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055d96a
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Byron!" exclaimed the little man. "Really? Dear me! Mad, and a friend of Lord Byron!" He sounded as if he did not know which was worse."
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Susanna Clarke |
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ed21fd4
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The trees, the stones and the earth had taken him inside themselves, but in their shape it was possible still to discern something of the man he had once been.
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Susanna Clarke |
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0493fc8
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Shape-changing and so on were all very well in the past. It makes a vivid incident in a story, I grant you. But surely, Strange, you would not want to practise it? A gentleman cannot change his shape. A gentleman scorns to seem any thing other than what he is. You yourself would never wish to appear in the character of a pastry-cook or a lamplighter ...
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Susanna Clarke |
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e78af47
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He had a very young man's belief in the absolute rightness of his own cause and the absolute wrongness of everyone else's.
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Susanna Clarke |
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7b049da
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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.
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Susanna Clarke |
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4ce8bcd
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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. They
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Susanna Clarke |
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ed981d2
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Childermass was still there. He had taken his dinner at one of the tables and was now doing the household accounts. As Mr Norrell entered, he looked up and grinned. "I believe Mr Strange will do very well in the war, sir. He has already out-manoeuvred you." On"
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Susanna Clarke |
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a8fc58f
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she bore so many of the signs and disfigurings of extreme old age that she was losing her resemblance to other human beings and began instead to resemble other orders of living creatures. Her arms lay in her lap, so extravagantly spotted with brown that they were like two fish. Her skin was the white, almost transparent skin of the extremely old, as fine and wrinkled as a spider's web, with veins of knotted blue.
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Susanna Clarke |
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f16c775
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But if you are going to take up a profession - and I cannot see why you should want one at all, now that you have come into your property - surely you can chuse something better than magic! It has no practical application.
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magic
profession
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Susanna Clarke |
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25699d4
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The brown fields were partly flooded; they were strung with chains of chill, grey pools. The pattern of the pools had meaning. The pools had been written on to the fields by the rain. The pools were a magic worked by the rain, just as the tumbling of the black birds against the grey was a spell that the sky was working and the motion of grey-brown grasses was a spell that the wind made. Everything had meaning.
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Susanna Clarke |
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bee3fd4
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The shop was kept by a man called Shackleton who looked exactly as you would wish a bookseller to look. He would never have done for any other sort of shopman - certainly not for a haberdasher or milliner who must be smarter than his customers - but for a bookseller he was perfect. He appeared to be of no particular age. He was thin and dusty and spotted finely all over with ink. He had an air of learning tinged with abstraction. His nose w..
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Susanna Clarke |
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71f3496
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Where in the world have you been?" demanded Strange. "Walking," she said. Her voice was just as it had always been. "Walking! Arabella, are you quite mad? In three feet of snow? Where?" "In the dark woods," she said, "among my soft-sleeping brothers and sisters. Across the high moors among the sweet-scented ghosts of my brothers and sisters long dead. Under the grey sky through the dreams and murmurs of my brothers and sisters yet to come."..
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Susanna Clarke |
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2f9f017
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an evil set of men who wedded general stupidity to wickedness of purpose).
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Susanna Clarke |
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4375fe9
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Nan told me Clegg had been hanged for stealing a book, but the charge Robert Findhelm brought against him was not theft. The charge Findhelm brought against him was book-murder.
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Susanna Clarke |
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2f327b9
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Stephen had never seen a landscape so calculated to reduce the onlooker to utter despair in an instant. "This is one of your kingdoms, I suppose, sir?" he said. "My kingdoms?" exclaimed the gentleman in surprize. "Oh, no! This is Scotland!"
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Susanna Clarke |
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c97e2bd
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is like asking a politician to achieve high office without the benefit of bribes or patronage.
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Susanna Clarke |
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cc09066
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Their religion is of the strictest sort, Stephen. Almost everything is forbidden to them except carpets." Stephen watched them as they went mournfully about the market, these men whose mouths were perpetually closed lest they spoke some forbidden word, whose eyes were perpetually averted from forbidden sights, whose hands refrained at every moment from some forbidden act. It seemed to him that they did little more than half-exist. They migh..
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Susanna Clarke |
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ed80ea2
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Chaston wrote that a great many fairies harboured a vague sense of having been treated badly by the English. Though it was a mystery to Chaston -- as it is to me -- why they should have thought so. In the houses of the great English magicians fairies were the first among the servants and sat in the best places after the magician and his lady.
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Susanna Clarke |
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478013f
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At that moment their conversation was interrupted by a most barbaric sound - a great horn was being blown. A number of men rushed forward and heaved the great town gates shut. Thinking that perhaps some danger threatened the town, Stephen looked round in alarm. "Sir, what is happening?" "Oh, it is these people's custom to shut the gate every night against the wicked heathen," said the gentleman, languidly, "by which they mean everyone excep..
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Susanna Clarke |
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feddfb2
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They had come in secret, having an idea that Dr Greysteel, and perhaps even Mr Strange, might try to prevent them going, or else insist upon accompanying them -- and they had no wish for male companionship upon this occasion. "They will want to be talking about it," said Aunt Greysteel, "they will be trying to guess how she came to this sad condition. But what good will that do? How does that help her?"
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Susanna Clarke |
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ec9257d
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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 in 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 war..
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Susanna Clarke |
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0c10285
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Oh! it is an excellent thing," enthused a lady. "See how the darkness of the mirror behind the figures sets off Mr Strange's head." "People always imagine that magicians and mirrors go together," complained Mr Norrell. "There is no mirror in that part of my library." "Artists are tricky fellows, sir, forever reshaping the world according to some design of their own," said Strange. "Indeed they are not unlike magicians in that. And yet he ha..
