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2a0eef1
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I am, as far as I can tell, about a month behind Lord Byron. In every town we stop at we discover innkeepers, postillions, officials, burghers, potboys, and all kinds and sorts of ladies whose brains still seem somewhat deranged from their brief exposure to his lordship. And though my companions are careful to tell people that I am that dreadful being, an English magician, I am clearly nothing in comparison to an English poet and everywhere..
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magic
lord-byron
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Susanna Clarke |
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aa70e0b
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But the other Ministers considered that to employ a magician was one thing, novelists were quite another and they would not stoop to it.
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magicians
novelists
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Susanna Clarke |
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464d73b
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Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians. They met upon the third Wednesday of every month and read each other long, dull papers upon the history of English magic.
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Susanna Clarke |
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b2fd717
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Drawing teaches habits of close observation that will always be useful.
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life
useful
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Susanna Clarke |
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7bb2bce
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There are people in this world, whose lives are nothing but a burden to them. A black veil stands between them and the world. They are utterly alone. They are like shadows in the night, shut off from joy and all gentle human emotions, unable to even give comfort to each other. Their days are full of nothing but darkness, misery and solitude.
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Susanna Clarke |
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c91ccf3
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any cat he spoke to would stay quite still with an expression of faint surprise on its face as if it had never heard such good sense in all its life nor ever expected to again.
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Susanna Clarke |
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5bb1856
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He screamed. Mmm?' inquired the gentleman. I...I would never presume to interrupt you, sir. But the ground appears to be swallowing me up.' It is a bog,' said the gentleman, helpfully. It is certainly a most terrifying substance.
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Susanna Clarke |
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12b9ba0
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Well, surely, you will agree that a great improvement could be made simply by cutting down those trees that crowd about the house so much and darken every room? They grow just as they please - just where the acorn or seed fell, I suppose." "What?" asked Strange, whose eyes had wandered back to his book during the latter part of the conversation. "The trees," said Henry. "Which trees?" "Those," said Henry, pointing out of the window to a who..
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Susanna Clarke |
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81c61eb
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He was one of those people whose ideas are too lively to be confined in their brains and spill out into the world to the consternation of passers-by. He talked to himself and the expression on his face changed constantly. Within the space of a single moment he looked surprized, insulted, resolute, and angry--emotions which were presumably the consequences of the energetic conversation he was holding with the ideal people inside his head.
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Susanna Clarke |
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ed1bbce
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you must learn to live as I do - in the face of constant criticism, opposition and censure. That, sir, is the English way.
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Susanna Clarke |
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a63b19f
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It would need someone very remarkable to recover your name, Stephen, someone of rare perspicacity, with extraordinary talents and incomparable nobility of character. Me, in fact.
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Susanna Clarke |
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9965dd2
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Byron tilted his head to a very odd angle, half-closed his eyes and composed his features to suggest that he was about to expire from chronic indigestion.
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Susanna Clarke |
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f785b1b
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He had once found himself in a room with Lady Bessborough's long-haired white cat. He happened to be dressed in an immaculate black coat and trousers, and was there thoroughly alarmed by the cat's stalking round and round and making motions as if it proposed to sit upon him. He waited until he believed himself to be unobserved, then he picked it up, opened a window, and tossed it out. Despite falling three storeys to the ground, the cat sur..
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Susanna Clarke |
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a86914c
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If I were you, Mr. Lascelles," said Childermass, softly, "I would speak more guardedly. You are in the north now. In John Uskglass's own country. Our towns and cities and abbeys were built by him. Our laws were made by him. He is our minds and hearts and speech. Were it summer you would see a carpet of tiny flowers beneath every hedgerow, of a bluish-white colour. We call them John's Farthings. When the weather is contrary and we have warm ..
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Susanna Clarke |
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9f462d1
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But, though French, she was also very brave...
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Susanna Clarke |
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98349bd
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The next day Mrs Honeyfoot told her husband that John Segundus was exactly what a gentleman should be, but she feared he would never profit by it for it was not the fashion to be modest and quiet and kind-hearted.
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Susanna Clarke |
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7d61f94
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With his long hair as ragged as rain and as black as thunder, he would have looked quite at home upon a windswept moor, or lurking in some pitch-black alleyway, or perhaps in a novel by Mrs. Radcliffe.
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Susanna Clarke |
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34f072d
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And the name of the one shall be Fearfulness. And the name of the other shall be Arrogance... Well, clearly you are not Fearfulness, so I suppose you must be Arrogance.' This was not very polite.
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Susanna Clarke |
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b0dab70
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Perhaps I am too tame, too domestic a magician. But how does one work up a little madness? I meet with mad people every day in the street, but I never thought before to wonder how they got mad. Perhaps I should go wandering on lonely moors and barren shores. That is always a popular place for lunatics - in novels and plays at any rate. Perhaps wild England will make me mad.
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madness
magic
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Susanna Clarke |
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1cbf06b
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Most of us are naturally inclined to struggle against the restrictions our friends and family impose upon us, but if we are so unfortunate as to lose a loved one, what a difference then! Then the restriction becomes a sacred trust.
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trust
life
inspirational
restriction
losing
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Susanna Clarke |
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13dbecc
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There was very little about her face and figure that was in any way remarkable, but it was the sort of face which, when animated by conversation or laughter, is completely transformed. She had a lovely disposition, a quick mind and a fondness for the comical. She was always very ready to smile and, since a smile is the most becoming ornament that any lady can wear, she had been known upon occasion to outshine women who were acknowledged bea..
