Elizabeth von Arnim Quotes

How beautiful this security seemed to me, this enchanting security of knowing oneself unnoticed and unseen! And not only was the forest empty of human beings, but our nearest neighbour on the other si...

I WOULD LIKE, to begin with, to say that though parents, husbands, children, lovers and friends are all very well, they are not dogs. In my day and turn having been each of the above,—except that inst...

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, eithe...

I wish,' said Rose anxiously, 'I understood you.' 'Don't try,' said Lotty, smiling. 'But I must, because I love you.

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 (gen...

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.

For I saw them, while I was still struggling through the bushes, looking out of the back window,—and yet drove on indifferently? Did he suppose that in all the wide world there could be forgiveness fo...

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...

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...

The woman has a beak,’ he thought, standing red and tongue-tied before her. ‘She’s a bird of prey. She has got her talons into my Catherine. Linked together! Good God.

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, remai...

This forest was immense. It stretched away uninterruptedly to the north, till stopped by having got to the shores of the Baltic. We had it all to ourselves. Unnoticed, except by what Johann called fin...

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 w...

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...

You’ve been walking in the rain,’ he said reproachfully, pulling away at the soaked gloves. Then, looking down at her face, the grey hard daylight of the March afternoon full on it from the high windo...

And knew that here I might read or dream or idle exactly as I chose with never a creature to disturb me, how grateful I felt to the kindly Fate that has brought me here and given me a heart to underst...

I love tulips better than any other spring flower; they are the embodiment of alert cheerfulness and tidy grace, and next to a hyacinth look like a wholesome, freshly tubbed young girl beside a stout...

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

Wissen Sie, was das für ein Segen ist, die Werke eines Dichters zu lesen, seinen Geist zu kennen, das Beste an ihm, und dabei so entfernt von seiner Heimat, seiner Lebensgeschichte oder seinen Briefen...

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 indis...