Let us see, said Saint Oswald. A man in black clothes, with powerful magic and ravens at his command, and the hunting rights of a king. This suggests nothing to you? No apparently it does not. Well, i...
In general, London found him disappointing. He did no magic, cursed no one, foretold nothing. Once at Mrs Godesdone’s house he was heard to remark that he thought it might rain, but this, if a prophec...
I mean that two of any thing is a most uncomfortable number. One may do as he pleases. Six may get along well enough. But two must always struggle for mastery. Two must always watch each other. The ey...
For this is England where a man's neighbours will never suffer him to live entirely bereft of society, let him be as dry and sour-faced as he may.
Drawing teaches habits of close observation that will always be useful.
But, though French, she was also very brave...
But when the fairy sang the whole world listened to him. Stephen felt clouds pause in their passing; he felt sleeping hills shift and murmur; he felt cold mists dance. He understood for the first time...
And are you married, sir? Mrs Winstanley asked Tom. Oh no, madam! said Tom.Yes, David reminded him. You are, you know.Tom made a motion with his hand to suggest that it was a situation susceptible to...
After all, he thought, what can a magician do against a lead ball? Between the pistol firing and his heart exploding, there is no time for magic.
In peacetime some sort of introduction is generally required to make a person’s acquaintance; in war a small eatable will perform the same office.)
But he had the natural distrust that a young, rich, self-indulgent man feels for members of the clergy. Who could say what notions of extraordinary virtue and unnecessary self-sacrifice they might be...
A book of magic should be written by a practising magician, rather than a theoretical magician or a historian of magic.
Unfortunately, Childermass's French was so strongly accented by his native Yorkshire that Minervois did not understand and asked Strange if Childermass was Dutch.
To sit and pass hour after hour in idle chatter with a roomful of strangers is to me the worst sort of torment
To Strange’s unnautical eye, it looked very much as if the ship had simply lain down and gone to sleep. He felt that if he had been the Captain he would have spoken to her sternly and made her get up...
They had no relish for gossiping about their acquaintance and even politics seemed a little dull. In short they felt that they should like to have the pleasure of looking at Lady Pole again, and so th...
The idea of forty precious volumes being taken into a country in a state of war where they might get burnt, blown up, drowned or dusty was almost too horrible to contemplate. Mr Norrell did not know a...
The first ten books Mr. Segundus looked at were worthless — books of sermons and moralizing from the last century, or descriptions of persons whom no one living cared about. The next fifty were very m...
Strange stared thoughtfully at her for several seconds, so that Arabella mistakenly supposed he must be considering what she had just said. But when he spoke it was only to say in a tone of gentle rep...
She spoke Basque, which is a language which rarely makes any impression upon the brains of any other race, so that a man may hear it as often and as long as he likes, but never afterwards be able to r...