Elizabeth Von Arnim Quotes & Sayings

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 leaset 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

In the eighties, when she chiefly flourished, husbands were taken seriously, as the only real obstacles to sin. Beds too, if they had to be mentioned, were approached with caution; and a decent reserve prevented them and husbands ever being spoken of in the same breath. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

But there are no men here," said Mrs. Wilkins, "so how can it be improper? Have you noticed," she inquired of Mrs. Fisher, who endeavoured to pretend she did not hear, "How difficult it is to be improper without men? — Elizabeth Von Arnim

When the gray November weather came, and hung its soft dark clouds low and unbroken over the brown of the ploughed fields and the vivid emerald of the stretches of winter corn, the heavy stillness weighed my heart down to a forlorn yearning after the pleasant things of childhood, the petting, the comforting, the warming faith in the unfailing wisdom of the elders. A great need of something to lean on, and a great weariness of independence and responsibility took possession of my soul; and looking round for support and comfort in that transitory mood, the emptiness of the present and the blankness of the future sent me back to the past with all its ghosts. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Life is an admirable arrangement, isn't it, little mother. It is so clever of it to have June in every year and a morning in every day, let alone things like birds, and Shakespeare, and one's work. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

He thought her delightful, - freckles, picnic-untidiness and all. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

The only thing to do with one's old sorrows is to tuck them up neatly in their shroud and turn one's face away from their grave towards what is coming next. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

She had gone to sleep on these facts years ago, after a period of much misery, her head resting on them as on a pillow; and she had a great dread of being awakened out of so simple and untroublesome a condition. Therefore it was that she searched with earnestness for a heading under which to put Mrs. Wilkins, and in this way illumine and steady her own mind; and sitting there looking at her uneasily after her last remark, and feeling herself becoming more and more unbalanced and infected, she decided pro tem, as the vicar said at meetings, to put her under the heading Nerves. It was just possible that she ought to go straight into the category Hysteria, which was often only the antechamber to Lunacy, but Mrs. Arbuthnot had learned not to hurry people into their final categories, having on more than one occasion discovered with dismay that she had made a mistake; and how difficult it had been to get them out again, and how crushed she had been with the most terrible remorse. Yes. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

I don't want to stay here without you,' said Dolly. 'This place is you. You've made it. It is soaked in you. I should feel haunted here without you. Why, I should feel lost. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

I'm sure it's wrong to go on being good for too long, till one gets miserable. And I can see you've been good for years and years, because you look so unhappy. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

This was the simple happiness of complete harmony with her surroundings, the happiness that asks for nothing, that just accepts, just breathes, just is. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

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? — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Beauty made you love, love made you beautiful ...
She pulled her wrap closer round her with a gesture of defence, of keeping out and off. She didn't want to grow sentimental. Difficult not to, here; the marvelous night stole in through all one's chinks, and brought in with it, whether one wanted them or not, enormous feelings
feelings one couldn't manage, great things about death and time and waste; glorious and devastating things, magnificent and bleak, at once rapture and terror and immense, heart-cleaving longing. She felt small and dreadfully alone. She felt uncovered and defenceless. Instinctively she pulled her wrap closer. With this thing of chiffon she tried to protect herself from the eternities. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Perhaps,' she said, leaning forward a little, 'you will tell me your name. If we are to be friends' - she smiled her grave smile - 'as I hope we are, we had better begin at the beginning. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

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. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

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. — 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

There was that in the atmosphere of San Salvatore which produced active-mindedness in all except the natives. They, as before, whatever the beauty around them, whatever the prodigal seasons did, remained immune from thoughts other than those they were accustomed to. All their lives they had seen, year by year, the amazing recurrent spectacle of April in the gardens, and custom had made it invisible to them. They were as blind to it, as unconscious of it, as Domenico's dog asleep in the sun. The visitors could not be blind to it - it was too arresting after London in a particularly wet and gloomy March. Suddenly to be transported to that place where the air was so still that it held its breath, where the light was so golden that the most ordinary things were transfigured - to be transported into that delicate warmth, — 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

After tea, when both Mrs Fisher and Lady Caroline had disappeared again - it was quite evident that nobody wanted her - she was more dejected than ever, overwhelmed by the discrepancy between the splendour outside her, the warm, teeming beauty and self-sufficiency of nature, and the blank emptiness of her heart. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

How glad I am I need not hurry. What a waste of life, just getting and spending. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Why, it would really be being unselfish to go away and be happy for a little, because we would come back so much nicer. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

