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Beginnings were not suitable, she felt, after a certain age, especially not for women. Mothers of the married, such as herself and Mrs. Cumfrit, should be concerned rather with endings than beginnings.
Elizabeth von Arnim -
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 ailments of our bodies, load our souls as well with an ever-growing burden of regret and penitence? Shall we let a weight of vivid memories break our hearts? How are we to get on with our living if we are continually dropping into sloughs of bitter and often unjust self-reproach? Every morning comes the light, and a fresh chance of doing better. Is it not the sheerest folly and ingratitude to let yesterday spoil the God-given to-day?
Elizabeth von Arnim
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Not the least of my many blessings is that we have only one neighbour. If you have to have neighbours at all, it is at least a mercy that there should be only one; for with people dropping in at all hours and wanting to talk to you, how are you to get on with your life, I should like to know, and read your books, and dream your dreams to your satisfaction?
Elizabeth von Arnim -
It seemed, however, that I had. I didn’t want any more, so I got them. And now I am glad, for if, as I had sometimes wished at that time, I could have finished with a consciousness become unbearable, if, in other words, I had then died, I would never have known a great many very beautiful and delightful things. Evidently, then, it is wise not too soon to lose patience with life, but to wait and see what it may have round its next corner.
Elizabeth von Arnim -
Pincher took me to London, and Knobbie brought me away. It looked as if I were beginning to be led about by dogs.
Elizabeth von Arnim -
Now she had taken off her goodness and left it behind her like a heap of rain-sodden clothes, and she only felt joy.
Elizabeth von Arnim -
Nor would I willingly miss the early darkness and the pleasant firelight tea and the long evenings among my books.
Elizabeth von Arnim -
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.
Elizabeth von Arnim
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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.
Elizabeth von Arnim -
She was little altogether; a little thing, in a little hat which she never had to take off because hardly ever was there anybody behind her, and, anyhow, even in a big hat she was not of the size that obstructs views. Always the same hat; never a different one, or different clothes. Although the clothes were pretty, very pretty, he somehow felt, perhaps because they were never different, that she wasn’t very well off; and he also somehow felt she was older than he was—just a little older, nothing at all to matter; and presently he began somehow also to feel that she was married.
Elizabeth von Arnim -
But it is impossible, I find, to tidy books without ending by sitting on the floor in the middle of a great untidiness and reading.
Elizabeth von Arnim -
I have been much afflicted again lately by visitors . . . and they gave me to understand that if they had had the arranging of the garden it would have been finished long ago - whereas I don't believe a garden is ever finished. They have all gone now, thank heaven.
Elizabeth von Arnim -
...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.
Elizabeth von Arnim -
It is beautiful, beautiful to give; one of the very most beautiful things in life.
Elizabeth von Arnim
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1922 was a bad year for Elizabeth. She was disappointed by some of the reviews of The Enchanted April although it was to prove the most popular — excepting the first — of all her novels. She suffered from depressions that she couldn’t throw off. Her doctor diagnosed menopausal symptoms.
Elizabeth von Arnim -
Love isn't decent. Love is glorious and shameless.
Elizabeth von Arnim -
Put out? My dear Gertrud, I have been thinking of very serious things. You cannot expect me to frolic along paths of thought that lead to mighty and unpleasant truths. Why should I always smile? I am not a Cheshire cat.
Elizabeth von Arnim -
Her family held strongly that for daughters to read in the daytime was to be idle. Well, if it was, thought Ingeborg lifting her head, that head that drooped so apologetically at home, with the defiance that distance encourages, then being idle was a blessed thing and the sooner one got away to where one could be it, uninterruptedly, the better.
Elizabeth von Arnim -
Keep quiet and say one's prayers-certainly not merely the best, but the only things to do if one would be truly happy; but, ashamed of asking when I have received so much, the only form of prayer I would use would be a form of thanksgiving.
Elizabeth von Arnim -
Thus does good fortune follow on the steps of the reckless.
Elizabeth von Arnim
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Reading was very important; the proper exercise and development of one's mind was a paramount duty.
Elizabeth von Arnim -
Worse than jokes in the morning did she hate the idea of a husband.
Elizabeth von Arnim -
There is nothing so absolutely bracing for the soul as the frequent turning of one's back on duties.
Elizabeth von Arnim -
Well, I for one am unable to imagine how anybody who lives with an intelligent and devoted dog can every be lonely.
Elizabeth von Arnim