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

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

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

Such a little difference in Susie's ways and ideas would make them all so happy; such a little change in Peter's habits would make his wife's life radiant. But they all lived blindly, on, each day a day of emptiness, each of those precious days, so crowded with opportunities, and possibilities, and unheeded blessings, and presently life would be behind them, and their chances gone for ever. — 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

And everybody will have what they never yet have had, a certain amount of that priceless boon, leisure
leisure to sit down and look at themselves, and inquire what it is they really mean, and really want, and really intend to do with their lives. — 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

To go into the garden in its snowed-up state is like going into a bath of purity. The first breath on opening the door is so ineffably pure that it makes me gasp, and I feel a black and sinful object in the midst of all the spotlessness. — 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

Oh, I thought of calling it Journeyings in Germany. It sounds well, and would be correct. Or Jottings from German Journeyings
I haven't quite decided yet ... (Minora) — Elizabeth Von Arnim

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. About — Elizabeth Von Arnim

What business, said Priscilla's look more plainly than any words, what business had people to walk into other people's cottages in such a manner? She stood quite still, and scrutinized Mrs. Morrison with the questioning expression she used to find so effective in Kunitz days when confronted by a person inclined to forget which, exactly, was his proper place. But Mrs. Morrison knew nothing of Kunitz, and the look lost half its potency without its impressive background. Besides, the lady was not one to notice things so slight as looks; to keep her in her proper place you would have needed sledge-hammers. — 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

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

If your lot makes you cry and be wretched, get rid of it and take another; strike out for yourself; don't listen to the shriek of your relations ... don't be afraid of public opinion in the shape of the neighbours in the next house, when all the world is before you new and shining, and everything is possible, if you will only be energetic and independent and seize opportunity by the scruff of the neck. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Steadfast as the points of the compass to Mrs. Arbuthnot were the great four facts of life: God, Husband, Home, Duty. 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. — 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

When I got to the library I came to a standstill, - ah, the dear room, what happy times I have spent in it rummaging amongst the books, making plans for my garden, building castles in the air, writing, dreaming, doing nothing. — 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

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

Isn't it a mercy that we never get cured of being expectant? It makes life so bearable. However regularly we are disappointed and nothing whatever happens, after the first blow has fallen, after the first catch of the breath, the first gulp of misery, we turn our eyes with all their old eagerness to a point a little further along the road. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Many are the friendships that have found an unforseeen and sudden end on a journey, and few are those that survive it. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

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. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

But whether it was a proper shame for what she had done or a shocking shame for her compunctions in sinning, the Bishop was not permitted that afternoon to discover; because when she had got as far as that she was interrupted by being obliged to faint. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

The longer I live the greater is my respect for manure in all its forms. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

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

Submission to what people call their 'lot' is simply ignoble. If your lot makes you cry and be wretched, get rid of it and take another. — 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

Books have their idiosyncrasies as well as people, and will not show me their full beauties unless the place and time in which they are read suits them. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

You are all the happiness," he said, with an energy of conviction astonishing at half-past nine in the morning, "and all the music, and all the colour, and all the fragrance there is in the world. — 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

The garden is the place I go for refuge and shelter, not the house. In the house are duties and annoyances, servants to exhort and admonish, furniture, and meals; but out there blessings crowd round me at every step
it is there that I am sorry for the unkindness in me, for those selfish thoughts that are so much worse than they feel; it is there that all my sins and silliness are forgiven, there that I feel protected and at home, and every flower and weed is a friend and every tree a lover. When I have been vexed I run to them for comfort, and when I have been angry without just cause, it is there I find absolution. Did ever a woman have so many friends? And always the same, always ready to welcome me and fill me with cheerful thoughts. Happy children of a common Father, why should I, their own sister, be less content and joyous than they? — 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

And there they were, arrived; and it was San Salvatore; and their suit-cases were waiting for them; and they had not been murdered. — 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

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

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

Love is not a thing you can pick up and throw into the gutter and pick up again as the fancy takes you. I am a person, very unfortunately for you, with a quite peculiar dread of thrusting myself or my affections on any one, of in any way outstaying my welcome. The man I would love would be the man I could trust to love me for ever. I do not trust you. I did outstay my welcome once. I did get thrown into the gutter, and came near drowning in that sordid place. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

