Edith Nesbit

“ Bobbie and Phyllis and Peter counted them as they passed. The foremost ones hesitated a moment at the foot of the ladder, then their eyes caught the gleam of scattered whiteness along the line and they turned towards the tunnel, and, by ones and twos and threes and sixes and sevens, disappeared in the dark mouth of it. The last one, in a red jersey, seemed to be extinguished by the darkness like a candle that is blown out.
"They don't know what they're in for," said the foreman; "it isn't so easy running in the dark. The tunnel takes two or three turns." ”

“ I can seem to see that one might love the one love of a life-time, and be content to hold the treasure in one's heart, a treasure such as no other man ever had, and grudge even a word or a look that might make it less the single perfect rose of the world."
"Oh, dear!" said Betty to herself.
"But I'm talking like a book," he said, and laughed. "I always get dreamy and absurd when I tell fortunes. Anyway, as I said before, you will be greatly beloved. Indeed, unless your hand is very untruthful, which I'm sure it never could be, you are beloved now, far more than you can possibly guess." ”

“ And if we're both statues, shall we be afraid of the dinosaurus?"
"In the world of living marble fear is not," said Phœbus. "Are we not brothers, we and the dinosaurus, brethren alike wrought of stone and life?"
"And could I swim if I did?"
"Swim, and float, and dive—and with the ladies of Olympus spread the nightly feast, eat of the food of the gods, drink their cup, listen to the song that is undying, and catch the laughter of immortal lips."
"A feast!" said Kathleen. "Oh, Mabel, do! You would if you were as hungry as I am."
"But it won't be real food," urged Mabel. ”

“ We grew cramped, and changed our positions. Yolande heard the movement and called out, with insolent triumph, “Any sport?” Indignantly we all said, “Hush!” and the weary work of listening began again. Then, suddenly, just as hope had died in every breast, there was a rustle underground, a scamper-rush, a piteous little scream of horror and fear, and a small, fat gray rabbit bolted out of the earth into the net over the hole where Chloe watched. She had it in her arms in an instant. Its feet were caught in the net, but as she held it it ceased to struggle, and lay paralyzed against her bodice. ”

“ Why do people always talk about cold shivers? I think hot shivers are much more amusing. It's like a skylark singing up close to the sun, and doing the tremolo with its wings. I'm sorry you're going away, though."
"I'm not going away," he said. "I wouldn't leave you when you're ill for all the life's happinesses that ever were. Oh, why can't you cure me? I don't want to want her; I want to want you."
"I'm certain," said Lady St. Craye brightly, "that what you've just been saying's most awfully interesting, but I like to hear things said ever so many times. ”

“ Betty looked in at the door and the voices ceased.
"Pardon, Madame," said Betty. "I seek Madame Gautier."
Everyone in the crowded stuffy lamplit little room drew a deep breath.
"Mademoiselle is without doubt one of Madame's young ladies?"
Perhaps it was the sudden hushing of the raised voices, perhaps it was something in the flushed faces that all turned towards her. To her dying day Betty will never know why she did not say "Yes." What she did say was:
"I am a friend of Madame's. Is she at home?"
"No, Mademoiselle,—she is not at home; she will never be at home more, the poor lady. ”

“ Everyone on the ship seemed too busy at first to notice the group of newcomers from Fitzroy Street. Those who seemed to be officers were shouting orders to the men.
They stood and looked across the wide quay to the town that rose beyond it. What they saw was the most beautiful sight any of them had ever seen—or ever dreamed of.
The blue sea sparkled in soft sunlight; little white-capped waves broke softly against the marble breakwaters that guarded the shipping of a great city from the wilderness of winter winds and seas. ”

“ And they looked here, and they looked there, but never a dragon could they see.
`But here's its trail,' said the Prince, and pointed to where the rock was scarred and scratched so as to make a track leading to a dark cave. It was like cart-ruts in a Sussex road, mixed with the marks of sea-gull's feet on the sea-sand. `Look, that's where it's dragged its brass tail and planted its steel claws.'
`Don't let's think how hard its tail and claws are,' said the Princess, `or I shall begin to be frightened -- and I know you can't tame anything, even by kindness, if you're frightened of it. Come on. ”

