It is also true that his hair had a reddish tinge and, as everybody knows, no one with red hair can ever truly be said to be handsome.
Ha! he thought. That will teach me to meddle with magic meant for kings! Norrell is right. Some magic is not meant for ordinary magicians. Presumably John Uskglass knew what to do with this horrible k...
Even the Raven King - who was not a fairy, but an Englishman - had a somewhat regrettable habit of abducting men and women and taking them to live with him in his castle in the Other Lands. Now, had y...
But the sound that came out of his mouth was no sound at all; it was the emptied skin of sound without flesh or bones.
It sometimes happens that when one acts quickly and with great resolve, all the indecisiveness and doubt comes afterwards, when it is too late. So
Whoever heard of cats doing anything useful! Except for staring at one in a supercilious manner, said Strange. That has a sort of moral usefulness, I suppose, in making one feel uncomfortable and enco...
Well, Henry, you can cease frowning at me. If I am a magician, I am a very indifferent one. Other adepts summon up fairy-spirits and long-dead kings. I appear to have conjured the spirit of a banker.
There was no one there. Which is to say there was someone there. Miss Wintertowne lay upon the bed, but it would have puzzled philosophy to say now whether she were someone or no one at all.
Then Childermass related to Mr Norrell what he had discovered about Drawlight: how he belonged to a certain breed of gentlemen, only to be met with in London, whose main occupation is the wearing of e...
Their religion is of the strictest sort, Stephen. Almost everything is forbidden to them except carpets. Stephen watched them as they went mournfully about the market, these men whose mouths were perp...
Sometimes the pain in Childermass’s shoulder escaped from him and ran about the room and hid. When this happened he thought it became a small animal. No one else knew it was there. He supposed he ough...
Poor gentleman, said Mr Segundus. Perhaps it is the age. It is not an age for magic or scholarship, is it sir? Tradesmen prosper, sailors, politicians, but not magicians. Our time is past.
Oh, said the Duke of Wellington, not much interested, they are still complaining about that, are they?
Oh, quite! agreed Byron. I was with him again a few hours ago and could not get him to talk of any thing but his dead wife and how she is not really dead, but merely enchanted. And now he shrouds hims...
Not long, not long my father saidNot long shall you be oursThe Raven King knows all too wellWhich are the fairest flowers.The priest was all too worldlyThough he prayed and rang his bellThe Raven King...
No matter how low the Government stood in the estimation of everyone, when the Foreign Secretary stood up and spoke – ah! how different everything seemed then! How quickly was every bad thing discover...
Mr Norrell, it is not the duty of the court – any court – to exalt one person’s opinions above others! Not in magic nor in any other sphere of life. If other magicians think differently from you, then...
It was a dark day. A chill wind blew snowflakes against the window of Mr Norrell's library where Childermass sat writing business letters. Though it was only ten o'clock in the morning the candles wer...
If I were you, Mr Lascelles, said Childermass, softly, I would speak more guardedly. You are in the north now. In John Uskglass's own country. Our towns and cities and abbeys were built by him. Our la...
I cannot recall an instance of anything very dreadful happening at half-past one