Elizabeth von Arnim Quotes
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Pincher took me to London, and Knobbie brought me away. It looked as if I were beginning to be led about by dogs.
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Well, she had had the most wonderful summer; she had got that anyhow tucked away up the sleeve of her memory, and could bring it out and look at it when the days were wet and she felt cold and sick.
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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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...so I took it out with me into the garden, because the dullest book takes on a certain saving grace if read out of doors, just as bread and butter, devoid of charm in the drawing-room, is ambrosia eaten under a tree.
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Surely the colour of London was an exquisite thing. It was like a pearl that late afternoon, something very gentle and pale, with faint blue shadows. And as for its smell, she doubted, indeed, whether heaven itself could smell better, certainly not so interesting. "And anyhow," she said to herself, lifting her head a moment in appreciation, "it can't possibly smell more alive.
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No blandishments could make those cats stir if they weren’t in the mood, and one does want whatever one is calling to come.
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It is after these rare calls that I experience the only moments of depression from which I ever suffer, and then I am angry at myself, a well-nourished person, for allowing even a single precious hour of life to be spoil: by anything so indifferent. That is the worst of being fed enough, and clothed enough, and warmed enough, and of having everything you can reasonably desire—on the least provocation you are made uncomfortable and unhappy by such abstract discomforts as being shut out from a nearer approach to your neighbour's soul; which is on the face of it foolish, the probability being that he hasn't got one.
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This radiant weather, when mere living is a joy, and sitting still over the fire out of the question, has been going on for more than a week.
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Nor would I willingly miss the early darkness and the pleasant firelight tea and the long evenings among my books.
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Lewes was waiting, always Lewes, making profound and idiotic comments on everything, and wanting to sit up half the night and reason. Reason! He was sick of reason. He wanted some one he could be romantic with, and sentimental with, and poetic, and—yes, religious with, if he felt like it, without having to feel ashamed.
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It was a place to bless God in and cease from vain words.
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The longer I live the greater is my respect for manure in all its forms.
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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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The passion for being for ever with one's fellows, and the fear of being left for a few hours alone, is to me wholly incomprehensible. I can entertain myself quite well for weeks together, hardly aware, except for the pervading peace, that I have been alone at all.
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Things were a little untidy, but what did that matter? It was possible to become the slave of things; possible to miss life in preparation for living.
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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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Why couldn't two unhappy people refresh each other on their way through this dusty business of life by a little talk,—real, natural talk, about what they felt, what they would have liked, what they still tried to hope?
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Say It Before It's Too Late.
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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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It is true she liked him most when he wasn't there, but then she usually liked everybody most when they weren't there.
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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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Where the trees thicken into a wood, the fragrance of the wet earth and rotting leaves kicked up by the horses' hoofs fills my soul with delight. I particularly love that smell, -- it brings before me the entire benevolence of Nature, for ever working death and decay, so piteous in themselves, into the means of fresh life and glory, and sending up sweet odours as she works.
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I have a peculiar capacity for doing nothing and yet enjoying myself.
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It is not graceful, and it makes one hot; but it is a blessed sort of work, and if Eve had had a spade in Paradise and known what to do with it, we should not have had all that sad business of the apple.