Quotes from Elizabeth von Arnim

No children, that is. Ernest, in the matter of posterity, had been a blind alley, a cul-de-sac. Strange and sad not to go on in any way, to come to a dead stop.

The princess, however, most innocent of excellent women, had never spoken privately to Anna of Karlchen except once, when she inquired whether he were to have the best sheets on his bed, or the second best sheets; and Anna had replied, "The worst.

For years she had been able to be happy only by forgetting happiness. She wanted to stay like that. She wanted to shut out everything that would remind her of beautiful things, that might set her off again long, desiring . . .

Dogs being great linguists, she quickly picked up English, far more quickly than I picked up German, so we understood each other very well, and couche, schönmachen, and pfui continued for a long time to be my whole vocabulary. Fortunately

Can one be bored in a world so wonderful?

Did I ever tell you how pretty she was? She was so very pretty, and so adorably nimble of tongue. Quick, glancing, vivid, she twinkled in the heavy Jena firmament like some strange little star. She led Papa and me by the nose, and we loved it.

How regretfully did I think at that moment of the petticoats of my youth, so short, so silent, and so woollen! And how convenient the canvas shoes were with the india rubber soles, for creeping about without making a sound! Thanks to them I could always run swiftly and unheard into my hiding-places, and stay there listening to the garden resounding with cries of Elizabeth! Elizabeth! Come in at once to your lessons!

What a happy woman I am living in a garden, with books, babies, birds, and flowers, and plenty of leisure to enjoy them! Yet my town acquaintances look upon it as imprisonment, and burying, and I don't know what besides, and would rend the air with their shrieks if condemned to such a life. Sometimes I feel as if I were blest above all my fellows in being able to find my happiness so easily.

In the summer, on fine evenings, I love to drive late and alone in the scented forests, and when I have reached a dark part stop, and sit quite still, listening to the nightingales repeating their little tune over and over aga^n after interludes of gurgling, or if there are no nightingales, listening to the marvellous silence, and letting its blessedness descend into my very souL The nightingales in the forests about here all sing the same tune, and in the same key of (E flat).

Mind you do not get your feet damp, said the Man of Wrath, removing his cigar.

There came a moment, she imagined, in the lives of most unmarried daughters, and perhaps in other people's too, when they must either bolt or go permanently under.

Those years in the back diningroom, like some dark tunnel through which one emerges into sunshine, had ended for her in glory. All the time she had been so miserable, she had really been heading straight for this. She was awestruck. Such great and unexpected blessings should bring forth fruit, she vowed, and she would show her gratitude by seeing to it that they did.

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.

Faced by the accomplished fact, it was really rather useless for him to mind. What was the good of minding the actual and the fininshed? ....to allow oneself to be upset because something had been done which one considers a pity, or even disastrous, is to double the misfortune. Why throw after what is already gone one's own good temper and serenity?

How glad I am I need not hurry. What a waste of life, just getting and spending. Sitting by my pansy beds, with the slow clouds floating leisurely past, and all the clear day before me, I look on at the hot scramble for the pennies of existence and am lost in wonder at the vulgarity that pushes, and cringes, and tramples, untiring and unabashed. And when you have got your pennies, what then?

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?

Out there on the plain there is silence, and where there is silence I have discovered there

This is very unpleasant, Gertrud,' I remarked, and I wondered what those at home would say if they knew that on the very first day of my driving-tour I had managed to lose the carriage and had had to bear the banter of publicans.

The young man smiled—certainly a very personable young man—and explained that the light was no longer strong enough to do any more. Again in this explanation did he call me gnädiges Fräulein, and again was I touched by so much innocence. And his German, too, was touching; it was so conscientiously grammatical, so laboriously put together, so like pieces of Goethe learned by heart. By

Alice, who measured the same from her neck to her waist back and front, and considered that so would all women if they were really good and attended to their duties, admired persons, he was aware, of a flat build. He didn't. He was quite sure that curves were comfortable things. All women should have them—curves, soft curves, curves against which one could lay one's head when tired of everything, and go to sleep.

Was she the same person to-night as last night? Was she two persons? If she was only one, which one? Or was she a mere vessel of receptiveness, a transparent vessel into which other people poured their view of her, and she instantly reflected the exact colour of their opinion?

When I drive to the lupins and see them all spread out as far as eye can reach in perfect beauty of colour and scent and bathed in the mild August sunshine, I feel I must send for somebody to come and look at them with me, and talk about them to me, and share in the pleasure; and when I run over the list of my friends and try to find one who would enjoy them, I am frightened once more at the solitariness in which we each of us live.

What a mercy it was that Alice was only his sister, and not his wife; for so at least, though he had to listen to her during the day, he hadn't got to during the night.

doctors are like bad habits—once you have shaken them off you discover how much better you are without them; and as for the babies, since they inhabit a garden, prompt bed and the above-mentioned simple remedy have been all that is necessary to keep them robust.