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Susanna Clarke |
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a9a639c
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Hush, sir!" whispered the man, "Your voice. It is too loud. You will wake him up!" "Wake him up? Who?" "The man under the hedge, sir. He is a magician. Did you never hear that if you wake a magician before his time, you risk bringing his dreams out of his head into the world?" "And who knows what horrors he is dreaming of!" agreed another man, in a whisper."
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Susanna Clarke |
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5de7871
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Sir Doctor, we esteem very much the Hexenmeister of the Great Vellinton.
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Susanna Clarke |
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96ff3f6
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David was the son of a famous Venetian rabbi. From his youth he had been accustomed to debate good principles and right conduct with all sorts of grave Jewish persons. These conversations had formed his own character and he naturally supposed that a small measure of the same could not help but improve other people's. In short he had come to believe that if only one talks long enough and expresses oneself properly, it is perfectly possible t..
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Susanna Clarke |
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8fba30a
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The first dinner-party of a bride's career is a momentous occasion, entailing a world of small anxieties. The accomplishments which have won her acclaim in the three years since she left the schoolroom are no longer enough. It is no longer enough to dress exquisitely, to chuse jewels exactly appropriate to the situation, to converse in French, to play the pianoforte and sing. Now she must turn her attention to French cooking and French wine..
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dinner-party
mothers-and-daughters
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Susanna Clarke |
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ff3b7bd
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Mr Murray was sorry to find that his two authors could not agree better, but he reflected that it probably could not be helped since both men were famous for quarrelling: Strange with Norrell, and Byron with practically everybody.3 When
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Susanna Clarke |
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846a70e
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Books and papers are the basis of good scholarship and sound knowledge," declared Mr Norrell primly. "Magic is to be put on the same footing as the other disciplines."
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Susanna Clarke |
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13e6fcd
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In person he was rather tall and his figure was considered good. Some people thought him handsome, but this was not by any means the universal opinion. His face had two faults: a long nose and an ironic expression. It is also true that his hair had a reddish tinge and, as everybody knows, no one with red hair can ever truly be said to be handsome.
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Susanna Clarke |
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840a277
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He wished he had never come to London. He wished he had never undertaken to revive English magic. He wished he had stayed at Hurtfew Abbey, reading and doing magic for his own pleasure. None of it, he thought, was worth the loss of forty books.
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Susanna Clarke |
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e4835d7
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Still the strange ships glittered and shone, and this led to some discussion as to what they might be made of. The Admiral thought perhaps iron or steel. (Metal ships indeed! The French are, as I have often supposed, a very whimsical nation.)
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Susanna Clarke |
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88fc774
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and a couple of days later he sent Strange a haggis (a sort of Scotch pudding) as a present.
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Susanna Clarke |
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ff1184a
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It is also true that his hair had a reddish tinge and, as everybody knows, no one with red hair can ever truly be said to be handsome. At
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Susanna Clarke |
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87f04ea
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Why do pretty women always have such herds of relatives?
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Susanna Clarke |
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12e78e3
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The gentlemen among my readers will smile to themselves and say that women never did understand business, but the ladies may agree with me that Mrs Brandy understood her business very well, for the chief business of Mrs Brandy's life was to make Stephen Black as much in love with her as she was with him. In
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Susanna Clarke |
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2ec27ec
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In a war one is either living like a prince or a vagabond. I
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Susanna Clarke |
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bf13c51
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And her looks? Is she pretty?" asked Strange. The question seemed to embarrass Henry. "Miss Watkins is not generally considered one of the first in beauty, no. But then upon further acquaintance, you know - that is worth a great deal. People of both sexes, whose looks are very indifferent at the beginning, may appear almost handsome on further acquaintance. A well-informed mind, nice manners and a gentle nature - all of these are much more ..
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Susanna Clarke |
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2ed80fc
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The first ten books Mr. Segundus looked at were worthless -- books of sermons and moralizing from the last century, or descriptions of persons whom no one living cared about. The next fifty were very much the same. He began to think his task would soon be done. But then he stumbled upon some very interesting and unusual works of geology, philosophy and medicine. He began to feel more sanguine.
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Susanna Clarke |
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ef43517
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It is possible, of course," he said, "to imprison someone within the pattern of a carpet for a thousand years or so. That is a particularly horrible fate which I always reserve for people who have offended me deeply - as have these magicians! The endless repetition of colour and pattern - not to mention the irritation of the dust and the humiliation of stains - never fails to render the prisoner completely mad! The prisoner always emerges f..
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Susanna Clarke |
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842ff00
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it sometimes happens that when one acts quickly and with great resolve, all the indecisiveness and doubt comes afterwards, when it is too late. So
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Susanna Clarke |
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635101e
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But it is the same with all of us. In familiar surroundings our manners are cheerful and easy, but only transport us to places where we know no one and no one knows us, and Lord! how uncomfortable we become!
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Susanna Clarke |
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578d6d5
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Oh, quite!" agreed Byron. "I was with him again a few hours ago and could not get him to talk of any thing but his dead wife and how she is not really dead, but merely enchanted. And now he shrouds himself in Darkness and works Black Magic! There is something rather admirable in all this, do you not agree?"
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Susanna Clarke |
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2dd868f
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For the next hour and a half he tried all the magic he could think of. He cast spells of remembering, spells of finding, spells of awakening, spells to concentrate the mind, spells to dispel nightmares and evil thoughts, spells to find patterns in chaos, spells to find a path when one was lost, spells of demystification, spells of discernment, spells to increase intelligence, spells to cure sickness and spells to repair a limb that is shatt..
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Susanna Clarke |
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f24d258
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But though he had no striking vices, his virtues were perhaps almost as hard to define.
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Susanna Clarke |