Elizabeth von Arnim Quotes
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Her great dead friends did not seem worth reading that night. They always said the same things now—over and over again they said the same things, and nothing new was to be got out of them any more for ever. No doubt they were greater than any one was now, but they had this immense disadvantage, that they were dead. Nothing further was to be expected of them; while of the living, what might one not still expect?
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What a blessing it is to love books. Everybody must love something, and I know of no objects of love that give such substantial and unfailing returns as books and a garden.
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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 blowing of the wind across the joyous fields.
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In bed by herself: adorable condition.
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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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It was a place to bless God in and cease from vain words.
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How passionately she longed to be important to somebody again - not important on platforms, not important as an asset in an organisation, 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 - oh, oh how dreadfully one wanted to be precious.
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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 my memory.
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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 the portion of the family; and when, having risen and blazed, the glory at last faded out, it left a litter behind it, in every stage of decomposition, for the ultimate use, so it appeared, of one small foreign girl and one small indigenous dachshund.
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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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Now she had taken off her goodness and left it behind her like a heap of rain-sodden clothes, and she only felt joy.
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Guests can be, and often are, delightful, but they should never be allowed to get the upper hand.
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Mrs. Colquhoun was being amiable because she thought Catherine was down and out, and Mrs. Colquhoun was what she was, hard, severe, critical, grudging of happiness, kind to failure so long as it remained failure, simply because there wasn’t a soul in the whole world who really loved her. A devoted husband would have done much to bring out her original goodness; a very devoted husband would have done everything.
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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. I daresay they would have been bad for me too if I had taken them seriously, but I wasn’t quite old enough to do that, and my sole reaction to their devotion was that I was irked.
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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, that the only other time in my life I had had this feeling was when I was dressing to go to the party in Italy at which I met my first husband. It is a sinking feeling. Perhaps husbands have never altogether agreed with me.
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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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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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That was a strange thing, the death of Coco. Not that he should die, for owing to the unexpected folly of the concierge it was inevitable that he should, but his manner of doing it. Even at this distance of time, the remembrance agonises me.
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But of what use is it to be whitewashed and trim outside, to have pleasant creepers and tidy shutters, when inside one's soul wanders through empty rooms, mournfully shivers in damp and darkness, is hungry and no one brings it food, is cold and no one lights a fire, is miserable and tired and there's no chair to sit on?
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She had a sad face, yet she was evidently efficient. The combination used to make Mrs. Wilkins wonder, for she had been told by Mellersh, on days when she had only been able to get plaice, that 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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There is nothing so absolutely bracing for the soul as the frequent turning of one's back on duties.
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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.
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The passion of being forever with one's fellows, and the fear of being left for a few hours alone, is to me wholly incomprehensible.
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The longer I live the greater is my respect for manure in all its forms.