there is no getting away from it, I am made for dogs and dogs for me, because the instant I saw him I began to cheer up. Sitting
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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a39e1b9
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How wrong they were. I wasn't a poor little thing at all. Even as early as this, such is the relief when pressure is removed, even in the very act of waving my last goodbyes, I found it quite difficult to pull a suitably regretful face, and I know I went back into the house, the silent house, the deliciously empty house, with steps so brisk that they nearly ran. The
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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04d2776
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Just about the time I had my first baby, Cornelia had hers; but there were six of them, to my one. It might have been supposed, seeing she had six, that she would have taken six times as long to get over her confinement as I did, who had only produced one. Not at all. She was up and about and as lively as ever within a week, while I wouldn't like to count the weeks it took me to be merely up and about, let alone as lively as ever. I don't t..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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ed375b9
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They weren't. They never have been, for me. Friends, too, though delightful, seemed, at those moments of weariness, only delightful if properly spaced, and how is one to space anybody or anything in London? Of everything there, there appeared to be too much. And I would sit despondent on the edge of the bed, and fall to remembering the roomy years in Pomerania, when only every six months did we go to, or give, a party, and the glorious time..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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aee0d8b
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Pincher took me to London, and Knobbie brought me away. It looked as if I were beginning to be led about by dogs. My
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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ddfe0b3
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Thus does good fortune follow on the steps of the reckless. If
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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3c24ba9
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And while I ate muffins--things I had never been able even to look at in London, but now swallowed with complacence,--and Pincher sat in front of me watching every mouthful, just as though he hadn't had an enormous dinner a few minutes before, and the cat, finished with Knobbie's ears, deftly turned her over and began tidying her stomach, I did feel that my feet were set once more in the path of peace, and that all I had to do was to contin..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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5879f91
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the greater part or my spring happiness is due to the scent of the wet earth and young leaves. I am always happy (out of doors be it understood, for indoors there are servants and furniture), but in quite different ways, and my spring happiness bears no resemblance to my summer or autumn happiness, though it is not more intense, and there were days last winter when I danced for sheer joy out in my frost-bound garden in spite of my years and..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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4fb082a
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On the picture it can be seen that Chunkie is feeling cheerful again. At first, when Knobbie too left him, he was greatly depressed and bewildered, and to console him for his different trials I took him, each afternoon, down to the sea, knowing that he loves bathing and digging holes in the sand; and after a few days of this treatment I observed, with pleasure, that air of Never-say-die, which I have always so much admired in him, reappeari..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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9a242aa
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Well, I for one am unable to imagine how anybody who lives with an intelligent and devoted dog can ever be lonely.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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a1cd446
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A good thing this was, and that we should be so care-free and irresponsible, enjoying every minute of every day; for it was the Easter of 1914, the last Easter of the old, easy world, and our last, as well as our first, Easter as children together in the little house I had built for happiness.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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24c66bc
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I know, from the results, that this was so. More acquaintances wrote touching letters, saying how much they longed for air that was pure, how much they envied me mine, and how wretched it was to be so utterly broke that they couldn't manage St. Moritz that year. And since, as I have already indicated, I am not able to say No when taken suddenly, nor, I find, if appeals are made to my goodnature--it is so flattering to be supposed goodnature..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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1cec97e
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Short work was made of a cushion which was so unfortunate as to slip off my chair; and finally, leaping up in a paroxysm of high spirits to lick my distracted face, Ivo knocked the table over, and there was a most frightful mix-up on the floor of Fraulein Schmidt and Mr. Anstruther--a story I was just then trying to write,--and ink, and broken glass. Could Shakespeare, could Kipling, have worked under such circumstances? I remember kneeling..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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08f121e
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I don't know that doom is a very nice word. It does suggest, I think, shuddering and cold sweat. There was none of that, though, about Coco's welcome to it when it opened my front door and walked in, nor can it be fairly said that there was any of it about mine. True I had a feeling, unusual so soon after breakfast, that I was in the hands of God, but otherwise I wasn't aware of any particular discomfort. Nor did I remember, till later, tha..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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33cadb3
