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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 21bd1e8 | 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, | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| 748ecb0 | 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. | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| 55855c5 | 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.. | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| cfde233 | 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. | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| 3225089 | 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.. | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| 318aaf4 | 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.. | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| daaf5ea | 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, | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| 344a4a8 | 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.. | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| ea6f45d | 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. | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| 340d87b | 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.. | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| e0bed81 | 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... | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| 51c9239 | 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! | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| eb7b42a | 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 | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| 7b082ba | 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 | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| abd4770 | 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.. | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| 609618c | 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, | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| 0e89853 | 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.. | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| 248b6f2 | 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 .. | misogynie violence | Elizabeth von Arnim | |
| 61e1ef2 | 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. | menage poussière | Elizabeth von Arnim | |
| 0a9d92b | 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. | caractère rencontre | Elizabeth von Arnim | |
| 3fcf7d9 | 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.. | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| b9bb512 | 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 | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| 9ae4bcb | 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 | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| 0b50f95 | 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. | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| 2bdf3ec | spirits | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| 6f7e1c9 | 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. | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| 239c77c | 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.. | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| 468bf0f | 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. | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| 1bdab04 | I don't like the spirit of socialism - I think freedom is the basis of everything. | Bertrand Russell | ||
| dab23a0 | 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 .. | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| 1ca0abc | No blandishments could make those cats stir if they weren't in the mood, and one does want whatever one is calling to come. | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| b362532 | How passionately she longed to be important to somebody again--not important on platforms, not important as an asset in an organization, but privately important, just to one other person, quite privately, nobody else to know or notice. It didn't seem much to ask in a world so crowded with people, just to have one of them, only one out of all the millions, to oneself. Somebody who needed one, who thought of one, who was eager to come to one-.. | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| 178ca7a | and just loving him with all her simple young heart and entirely believing in him, had made him, so completely commonplace before in all his utterances, suddenly--at least in the pulpit--sing. Was it acute, personal experience that one needed? Did one only cry out the truth really movingly when under some sort of lash, either of grief or ecstasy? | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| ffa02f7 | What I really meant to write to you about today was to tell you that I read your learned and technical and I am sure admirable denouncements of Walt Whitman with a respectful attention due to so much earnestness; and when I had done, and wondered awhile pleasantly at the amount of time for letter-writing the Foreign Office allows its young men, I stretched myself, and got my hat, and went down to the river; and I sat at the water's edge in .. | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| a27de72 | Oh, delight, delight to think one didn't die this time, that one isn't going to die this time after all, but is going to get better, going to live, going presently to be quite well again and able to go back to one's friends, to the people who still love one.... | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| 8383cc8 | J'ai une passion pour les tulipes, plus que pour aucune autre fleur de printemps; gaies, robustes, gracieuses, elles semblent de jeunes filles sortant du bain a cote des jacinthes, ces femmes aux formes opulentes dont chaque mouvement sature l'air de patchouli. Leur parfum, delicat et leger, est un comble de raffinement. Existe-t-il au monde rien de plus charmant que l'ardeur avec laquelle elles tendent leurs petits visages vers le soleil ?.. | jacinthe jardin portrait tulipe | Elizabeth von Arnim | |
| aa6be72 | The healthy attitude, the only reasonable one towards a fault made or a sin committed is surely a vigorous shake of one's moral shoulders, vigorous enough to shake it off and out of remembrance. The sin itself was a sad waste of time and happiness, and absolutely no more should be wasted in lugubriously reflecting on it. Shall we, poor human beings at such a disadvantage from the first in the fight with Fate through the many weaknesses and .. | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| d7b3918 | From "The Jasmine Farm" by Elizabeth von Arnim, c 1934: "...except for a little trickle of water somewhere near, and the piping, on an oleander bush, of a solitary bird, so great a stillness surrounded her that in the whole world there might have been no one but herself. Relaxed she sat, her hands palm upwards on her lap, her mouth open because she was too tired to keep it shut. If she had known it, she was being exquisitely welcomed. The s.. | exhaustion tragedy | Elizabeth von Arnim | |
| 803ce0a | Laughter--one of the most precious of God's gifts; the very salt, the very light, the very fresh air of life; the divine disinfectant, the heavenly purge. Could one ever be real friends with somebody one didn't laugh with? Of course one couldn't. | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| e2dd38e | One] must look into hell before one has any right to speak of heaven. | Bertrand Russell | ||
| fc93948 | It's very awkward when you aren't so old inside as you are outside. For years I've been trying to be dignified, and I'm always being tripped up by a kind of apparently incurable natural effervescence. | Elizabeth von Arnim | ||
| 1ede45c | By the time George Bush's re-election campaign got under way in 2004, there was little doubt he'd make terrorism the focal point of all of his speeches and press conferences. His surrogates went farther still, overtly portraying a vote for his Democratic rival, Senator John Kerry, as an invitation to annihilation. "If we make the wrong choice," Vice President Dick Cheney warned a Des Moines audience, "the danger is that we'll get hit again-.. | Barry Glassner | ||
| 4213c1c | While a major focus of this book is fear mongering by journalists and others, throughout the chapters that follow I take note as well of reporters who bring to light serious dangers about which the public hears little from politicians, corporations, and most of the media. Indeed, again and again I find that it is reporters, rather than government oversight organizations, academics, or other professional truth seekers, who debunk silly or ex.. | Barry Glassner | ||
| 62ccc42 | The more things improve the more pessimistic we become. Violence-related deaths at the nation's schools dropped to a record low during the 1996--97 academic year (19 deaths out of 54 million children), and only one in ten public schools reported any serious crime. Yet Time and U.S. News & World Report both ran headlines in 1996 referring to "Teenage Time Bombs." In a nation of "Children Without Souls" (another Time headline that year), "Ame.. | Barry Glassner |