“ Are you sure you could get him if Betty were out of the way?"
"He kissed me once—since he's loved her," said Lady St. Craye, "and then I knew I could. He liked me better than he liked her—in all the other ways—before. I'm a shameless idiot; it's really only because I'm so feeble."
She rose and stood before the glass, putting on her hat.
"I do respect a woman who has the courage to speak the truth to another woman," said Miss Desmond. "I hope you'll get him—though it's not a very kind wish."
Lady St. Craye let herself go completely in a phrase whose memory stung and rankled for many a long day. ”

“ You see the angels, sliding down the moonbeams,
Bring white dreams like sheaves of lilies fair;
You see the imps, scarce seen against the moonbeams,
Rise from the bonfire's blue and liquid air.
All the enchantment, all the magic there is
Hid in trees and blossoms, to you is plain and true.
Dewdrops in lupin leaves are jewels for the fairies;
Every flower that blows is a miracle for you.
Air, earth, water, fire, spread their splendid wares for you.
Millions of magics beseech your little looks;
Every soul your winged soul meets, loves you and cares for you. ”

“ A fire in the study now daily, for the sake of the books: one in the drawing-room, weekly, for the sake of the piano and the furniture. And for Betty, in far-away Paris, a fire of crackling twigs and long logs in the rusty fire-basket, and blue and yellow flames leaping to lick the royal arms of France on the wrought-iron fire-back.
The rooms were lonely to Betty now that Paula was gone. She missed her inexpressibly. But the loneliness was lighted by a glow of pride, of triumph, of achievement. Her deception of her step-father was justified. She had been the means of saving Paula. ”

“ She sat up very straight on the carpet, and the copper-coloured ones, themselves wreathed in garlands of the gayest flowers, madly stuck parrot feathers in their hair and began to dance. It was a dance such as you have never seen; it made the children feel almost sure that the cook was right, and that they were all in a dream. Small, strange-shaped drums were beaten, odd-sounding songs were sung, and the dance got faster and faster and odder and odder, till at last all the dancers fell on the sand tired out. ”

“ The sight of the foaming water-falls was quite enough reward for our heavy labors, even without the thought of the unspeakable gratitude that the bargees would feel to us when they got back to their barge and found her no longer a stick-in-the-mud, but bounding on the free bosom of the river.
When we had opened all the sluices we gazed awhile on the beauties of nature, and then went home, because we thought it would be more truly noble and good not to wait to be thanked for our kind and devoted action—and besides, it was nearly dinner-time, and Oswald thought it was going to rain. ”

“ Each moved forward under the glowing, glorious arch of the perfect Amulet.
Then Rekh-marā quavered and shook, and as steel is drawn to a magnet he was drawn, under the arch of magic, nearer and nearer to the learned gentleman. And, as one drop of water mingles with another, when the window-glass is rain-wrinkled, as one quick-silver bead is drawn to another quick-silver bead, Rekh-marā, Divine Father of the Temple of Amen-Rā, was drawn into, slipped into, disappeared into, and was one with Jimmy, the good, the beloved, the learned gentleman. ”

“ Why should you be the only one to speak the truth? Oh, Eustace—when you pretended to think I didn't care, two years ago, I was too proud to speak the truth then. I'm not proud now any more. Go away. I wish I'd never seen you; I wish I'd never been born."
"Yes, dear, yes. I'll go" he said, and rose. She buried her face in the cushion where his shoulder had been.
He was looking round for his hat and gloves—more uncomfortable than he ever remembered to have been.
As he reached the door she sprang up, and he heard the silken swish of her gray gown coming towards him. ”

“ There may be a face that all the beautiful things in the world are promised to: just by being so beautiful itself it draws beautiful happenings to it. But if the hand contradicts the face, if the hand is one of those narrow niggardly distrustful hands, one of the hands that will give nothing and take nothing, a hand without courage, without generosity—well then one might as well be born without a fortune-face, for any good it will ever do one. ”