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Therefore they spent such time as I was housekeeping, eating or sleeping, alone in the greenhouse, and I had to manage as best I could when, after these intervals, I went back to them, not to be knocked over by their joyful welcome. Gradually, however, things settled down. The secret of peace with puppies, I discovered--up to then I had had only ready-made dogs (except Bijou, who doesn't count), and had everything to learn,--is to give them..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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21bd1e8
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Dogs being great linguists, she quickly picked up English, far more quickly than I picked up German, so we understood each other very well, and couche, schonmachen, and pfui continued for a long time to be my whole vocabulary. Fortunately,
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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748ecb0
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I asked nothing better of life. I still ask nothing better of life. Strange to say--for surely it is strange not to have increased one's claims, during the passage from youth to maturity?--these very things, just sun on my face, the feel of spring round the corner, and nobody anywhere in sight except a dog, are still enough to fill me with utter happiness. How convenient. And how cheap.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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55855c5
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Now all persons who have spent much of their time in Germany, and certainly all born Germans, have a great fear of the law. Their one idea is not to attract its attention, to be inconspicuous, to crawl in time, as it were, under tables. Accordingly, when I saw myself within reach of its clutches, even though it was English law and presumably more mild, I began to tremble, while the children, being born Germans, trembled harder, and Elsa the..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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cfde233
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When I drive to the lupins and see them all spread out as far as eye can reach in perfect beauty of colour and scent and bathed in the mild August sunshine, I feel I must send for somebody to come and look at them with me, and talk about them to me, and share in the pleasure; and when I run over the list of my friends and try to find one who would enjoy them, I am frightened once more at the solitariness in which we each of us live.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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3225089
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I WOULD LIKE, to begin with, to say that though parents, husbands, children, lovers and friends are all very well, they are not dogs. In my day and turn having been each of the above,--except that instead of husbands I was wives,--I know what I am talking about, and am well acquainted with the ups and downs, the daily ups and downs, the sometimes almost hourly ones in the thin-skinned, which seem inevitably to accompany human loves. Dogs ar..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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318aaf4
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This estranged me. And I was still more estranged by what he said next; for, having inquired what the story I was then writing was about, and I having answered--reluctantly and apologetically, because down on the flat he had seemed so strictly principled,--that I was very sorry but I was afraid it was about adultery, he called out, with horrifying heartiness, "The finest sport in the world!" What sort of a guest, I asked myself, shocked, wa..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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daaf5ea
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Up to now I have had fourteen, but they weren't spread over my life equally, and for years and years at a time I had none. This, when first I began considering my dogs, astonished me; I mean, that for years and years I had none. What was I about, I wondered, to allow myself to be dogless? How was it that there were such long periods during which I wasn't making some good dog happy? Lately,
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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344a4a8
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This forest was immense. It stretched away uninterruptedly to the north, till stopped by having got to the shores of the Baltic. We had it all to ourselves. Unnoticed, except by what Johann called finches, we passed along its vistas, and no human eye beheld the capes, the coronets and the cockades. In that past which seemed to me at my age remote, these things had all been new and spick and span, because of the glory which for a time was th..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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ea6f45d
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The evil times had come of eking out, of making do. At least, my husband seemed to regard the times we had arrived at as evil, but that was because he was in the unfortunate position of having a past to compare them with. I, who had practically no past, and whose family had never fallen from glory for the reason that it had had no glory to fall from, thought the times wholly delightful; and anyhow I rather liked camphor.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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340d87b
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How beautiful this security seemed to me, this enchanting security of knowing oneself unnoticed and unseen! And not only was the forest empty of human beings, but our nearest neighbour on the other side, the side of open plains and rolling rye-fields, was ten miles away along almost impassable rutted tracks--the one neighbour, that is, of our own class, which was hochgeboren. Other neighbours there were, much nearer, some only two miles off..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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e0bed81
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They snatched that from me which I still held. They vied with each other in reading poetry to me in sheltered corners. They hung on my words, and laughed appreciatively every time I opened my mouth--sometimes even before I had opened it, which is conduct that easily dries up the springs of conversation. Such young men do exist, and it is a pity, because they are so bad for the older women, who give heed to their flutings at their own peril...
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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51c9239
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Quite unnecessary, either, ever to say pfui to him, for he was a most virtuous dog, protected from sin by absence of desires. What a contrast to his impassioned predecessor!