My dream, even now, is to walk for weeks with some friend that I love, leisurely wandering from place to place, with no route arranged and no object in view, with liberty to go on all day or to linger all day, as we choose; but the question of luggage, unknown to the simple pilgrim, is one of the rocks on which my plans have been shipwrecked, and the other is the certain censure of relatives, who, not fond of walking themselves, and having no taste for noonday naps under hedges, would be sure to paralyse my plans before they had grown to maturity by the honest horror of their cry, "How very unpleasant if you were to meet any one you know!" The relative of five hundred years back would have said "How Holy! — Elizabeth Von Arnim

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

Worse than jokes in the morning did she hate the idea of a husband. — 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

Mr. Dawson's wife was really so very meek that I fear when the Day of Reckoning comes much of this tyranny will be forgiven him and laid to her account. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

For I'm afraid of loneliness; shiveringly, terribly afraid. I don't mean the ordinary physical loneliness, for here I am, deliberately travelled away from London to get to it, to its spaciousness and healing. I mean that awful loneliness of spirit that is the ultimate tragedy of life. When you've got to that, really reached it, without hope, without escape, you die. You just can't bear it, and you die. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

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 that 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. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

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

My step-mother looked at me at least once on each of these miserable days, and said: 'Rose-Marie, you look very odd. I hope you are not going to have anything expensive. Measles are in Jena, and also the whooping-cough.'
'Which of them is the cheapest?' I inquired.
'Both are beyond our means,' said my step-mother severely. — 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

What fun it had been, having an admirer even for that little while. No wonder people liked admirers. They seemed, in some strange way, to make one come alive. — 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

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

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. — 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

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
patience, and cheerfulness, just like the happy
flowers I so much love. — 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

Impossible for anyone to conceive the torments of his nights in bed with his beloved one and estranged from her. That turning of backs, that cold space between their two unhappy bodies. — 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

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

In this part of the world, the more you are pleased to see a person, the less is he pleased to see you; whereas if you are disagreeable, he will grow pleasant visibly, his countenance expanding into wider amiability the more your own is stiff and sour. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Oh how warm it makes one to know that there is one person in the world to whom one is everything. A lover is the most precious, the most marvelous possession. — 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

...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. — 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

September 15th. - This is the month of quiet days, crimson creepers, and blackberries; of mellow afternoons in the ripening garden; of tea under acacias instead of too shady beeches; of wood fires in the library in chilly evenings. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

She herself had certainly never been more alive. She felt electric. She would not have been surprised if sparks had come crackling out of the tips of her sober gloves. — 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

She did not like her name. It was a mean, small name, with a kind of facetious twist, she thought, about its end like the upward curve of a pug dog's tail. — 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

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

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

To think that you dared - to think that my - my noble boy - "
"He wasn't very noble. Mothers don't ever really know their sons, I think."
"Shameless girl!" cried Mrs. Morrison, so loud, so completely beside herself, that Priscilla hastily rang her bell ... "Open the door for this lady," she said to Annalise, who appeared with a marvellous promptitude; and as Mrs. Morrison still stood her ground and refused to see either Annalise or the door Priscilla ended the interview by walking out herself, with great dignity, into the bathroom. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

..all forms of needlework of the fancy order are inventions of the evil one for keeping the foolish from applying their hearts to wisdom. — 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

Oh well, I'll be sure to pick you up again somewhere. It isn't a very big island, and you are a conspicuous object, driving round it.' This was true. So long as I was on that island I could not hope to escape Charlotte. I entered Binz in a state of moody acquiescence. Every — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Something lay in the middle of it a few yards on, a dark object like a little heap of brown leaves. Thinking it was leaves I saw no reason for comment; but Gertrud, whose eyes are very sharp, exclaimed. 'What, do you see August?' I cried. 'No, no - but there in the road - the tea-basket!' It was indeed the tea-basket, shaken out as it naturally would be on the removal of the bodies that had kept it in its place, come to us like the ravens of old to give us strength and sustenance. 'It still contains food,' said Gertrud, hurrying towards it. 'Thank heaven,' said I. We — 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

If you have once thoroughly bored somebody it is next to impossible to unbore him. — 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