“ The Phoenix has an egg, like all respectable birds. It makes a pile—that part's all right—and it lays its egg, and it burns itself; and it goes to sleep and wakes up in its egg, and comes out and goes on living again, and so on for ever and ever. I can't tell you how weary I got of it—such a restless existence; no repose.'
'But how did your egg get here?' asked Anthea.
'Ah, that's my life-secret,' said the Phoenix. 'I couldn't tell it to any one who wasn't really sympathetic. I've always been a misunderstood bird. ”

“ I have ideas, me."
"Tell me some of them," said Vernon, strolling along by her side. It was not his habit to stroll along beside models. But to-day he was fretted and chafed by long waiting for that answer to his letter. Anything seemed better than the empty studio where one waited.
"Here is one! I have the idea that artists have no eyes. How they pose me ever as l'Été or La Source or Leda, or that clumsy Suzanne with her eternal old men. As if they knew better than I do how a woman holds herself up or sits herself down, or nurses a duck, or defends herself!" ”

“ You thought it was friendship, didn't you—till you thought I'd come to tell you that something had happened to him. And then you knew. I'm going to accept your sacrifice. I've got to. I can't live if I don't. But I don't want you to think I don't know what a sacrifice it is. I know better than you do—at this moment. No—don't say anything. I don't want to force your confidence. But I do understand."
"I wish everything was different," said Betty.
"Yes. You're thinking, aren't you, that if it hadn't been for Mr. Vernon you'd rather have liked me? ”

“ Manon was a wrinkled old woman with a red and yellow handkerchief twisted round her head. She took Henri, who was already sleepy with the excitement of his Christmas-tree and his visitors, and when the lady had put on a stiff black cape and a wonderful black silk bonnet and a pair of black wooden clogs over her black cashmere house-boots, the whole party went down the road to a little white house—very like the one they had left—where an old priest, with a good face, welcomed them with a politeness so great that it hid his astonishment. ”

“ And waving a cheery farewell with his neat umbrella, the good and high-hatted uncle passed away, leaving Cyril and Anthea to exchange eloquent glances over the shining golden sovereign that lay in Cyril's hand.
'Well!' said Anthea.
'Well!' said Cyril.
'Well!' said the Phoenix.
'Good old carpet!' said Cyril, joyously.
'It was clever of it—so adequate and yet so simple,' said the Phoenix, with calm approval.
'Oh, come on home and let's mend the carpet. I am a beast. I'd forgotten the others just for a minute,' said the conscience-stricken Anthea. ”

“ I should like to very much," said Betty. "I don't care," she said to herself, "and besides, it's not as if he were a young man, or a tourist, or anything. He must be ever so old—thirty; I shouldn't wonder if he was thirty-five."
When she saw the picture she merely said, "Oh," and stood at gaze. For it was a picture—a picture that, seen in foreign lands, might well make one sick with longing for the dry turf and the pale dog violets that love the chalk, for the hum of the bees and the scent of the thyme. ”

“ To him his Lizzie had always been "as the angels of God in Heaven."
Then came the long broken years, and then the little girl—Elizabeth, his step-child.
The pent-up love of all his life spent itself on her: a love so fond, so tender, so sacred that it seemed only self-respecting to hide it a little from the world by a mask of coldness. And Betty had never seen anything but the mask.
"I think, when I see her, I will tell her all about my Lizzie," he said. "I wonder if she knows what the house is like without her. ”

“ The four children felt like base spies and treacherous friends; and each in its mind was saying who ought not to be the one to tell the Phoenix that there could no longer be a place for it in that happy home in Camden Town. Each child was quite sure that one of them ought to speak out in a fair and manly way, but nobody wanted to be the one.
They could not talk the whole thing over as they would have liked to do, because the Phoenix itself was in the cupboard, among the blackbeetles and the odd shoes and the broken chessmen. ”

“ A man ought to want to get married—"
"To anybody? Without its being anybody in particular?"
"Yes," said Temple stoutly. "If he gets to thirty without wanting to marry any one in particular, he ought to look about till he finds some one he does want. It's the right and proper thing to marry and have kiddies."
"Oh, if you're going to be Patriarchal," said Vernon. "What a symbolic dialogue! We begin with love and we end with marriage! There's the tragedy of romance, in a nut-shell. Yes, life's a beastly rotten show, and the light won't last more than another two hours." ”