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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eb7b42a
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it was difficult to exercise him properly, because he was so big that even if I ran--and I was for ever running, in my zeal for his welfare,--he still, to keep up with me, needed only to walk, and if I paused for any reason, such as getting my breath or having to tie my shoelace, instantly he lay down. The
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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7b082ba
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I would have all couples neatly paired in years, the forties with the forties, and the twenties with the twenties. Should the forties, as sometimes happens, not care about other forties, and wish to frequent twenties, in their own interests they should be discouraged, and equally those twenties should be discouraged who, with the inexperience of their age, suppose they could be lastingly happy with forties. Fortunately
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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abd4770
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Out would come another star, winking at me over the white shoulder of the Rothorn. Round me stood the mountains, exquisite examples of peace-- A world above man's head, to let him see How boundless might his soul's horizons be-- and here was I, minding because guests went into their bedrooms and told each other I had five children. Well, so I had. Nothing could possibly be more true. How vast, yet of what clear transparency-- and minding be..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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609618c
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and knew that here I might read or dream or idle exactly as I chose with never a creature to disturb me, how grateful I felt to the kindly Fate that has brought me here and given me a heart to understand my own blessedness,
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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0e89853
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If one believed in angels one would feel that they must love us best when we are asleep and cannot hurt each other; and what a mercy it is that once in every twenty-four hours we are too utterly weary to go on being unkind. The doors shut, and the lights go out, and the sharpest tongue is silent, and all of us, scolder and scolded, happy and unhappy, master and slave, judge and culprit, are children again, tired, and hushed, and helpless, a..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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248b6f2
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Ces femmes acceptent de se faire battre avec une simplicite digne des plus grands eloges. Loin de se sentir insultees, elles admirent la force et l'energie d'hommes capables de leur administrer des corrections aussi sonores. En Russie, les hommes ne sont pas seulement autorises a battre leurs femmes, ils ont appris des le catechisme - et on le leur a rappele lors de la confirmation -, qu'il est necessaire de les battre au moins une fois la ..
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violence
misogynie
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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61e1ef2
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Si, d'aventure, il prenait a mes meubles la fantaisie de se faire epousseter le jour ou j'aurais quelque chose de plus interessant a faire, je revendique hautement le droit de les precipiter tous dans le feu de joie le plus proche, de m'etablir pres du brasier et d'y rechauffer gaiement mes pieds glaces apres avoir vendu tous mes chiffons au premier chineur venu.
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menage
poussière
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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0a9d92b
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Rien ne repugne plus a un Allemand que de sentir qu'on a plaisir a le rencontrer. Soyez deplaisant, reveche, cassant, et vous le verrez de minute en minute se faire plus aimable.
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caractère
rencontre
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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3fcf7d9
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Oh Catherine, don't talk such stuff to me--such copy-book, renunciated stuff!' he exclaimed, coming nearer. 'You see,' she said, 'how much older I am than you, whatever you may choose to pretend. Why, we don't even talk the same language. When I talk what I'm sure is sense you call it copy-book stuff. And when you talk what I know is nonsense, you're positive it is most right and proper.' 'So it is, because it's natural. Yours is all conven..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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b9bb512
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I do sincerely trust that the benediction that is always awaiting me in my garden may by degrees be more deserved, and that I may grow in grace, and
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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9ae4bcb
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In the summer, on fine evenings, I love to drive late and alone in the scented forests, and when I have reached a dark part stop, and sit quite still, listening to the nightingales repeating their little tune over and over aga^n after interludes of gurgling, or if there are no nightingales, listening to the marvellous silence, and letting its blessedness descend into my very souL The nightingales in the forests
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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0b50f95
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Well, but I want to see Mrs. Cumfrit a minute--it isn't late--it's quite early--I'll go in for just a minute----' And thrusting the wrap into her hand he made for the drawing-room. She watched him shut the door behind him, and hoped it didn't matter, her not announcing him. After all, he had but lately left; it wasn't as if he were calling that day for the first time. On the contrary, this was the third time since lunch that he had come in.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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2bdf3ec
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spirits
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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6f7e1c9
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Mrs. Mitcham had seen more love about in the flat than she could remember during the whole of poor Mr. Cumfrit's time in it. She couldn't help wondering what that poor gentleman would say if he could see what was happening in his flat. He wouldn't much like it, she was afraid; but perhaps hardly anybody who was dead would much like what they would see, supposing they were able to come back and look.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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239c77c
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No lady she had had to do with had ever had such a thing on her dressing-table. Powder was different, because one needed powder sometimes for other things besides one's face, and also one powdered babies, and they, poor lambs, couldn't be suspected of wanting to appear different from what God had made them. But a lip-stick! Red stuff. What actresses put on, and those who were no better than they should be. Her mistress and a lip-stick--what..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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468bf0f
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The account of the face treatment that Catherine had undergone at the hands of a quack was taken from a description given to Elizabeth by Katherine Mansfield, her New Zealand cousin, of her own experience in Paris when she was searching for a cure for consumption. This may have been too tragic a source. If Elizabeth needed copy she had, if Frere is to be believed, her own experience to draw on.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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dab23a0
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A wet day and indoors: that was the time and place to tell him. Of course if he became very silly she would tell him instantly; but as long as he wasn't--and how could he be in an open taxi?--as long as he was just happy to be with her and take her out and walk her round among crocuses and give her tea and bring her home again tucked in as carefully as if she were some extraordinarily precious brittle treasure, why should she interfere? It ..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |