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223d0cb
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So she ignored Mrs. Arbuthnot's remark and raised forefinger, and said with marked coldness--at least, she tried to make it sound marked-- that she supposed they would be going to breakfast, and that she had had hers; but it was her fate that however coldly she sent forth her words they came out sounding quite warm and agreeable. That was because she had a sympathetic and delightful voice, due entirely to some special formation of her throa..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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dd9e54e
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I shall give you lovely food; and Papa says that lovely food is the one thing that ever really makes a man give himself the trouble to rise up and call his wife blessed.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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80aabcf
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A great need of something to lean on, and a great weariness of independence and responsibility took possession of my soul; and looking round for support and comfort in that transitory mood, the emptiness of the present and the blankness of the future sent me back to the past with all its ghosts.
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support
vulnerability
tiredness
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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e79f590
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the place I was bound for on my latest pilgrimage was filled with living, first-hand memories of all the enchanted years that lie between two and eighteen. How enchanted those years are is made more and more clear to me the older I grow. There has been nothing in the least like them since; and though I have forgotten most of what happened six months ago, every incident, almost every day of those wonderful long years is perfectly distinct in..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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3533690
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if one were efficient one wouldn't be depressed, and that if one does one's job well one becomes automatically bright and brisk.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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7c88f60
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But while admiring my neighbour, I don't think I shall ever try to follow in her steps, my talents not being of the energetic and organising variety, but rather of that order which makes their owner almost lamentably prone to take up a volume of poetry and wander out to where the kingcups grow, and, sitting on a willow trunk beside a little stream, forget the very existence of everything but green pastures and still waters, and the glad blo..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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26a91d9
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she found herself blessing God for her creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life, but above all for His inestimable Love; out loud; in a burst of acknowledgement.
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thankfulness
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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777fd1c
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when they talked of love and women--and of course they sometimes talked of love and women -- Lewes would bring out views which Christopher, whose views they used to be too, only he had forgotten that, considered, now that he had come to know Catherine, as so much--the word was his--tripe.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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d5fab5e
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thought,' he said presently, with patient mildness, 'you knew I have a mother and sisters.' 'Mothers and sisters aren't women--they're merely relations,' said Christopher; and from that time Lewes's inquiries were less frequent and more gingerly, and mixed with anxiety. He was fond of his friend. He disliked the idea of possibly losing him. He seemed to him to be well on the way to being in love seriously; and love, as he had observed it, w..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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531ecad
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Once more she had that really rather disgusting suspicion that her life till now had not only been loud but empty.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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980d2e3
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Eppure l'amore all'inizio e una cosa bella, una cosa dolce e cara. Ma proprio come un gattino, che da piccolo ti delizia con i suoi modi teneri e amabili, con la sua innocenza, morbidezza e mansuetudine, si trasforma con spaventosa rapidita in un gatto che ti artiglia crudelmente. Vorrei sapere se esiste una sola persona al mondo, all'apparenza felice e indifferente, che non abbia ben nascosti sotto abiti e ornamenti i segni degli artigli d..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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24ee931
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To think that you dared--to think that my--my noble boy--" "He wasn't very noble. Mothers don't ever really know their sons, I think." "Shameless girl!" cried Mrs. Morrison, so loud, so completely beside herself, that Priscilla hastily rang her bell... "Open the door for this lady," she said to Annalise, who appeared with a marvellous promptitude; and as Mrs. Morrison still stood her ground and refused to see either Annalise or the door Pri..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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a1cb76a
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But whether it was a proper shame for what she had done or a shocking shame for her compunctions in sinning, the Bishop was not permitted that afternoon to discover; because when she had got as far as that she was interrupted by being obliged to faint.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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8d22f64
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Christopher loved her with the passion of youth, of imagination, of poetry, of all the fresh beginnings of wonder and worship that have been since love first lit his torch and made in the darkness a great light.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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89d3ab4
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Mr. Dawson's wife was really so very meek that I fear when the Day of Reckoning comes much of this tyranny will be forgiven him and laid to her account.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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c71f4bc
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What business, said Priscilla's look more plainly than any words, what business had people to walk into other people's cottages in such a manner? She stood quite still, and scrutinized Mrs. Morrison with the questioning expression she used to find so effective in Kunitz days when confronted by a person inclined to forget which, exactly, was his proper place. But Mrs. Morrison knew nothing of Kunitz, and the look lost half its potency withou..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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7e67831
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It was a place to bless God in and cease from vain words.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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554a8b0
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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 development, change, ripening, were life.
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life
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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09a9118
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At night the bottom of the valley looks like water, and the lamps in the little town lying along it like quivering reflections of the stars.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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04d52fd
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Fortunately, though she was hungry, she didn't mind missing a meal. Life was full of meals. They took up an enormous proportion of one's time.
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meals
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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7477865
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I have always had a liking for pilgrimages, and if I had lived in the Middle Ages would have spent most of my time on the way to Rome. The pilgrims, leaving all their cares at home, the anxieties of their riches or their debts, the wife that worried and the children that disturbed, took only their sins with them, and turning back on their obligations, set out with that sole burden, and perhaps a cheerful heart.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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21d0f26
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And then when I got home I burrowed about among my books, arranging their volumes and loving the feel of them.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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0910733
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What a place for him who intends to pass an examination, to write a book, or who wants the crumples got by crushing together too long with his fellows to be smoothed out of his soul.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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7157f0b
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There was nothing, she saw at once, to be hoped for in the way of interest from their clothes. She did not consciously think this, for she was having a violent reaction against beautiful clothes and the slavery they impose on one, her experience being that the instant one had got them they took one in hand and gave one no peace till they had been everywhere and been seen by everybody. You didn't take your clothes to parties; they took you. ..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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db1d475
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But we found San Salvatore," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, "and it is rather silly that Mrs. Fisher should behave as if it belonged only to her." "What is rather silly," said Mrs. Wilkins with much serenity, "is to mind. I can't see the least point in being in authority at the price of one's liberty."
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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11bb469
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Her family held strongly that for daughters to read in the daytime was to be idle. Well, if it was, thought Ingeborg lifting her head, that head that drooped so apologetically at home, with the defiance that distance encourages, then being idle was a blessed thing and the sooner one got away to where one could be it, uninterruptedly, the better.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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dbcba64
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All the radiance of April in Italy lay gathered together at her feet. The sun poured in on her. The sea lay asleep in it, hardly stirring. Across the bay the lovely mountains, exquisitely different in color, were asleep too in the light; and underneath her window, at the bottom of the flower-starred grass slope from which the wall of castle rose up, was a great cypress, cutting through the delicate blues and violets and rose-colors of the m..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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009dba2
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the expression on her face, which was swept by the excitement of what she saw ... was as luminous and tremulous under it as water in sunlight when it is ruffled by a gust of wind.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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5ca9339
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Keep quiet and say one's prayers--certainly not merely the best, but the only things to do if one would be truly happy; but, ashamed of asking when I have received so much, the only form of prayer I would use would be a form of thanksgiving.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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4c22745
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Many are the friendships that have found an unforseeen and sudden end on a journey, and few are those that survive it.
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travel
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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7cbfa93
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Oh how warm it makes one to know that there is one person in the world to whom one is everything. A lover is the most precious, the most marvelous possession.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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270beaf
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Oh, my dear, this is worse than I expected! A strange girl is always a bore among good friends, but one can generally manage her. But a girl who writes books - why, it isn't respectable! And you can't snub that sort of people; they're unsnubbable.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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39bc440
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and everybody will have what they never yet have had, a certain amount of that priceless boon, leisure-- leisure to sit down and look at themselves, and inquire what it is they really mean, and really want, and really intend to do with their lives.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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f6372b0
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Submission to what people call their "lot" is simply ignoble. If your lot makes you cry and be wretched, get rid of it and take another; strike out for yourself; don't listen to the shrieks of your relations, to their gibes or their entreaties; don't let your own microscopic set prescribe your goings-out and comings-in; don't be afraid of public opinion in the shape of the neighbor in the next house, when all the world is before you new and..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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3a858d5
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It might have been the entrance to some holy place, so strange and solemn was the quiet; and looking from out of its shadows to the brightness shining at the upper end where the sun was flooding the bracken with happy morning radiance, I felt suddenly that my walk had ceased to be a common thing, and that I was going up into the temple of God to pray.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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135af5e
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She herself had certainly never been more alive. She felt electric. She would not have been surprised if sparks had come crackling out of the tips of her sober gloves.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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9e5dc66
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True she was old, true she was unbeautiful, true she therefore had no reason to smile, but kind ladies smiled, reason or no. They smiled not because they were happy but because they wished to make happy.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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158429b
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These women accept their beatings with a simplicity worthy of all praise, and far from considering themselves insulted, admire the strength and energy of the man who can administer such eloquent rebukes. In Russia, not only may a man beat his wife, but it is laid down in the catechism and taught all boys at the time of confirmation as necessary at least once a week, whether she has done anything or not, for the sake of her general health an..
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man
woman
feminism
goddess
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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e433ec3
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Isn't it a mercy that we never get cured of being expectant? It makes life so bearable. However regularly we are disappointed and nothing whatever happens, after the first blow has fallen, after the first catch of the breath, the first gulp of misery, we turn our eyes with all their old eagerness to a point a little further along the road.
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life-and-living
hope
life
hoping
expectation
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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4dee986
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I laughed on the way home, and I laughed again for sheer satisfaction when we reached the garden and drove between the quiet trees to the pretty old house; for when I went into the library, with its four windows open to the moonlight and the scent, and looked round at the familiar bookshelves, and could hear no sounds but sounds of peace, and knew that here I might read or dream or idle exactly as I chose with never a creature to disturb me..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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0c38ad3
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You've been walking in the rain,' he said reproachfully, pulling away at the soaked gloves. Then, looking down at her face, the grey hard daylight of the March afternoon full on it from the high windows, he saw that she was tired -- fagged out, in fact -- and he added, alarmed, 'What have you been doing?' 'Doing?' she repeated, smiling up at the way he was staring at her. 'Why, coming home as quickly as I could out of the rain.' 'But why do..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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f77056b
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She was little altogether; a little thing, in a little hat which she never had to take off because hardly ever was there anybody behind her, and, anyhow, even in a big hat she was not of the size that obstructs views. Always the same hat; never a different one, or different clothes. Although the clothes were pretty, very pretty, he somehow felt, perhaps because they were never different, that she wasn't very well off; and he also somehow fe..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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091181a
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Yet he knew that if she wavered he would never forgive her; she would drop at once from her high estate into those depths in his opinion where the dull average of both sexes sprawled for ever in indiscriminate heaps.
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Elizabeth von Arnim |
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515efaf
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Does he--does your husband not like music?' he asked, saying the first thing that came into his head, not really wanting in the least to know what that damned George liked or didn't like. She hesitated. 'I--don't know,' she said. 'He--usedn't to.' 'But he doesn't come here?' 'How can he?' She stopped, and then said softly, 'The poor darling's dead.' His heart gave a bound. A widow. The beastly war had done one good thing, then,--it had remo..
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Elizabeth von Arnim |