... -- the periwinkles looked exactly as if they were being poured down each side of the steps -- ... — Elizabeth Von Arnim

She was having a violent reaction against beautiful clothes and the slavery they impose on one, her experience being that the instant one had got them they took one in hand and gave one no peace till they had been everywhere and been seen by everybody. You didn't take your clothes to parties; they took you. It was quite a mistake to think think that a woman, a really well-dressed woman wore out her clothes; it was the clothes that wore out the woman- dragging her about at all hours of the day and night. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

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. Sitting, then, — Elizabeth Von Arnim

That evening was the evening of the full moon. The garden was an enchanted place where all the flowers seemed white. The lilies, the daphnes, the orange-blossom, the white stocks, the white pinks, the white roses - you could see these as plainly as in the daytime; but the coloured flowers existed only as fragrance. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

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. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

One should continue (of course with dignity) to develop, however old one may be. She had nothing against developing, against further ripeness, because as long as one was alive one was not dead -obviously, decided Mrs. Fisher, and development, change, ripening, were life. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

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? — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Here was the world wide-awake and yet only for me, all the fresh pure air only for me, all the fragrance breathed only by me, not a living soul hearing the nightingale but me, the sun in a few moments coming up to warm only me. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Nobody told me about him [my grandfather], and he died when I was six, and yet within the last year or two, that strange Indian summer of remembrance that comes to us in the leisured times when the children have been born and we have time to think, has made me know him perfectly well. It is rather an uncomfortable thought for the grown-up, and especially for the parent, but of a salutary and restraining nature, that though children may not understand what is said and done before them, and have no interest in it at the time, and though they may forget it at once and for years, yet these things that they have seen and heard and not noticed have after all impressed themselves for ever on their minds, and when they are men and women come crowing back with surprising and often painful distinctness, and away frisk all the cherished little illusions in flocks. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

[Walking] is the perfect way of moving if you want to see into the life of things. It is the one way of freedom. If you go to a place on anything but your own feet you are taken there too fast, and miss a thousand delicate joys that were waiting for you by the wayside. — 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

To me this out-of-the way corner was always a wonderful and a mysterious place, where my castles in the air stood close together in radiant rows, and where the strangest and most splendid adventures befell me; for the hours I passed in it and the people I met in it were all enchanted. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

I's lonely to stay inside oneself. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

In the evening, when everything is tired and quiet, I sit with Walt Whitman by the rose beds and listen to what that lonely and beautiful spirit has to tell me of night, sleep, death, and the stars. This dusky, silent hour is his; and this is the time when I can best hear the beatings of that most tender and generous heart. — 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

Humility, and the most patient perseverance, seem almost as necessary in gardening as rain and sunshine, and every failure must be used as a stepping-stone to something better. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

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. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

It cannot be right to be the slave of one's household gods, and I protest that if my furniture ever annoyed me by wanting to be dusted when I wanted to be doing something else, and there was no one to do the dusting for me, I would cast it all into the nearest bonfire and sit and warm my toes at the flames with great contentment, triumphantly selling my dusters to the very next pedlar who was weak enough to buy them. Parsons — Elizabeth Von Arnim

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. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

And the more he treated her as though she were really very nice, the more Lotty expanded and became really very nice, and the more he, affected in his turn, became really very nice himself; so that they went round and round, not in a vicious but in a highly virtuous circle. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

And when I'm with you," she said, "I feel as if I were stuffed with - oh, with stars. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Home is the best place when life begins to wobble. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

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. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Rose's own experience was that goodness, the state of being good, was only reached with difficulty and pain. It took a long time to get to it; in fact one never did get to it, or, if for a flashing instant one did, it was only for a flashing instant. Desperate perseverance was needed to struggle along its path, and all the way was dotted with doubts. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Too often she had seen the first indignation of disappointed parents at the marriage of the their children harden into a matter of pride, a matter of doggedness and principle, and finally become ridiculous. If the marriages turned out happy, how absurd to persist in an antiquated disapproval; if they turned out wretched, then how urgent the special need for love. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

In bed by herself: adorable condition. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Love isn't decent. Love is glorious and shameless. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

I have always had a liking for pilgrimages, and if I had lived in the Middle Ages would have spent most of my time on the way to Rome. The pilgrims, leaving all their cares at home, the anxieties of their riches or their debts, the wife that worried and the children that disturbed, took only their sins with them, and turning back on their obligations, set out with that sole burden, and perhaps a cheerful heart. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Yet he knew that if she wavered he would never forgive her; she would drop at once from her high estate into those depths in his opinion where the dull average of both sexes sprawled for ever in indiscriminate heaps. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

She belongs to the winter that is past, to the darkness that is over, and has no part or lot in the life I shall lead for the next six months. Oh, I could dance and sing for joy that the spring is here! What a ressurection of beauty there is in my garden, and of brightest hope in my heart. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

The years lay spread out before her, spacious untouched canvases on which she was presently going to paint the picture of her life. It was to be a very beautiful picture, she said to herself with an extraordinary feeling of proud confidence; not beautiful because of any gifts or skill of hers, for never was a woman more giftless, but because of all the untiring little touches, the ceaseless care for detail, the patient painting out of mistakes; and every touch and every detail was going to be aglow with the bright colours of happiness. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

I would recommend to those persons who are inclined to stagnate, whose blood is beginning to thicken sluggishly in their veins, to try keeping four dogs, two of which are puppies. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Reading was very important; the proper exercise and development of one's mind was a paramount duty. — 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

Beauty made you love, and love made you beautiful. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

I was for ever making plans, and if nothing came of them, what did it matter? The mere making had been a joy. — 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

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 because they said I was forty, which I certainly would be some day, if I went on living at the rate I was doing. How it were good to abide there and be free - The fact was, I reflected, my eyes on the glittering slopes of the Weisshorn, we were all too close together, and my guests, being of one family, only made this closeness worse. The remedy - it burst upon me suddenly in a flash, - was not to waste my serenity vainly longing for the guests I had to go, but to invite yet more of them. Unrelated ones. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Oh, my dear, relations are like drugs, - useful sometimes, and even pleasant, if taken in small quantities and seldom, but dreadfully pernicious on the whole, and the truly wise avoid them. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

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. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

But down from the end of the path it looked so charming that she wished she could paint it in watercolours - the great trees, the tempered sunlight, the glimpse of the old church at one end, the glimpse of the embosomed lake at the other, and in the middle, set out so neatly, with such a grace of spotlessness, the table of her first tea-party. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

The very feel of her hand, even through its glove, was reassuring; it was the sort of hand, he thought, that children would like to hold in the dark. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

One went on and on, never dreaming of the sudden dreadful day when the coverings were going to be dropped and one would see it was death after all, that it had been death all the time, death pretending, death waiting — Elizabeth Von Arnim

What fun it all was, she thought, and how entirely new and delicious being taken care of as though she were a thing that mattered, a precious thing! — Elizabeth Von Arnim

He had the effect on her of a window being thrown open and fresh air and sunlight being let in — Elizabeth Von Arnim

It is beautiful, beautiful to give; one of the very most beautiful things in life. — 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

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. There — Elizabeth Von Arnim

But we found San Salvatore," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, "and it is rather silly that Mrs. Fisher should behave as if it belonged only to her."
"What is rather silly," said Mrs. Wilkins with much serenity, "is to mind. I can't see the least point in being in authority at the price of one's liberty. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Guests can be, and often are, delightful, but they should never be allowed to get the upper hand. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Once more she had that really rather disgusting suspicion that her life till now had not only been loud but empty. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Sometimes callers from a distance invade my solitude, and it is on these occasions that I realize how absolutely alone each individual is, and how far away from his neighbour; and while they talk (generally about babies, past, present, and to come), I fall to wondering at the vast and impassable distance that separates one's own soul from the soul of the person sitting in the next chair. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

It is true she liked him most when he wasn't there, but then she usually liked everybody most when they weren't there. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Thoreau has been my companion for some days past, it having struck me as
more appropriate to bring him out to a pond than to read him, as was
hitherto my habit, on Sunday mornings in the garden. He is a person who
loves the open air, and will refuse to give you much pleasure if you try
to read him amid the pomp and circumstance of upholstery; but out in the
sun, and especially by this pond, he is delightful, and we spend the
happiest hours together, he making statements, and I either agreeing
heartily, or just laughing and reserving my opinion till I shall have
more ripely considered the thing. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

I know no surer way of shaking off the dreary crust formed about the soul by the trying to do one's duty or the patient enduring of having somebody else's duty done to one, than going out alone, either at the bright beginning of the day, when the earth is still unsoiled by the feet of the strenuous and only God is abroad; or in the evening, when the hush has come, out to the blessed stars, and looking up at them wonder at the meanness of the day just past, at the worthlessness of the things one has struggled for, at the folly of having been so angry, and so restless, and so much afraid. Nothing focusses life more exactly than a little while alone at night with the stars. What are perfunctory bedroom prayers hurried through in an atmosphere of blankets, to this deep abasement of the spirit before the majesty of heaven? And as a consecration of what should be yet one more happy day, of what value are those hasty morning devotions, — Elizabeth Von Arnim

She had not had a question like that in her mind before. It had made her feel lonely. She wanted to be alone, but not lonely. That was very different; that was something that ached and hurt dreadfully right inside one. It was what one dreaded most. It was what made one go to so many parties; and lately even the parties had seemed once or twice not to be a perfectly certain protection. Was it possible that loneliness had nothing to do with circumstances, but only with the way one met them? Perhaps, she had thought, she had better go to bed. She couldn't be very well. She — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Christopher loved her with the passion of youth, of imagination, of poetry, of all the fresh beginnings of wonder and worship that have been since love first lit his torch and made in the darkness a great light. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

if one were efficient one wouldn't be depressed, and that if one does one's job well one becomes automatically bright and brisk. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

see a little village a mile ahead of us with a venerable church on a mound in the middle of it gravely presiding over the surrounding wide parish of corn. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

A house,' said Wemyss, explaining its name to Lucy on the morning of their arrival, 'should always be named after whatever most insistently catches the eye.'

'Then oughtn't it to have been called The Cows?' asked Lucy; for the meadows round were strewn thickly as far as she could see with recumbent cows, and they caught her eye much more than the tossing bare willow branches.

'No,' said Wemyss, annoyed. 'It ought not have been called The Cows. — 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? There — Elizabeth Von Arnim

What a blessing it is to love books. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

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. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

I don't believe there was ever anybody who loved being happy as much as I did. What I mean is that I was so acutely conscious of being happy, so appreciative of it; that I wasn't ever bored, and was always and continuously grateful for the whole delicious loveliness of the world. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

If you weren't here I wouldn't see it," said Ingram, firmly believing it in the face of the fact that nothing ever escaped his acute vision. "I see all this only through you. You are my eyes. Without you I go blind, I grope about with the light gone out. You don't know what you are to me, you little shining crystal thing - you don't begin to realise it, my dear, my dear sweet Found-at-Last. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

I want to be as idle as I can, so that my soul may have time to grow. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

They left off talking. They ceased to mention heaven. They were just cups of acceptance. — 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 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

And then when I got home I burrowed about among my books, arranging their volumes and loving the feel of them. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Oh of course - how ridiculous of me!" cried Mrs. Wilkins, flushing scarlet. "It's because" - she floundered - "it's because the immortals somehow still seem alive, don't they - as if they were here, going to walk into the room in another minute - and one forgets they are dead. In fact one knows perfectly well that they're not dead - not nearly so dead as you and I even now," she assured — Elizabeth Von Arnim

It is a beautiful spot, endless
forest stretching along the shore as far as the eye
can reach ; and after driving through it for miles
you come suddenly, at the end of an avenue of
arching trees, upon the glistening, oily sea, with
the orange-coloured sails of distant fishing-smacks
shining in the sunlight. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

And the summer seems as though it would dream on for ever. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

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

I'm so glad I didn't die on the various occasions I have earnestly wished I might, for I would have missed a lot of lovely weather. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Coco?" I whispered, standing still, hardly able to believe it. "Oh - Coco?" "It is impossible to imagine," a voice behind seemed to be saying from a great distance away, "how the dog could have reached this spot. For three days he has been immovable in his kennel." I dropped on my knees, and took his paw in my hand. He gave the faintest wag of his tail, and tried to raise his head; but it fell back again, and he could only look at me. For an instant, for the briefest instant, we looked at each other, and while we looked his eyes glazed. "Coco - I've come back. Darling - I'll never leave you any more - - " I don't know why I said these things. I knew he was dead, and that no calls, no lamentations, no love could ever reach him again. Sliding down on to the stone flags beside him, I laid my head on his and wept in an agony of bitter grief. Now indeed I was left alone in the world. Even my dog was gone. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Always being there was the essential secret for a wife. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Mrs. Fisher had never cared for macaroni, especially not this long, worm-shaped variety. She found it difficult to eat
slippery, wriggling off her fork, making her look, she felt, undignified when, having got it as she supposed into her mouth, ends of it yet hung out. Always, too, when she ate it she was reminded of Mr. Fisher. He had during their married life behaved very much like macaroni. He had slipped, he had wriggled, he had made her feel undignified, and when at last she had got him safe, as she thought, there had invariably been little bits of him that still, as it were, hung out. — Elizabeth Von Arnim