“ The ten Kings were no longer alone. The learned gentleman—no one had noticed how he got there—stood with them on the steps of an altar, on which lay the dead body of the black bull. All the rest of the courtyard was thick with people, seemingly of all classes, and all were shouting, 'The sea—the sea!'
'Be calm,' said the most kingly of the Kings, he who had lassoed the bull. 'Our town is strong against the thunders of the sea and of the sky!'
'I want to go home,' whined the Psammead.
'We can't go without him,' said Anthea firmly.
'Jimmy,' she called, 'Jimmy!' and waved to him. ”

“ Her dainty dress of muslin, sown with little bunches of violets, her charming hat, her perfect gloves and shoes—these alone might not have thrust her identity on me. Thank Heaven, more than one Englishwoman wears pretty muslin gowns and picture-hats, and has gloves and shoes that fit her. It was the set of her shoulders, the poise of her head, the modest, graceful self-possession of her attitude that made me bold to step behind her, and, without even a sight of her face, to murmur over her shoulder and into the prettiest ear—almost—in the world, “Yolande!” ”

“ The strange sweet scent grew stronger, and the Phoenix put out its beak.
The policeman hesitated.
'They're musk-rats,' said the Phoenix. 'I suppose some cats eat them—but never Persian ones. What a mistake for a well-informed carpet to make! Oh, what a night we're having!'
'Do go away,' said Robert, nervously. 'We're just going to bed—that's our bedroom candle; there isn't any row. Everything's as quiet as a mouse.'
A wild chorus of mews drowned his words, and with the mews were mingled the shrieks of the musk-rats. ”

“ That first glorious rush round the garden
train, and so the White House seemed to them a sort of Fairy Palace set down in an Earthly Paradise. For London is like prison for children, especially if their relations are not rich. Of course there are the shops and theatres, and entertainments and things, but if your people are rather poor you don't get taken to the theatres, and you can't buy things out of the shops; and London has none of those nice things that children may play with without hurting the things or themselves—such as trees and sand and woods and waters. ”

“ Paris was growing intolerable. But for—well, a thousand reasons—Lady St. Craye would already have left it. The pavements were red-hot. When one drove it was through an air like the breath from the open mouth of a furnace.
She kept much within doors, filled her rooms with roses, and lived with every window open. Her balcony, too, was full of flowers, and the striped sun-blinds beyond each open window kept the rooms in pleasant shadow.
"But suppose something happens to her—all alone there," said the Inward Monitor.
"Nothing will. She's not that sort of girl." ”

“ It would be jolly and all that to be a statue now, but in the morning I should wish I hadn't."
"Earth-folk often do, they say," mused Phœbus. "But, child, you seem ignorant of the powers of your ring. Wish exactly, and the ring will exactly perform. If you give no limit of time, strange enchantments woven by Arithmos the outcast god of numbers will creep in and spoil the spell. Say thus: "I wish that till the dawn I may be a statue of living marble, even as my child friend, and that after that time I may be as before, Mabel of the dark eyes and night-coloured hair." ”

“ The berries, when they come, are bright scarlet, but if you pick them, they disappoint you by turning black before you get them home. And, as Peter pointed, the tree was moving,—not just the way trees ought to move when the wind blows through them, but all in one piece, as though it were a live creature and were walking down the side of the cutting.
"It's moving!" cried Bobbie. "Oh, look! and so are the others. It's like the woods in Macbeth."
"It's magic," said Phyllis, breathlessly. "I always knew this railway was enchanted." ”

“ Even Jane felt that this did not look like lions, and her hand hardly trembled at all as she held the charm for the others to go through, and last, slipped through herself, and hung the charm, now grown small again, round her neck.
The children found themselves under a white-blossomed, green-leafed fruit-tree, in what seemed to be an orchard of such trees, all white-flowered and green-foliaged. Among the long green grass under their feet grew crocuses and lilies, and strange blue flowers. ”