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Susanna Clarke |
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b763d05
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Besides," said Mr Norrell, "I really have no desire to write reviews of other people's books. Modern publications upon magic are the most pernicious things in the world, full of misinformation and wrong opinions." "Then sir, you may say so. The ruder you are, the more the editors will be delighted." "But it is my own opinions which I wish to make better known, not other people's." "Ah, but, sir," said Lascelles, "it is precisely by passi..
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publishing
reviews
satire
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Susanna Clarke |
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2dec7d3
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He smiles but rarely and watches other men to see when they laugh and then does the same.
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Susanna Clarke |
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2c8c24c
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For there was nothing in his eyes but the black night and the cold stars.
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stars
morpheus
sandman
neil-gaiman
star
cold
night
eyes
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Susanna Clarke |
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9459e4a
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Unfortunately, Childermass's French was so strongly accented by his native Yorkshire that Minervois did not understand and asked Strange if Childermass was Dutch.
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Susanna Clarke |
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facfb4f
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A patrol had been sent out to look at the road between two towns, but some Portuguese had come along and told the patrol that this was one of the English magician's roads and was certain to disappear in an hour or two taking everyone upon it to Hell - or possibly England.
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Susanna Clarke |
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2a6ab10
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It is the right of a traveller to vent their frustration at every minor inconvenience by writing of it to their friends.
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travel
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Susanna Clarke |
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c3cf71d
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O, wherever men of my sort used to go, long ago. Wandering on paths that other men have not seen. Behind the sky. On the other side of the rain.
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Susanna Clarke |
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1f1f38b
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Like the hero of a fairy-tale Mr Norrell had discovered that the power to do what he wished had been his own all along.
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Susanna Clarke |
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7a9bf6b
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He was a man who knew there were such things as jokes in the world or people would not write about them, but had never actually been introduced to one or shaken its hand.
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Susanna Clarke |
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343366e
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May I ask you something?" Dr Greysteel nodded."Are you not afraid that it will go out?" "What will go out?" asked Dr Greysteel. "The candle," Strange gestured to Dr Greysteel's forehead. "The candle inside your head." --
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Susanna Clarke |
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ca71f0e
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With characteristic exuberance Tom named this curiously constructed house Castel des Tours saunz Nowmbre, which means the Castle of Innumerable Towers. David Montefiore had counted the innumerable towers in 1764. There were fourteen of them.
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Susanna Clarke |
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5172aa8
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He did not feel as if he were inside a Pillar of Darkness in the middle of Yorkshire; he felt more as if the rest of the world had fallen away and he and Strange were left alone upon a solitary island or promontory. The idea distressed him a great deal less than one might have supposed. He had never much cared for the world and he bore its loss philosophically.
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Susanna Clarke |
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7bb98fd
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Even the Raven King - who was not a fairy, but an Englishman - had a somewhat regrettable habit of abducting men and women and taking them to live with him in his castle in the Other Lands. Now, had you and I the power to seize by magic any human being that took our fancy and the power to keep that person by our side through all eternity, and had we all the world to chuse from, then I dare say our choice might fall on someone a little more ..
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Susanna Clarke |
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bb086ed
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Mr. Segundus began to suspect that they had an uneventful morning, and that when a strange gentleman had walked into the room and dropt down in a swoon, they were rather pleased than otherwise.
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Susanna Clarke |
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bce8eb9
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Gentlemen are often invited to stay in other people's houses. Rooms hardly ever are.
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Susanna Clarke |
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2bb1861
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The Emperor Napoleon Buonaparte had been banished to the island of Elba. However His Imperial Majesty had some doubts wheter a quiet island life would suit him - he was, after all, accustomed to governing a large proportion of the known world.
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humor
historical-fiction
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Susanna Clarke |
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a232743
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I have always heard that Italian women are rather fierce.
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Susanna Clarke |
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5a6dc29
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And such a pinched-looking ruin of a thing now! I shall advice all the good-looking woman of my acquaintance not to die.
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Susanna Clarke |
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0cbab53
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John Longridge, the cook at Harley-street, had suffered from low spirits for more than thirty years, and he was quick to welcome Stephen as a newcomer to the freemasonry of melancholy.
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humor
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Susanna Clarke |
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a28725b
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There was no one there. Which is to say there was someone there. Miss Wintertowne lay upon the bed, but it would have puzzled philosophy to say now whether she were someone or no one at all.
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Susanna Clarke |
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b3d9931
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Alexander of Whitby taught that the universe is like a tapestry only parts of which are visible to us at a time. After we are dead, we will see the whole and then it will be clear to us how the different parts relate to each other.
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Susanna Clarke |
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084adc2
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A lovely young Italian girl passed by. Byron tilted his head to a very odd angle, half-closed his eyes and composed his features to suggest that he was about to expire from chronic indigestion. Dr Greysteel could only suppose that he was treating the young woman to the Byronic profile and the Byronic expression.
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lord-byron
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Susanna Clarke |
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69c7014
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In peacetime some sort of introduction is generally required to make a person's acquaintance; in war a small eatable will perform the same office.
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humour
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Susanna Clarke |