Quotes from Ouida

Once again alone, my grief was unrestrained; so much so that the woman of the house came and hammered at the door and swore at me for a "dratted yelping beast," which only made my cries the louder. As several hours went on, however, and my solitude remained unbroken, I cried myself so hoarse that I was unable to emit any sort of sound at last; and thought I might as well vary my imprisonment by looking out of the casement.

But you see," Gladys murmured, with a strange sad tender smile upon her face, "I have had all my summer in my spring; it is all over now. There are nothing but the night and the winter. While you—you have had the "cold and the darkness first; your sun has yet to dawn.

The only great actress is a woman whom you utterly forget in the impersonation that she chooses you to see. The actresses we are blessed with are always making us think—how well A looks to-night, how intricate B's coiffure is, how becoming that tawny satin is to C, and how resplendent are D's diamonds!

Jack loudly protested against such literal interpretation of his figurative language, and a very pretty bout with fisticuffs was the result,—the innocent kettle ultimately being battered to pieces in the fray. Such is men's justice; in all their quarrels there is always some poor luckless kettle which, sinless itself, gets the blows from each side

Take the dog to him, but do not bring mo back any money; I am not a thief, to take payment for honesty." "What I but he's offered the five sovs. for the dog; you've a right to it,—where is the harm?" "There may be no harm, but I would not take it. My father would have never let me accept a reward fordoing such a little simple thing, so plainly right as that.

One day I got out "on the loose," as your slang phrases it; a reprehensible practice, no doubt, but one dear to dogs as to men, for better is a bare bone in the gutter, with the sweetness of free-will, than are fatted meats eaten within the curb and the gall of a chain.

We are ill appreciated, we cynics; on my honor if cynicism be not the highest homage to virtue there is, I should like to know what virtue wants? We sigh over her absence and we glorify her perfections. But Virtue is always a trifle stuck-up, you know, and she is very difficult to please.

IT is strange how the outer world surrounds yet never touches the inner; how the gay and lighter threads of life intervene yet never mingle with those that are darkest and sternest, as the parasite clings to the forest tree, united yet ever dissimilar!

Polite lies, polite lies! They are the decorous garment, and the fitting food, of the world. To be in the fashion, I shall have to treat you to them before I have done.

I have danced the fandango; no more able to help myself when the girl and the castanets began, than the holy cardinals, who, when they came to Madrid to excommunicate the cachuca, ended by joining in it! Like the rest of us, I suppose, they found forbidding a thing to other people, very easy and pleasant, but going without it themselves rather more difficult.

Poor child! you are much fit for a nurse! What do you know of wounds, of sickness, of death? What qualification have you to induce them to give you such an office? Do you think they would take such a fair face as yours among the sick wards? No, no, that is impracticable. You must wait: the lesson hardest of all to learn — one, I dare say, you have never had to learn at al!

Out campaigning, one is free from all that trash. Before the cannon's mouth men cannot stop to split straws; and with one's own life on a thread, one cannot stop to ruin another's character. I do not know how it is — I have read pretty widely, but philosophers never preached endurance to me as well as Nature.

But if the world only toss you a cake, only keep you well fed and well fattened, what a good and a fair world it is, how full of all sweetness and light, how true in its vision, how pure in its excellence;

I wonder now that I did not die; but if everything died that is full of wretchedness, your world would soon have but a sparse peopling.

So, on the whole, it was well with them, very well; and Patrasche, meeting on the highway or in the public streets the many dogs who toiled from daybreak into nightfall, paid only with blows and curses, and loosened from the shafts with a kick to starve and freeze as best they might — Patrasche in his heart was very grateful to his fate, and thought it the fairest and the kindliest the world could hold.

A little farther on, in the old playing-field, there were the wickets, and the bats, and the jumping poles, and four or five boys, in their shirt sleeves and their straw hats, enjoying their half-holiday, as we had done before them. So life goes on; when one is bowled out, another is ready to step into his shoes, and, no matter how many the ball of death may knock over, the cricket of life is kept up the same, and players are never wanting!

she was very liberal in her range of literature. All languages being equally intelligible to us (though we can never comprehend why you have not all one and the same, as we superior animals have), I derived considerable entertainment from hearing the innumerable works, in various tongues, which her companion read aloud to her almost from morning to night.

When he had once determined on a thing he never looked back; sometimes it had been better for him if he had. Yet, in the long run, I have known more mischief done by indecision of character than anything else in the world, and he is safe to be the strongest and stoutest-hearted who never looks back, whether he has determined on quitting Sodom or on staying in it The evil lies in hasty judgment, not in prompt action.

O nations! closely should you treasure your great men, for by them alone will the future know of you. Flanders in her generations has been wise. In his life she glorified this greatest of her sons, and in his death she magnifies his name. But her wisdom is very rare.

the amateurs, who had come out to see what was doing in the Crimea, as they went other years to Norwegian fishing or Baden roulette, were scattered about in yachting costume, and stirred to a little excitement as the Russian shells began to burst among us, and the bombs to fall with thuds loud enough to startle the strongest nerves.

Society, like most fashionable dames, is fond of selfdelusion, and is very apt to break in shivers the mirror that reflects her decolletee too faithfully. Now, the novelist is a painter who draws his portrait on canvas which a stone or two of censure will not break; but the playwright's fragile glass falls to atoms unless braced in a gilded frame of popularity. Critical hostility is often the breath of life to the writer; but to the actor it is absolute damnation

I need not say that in this place I had never ceased to passionately regret my dear old master in the noble pine woods of the Peak. Indeed, I had sometimes lamented for him aloud in a grief that brought on me angry words and even angry strokes; so little sympathy have men or women ever with our woes, although for theirs we feel so keenly and fret ourselves so ceaselessly. Twenty times at least had I endeavored to run away, with the full intent of trying to find my road back alone

We are ever mindful of succor bestowed, of hospitality received; where we have eaten bread there do we ever go with remembrance and thanksgiving; wo have not learned your art of oblivion, your science of neglect; we cannot turn upon the hand that once tendered us food; we cannot make a mockery of the kindliness that onco befriended us; we cannot emulate you there—we are but dogs.

Daily bread," muttered the handsome girl. "It's main and fine what He do gie us, niver a bit o' wheat-loaf mayhap for weeks and weeks togither 1" But she muttered it under her breath, and she did not dare let him hear it. I heard it; but then dogs hear and see a great many things to which men, in their arrogance and their stupidity, arc deaf and blind.