J. M. Barrie

“ But as the boys gathered round her she had no thought, of course, save for them.
“So, my beauty,” said Hook, as if he spoke in syrup, “you are to see your children walk the plank.”
Fine gentlemen though he was, the intensity of his communings had soiled his ruff, and suddenly he knew that she was gazing at it. With a hasty gesture he tried to hide it, but he was too late.
“Are they to die?” asked Wendy, with a look of such frightful contempt that he nearly fainted.
“They are,” he snarled. “Silence all,” he called gloatingly, “for a mother’s last words to her children.” ”

“ Rob was seated in an arm-chair, his feet on the cold hearth. The Scorn of Scorns lay on the mantelpiece carefully done up in brown paper, lest a speck of dust should fall on it, and he had been staring at the ribs of the fireplace for the last three hours without seeing them. He had not thought of the gas. His bed was unslept on. His damp boots had dried on his feet. He did not feel cold. All night he had sat there, a man mesmerised. For the only time in his life he had forgotten to wind up his watch.
At times his lips moved as if he were speaking to himself, and a smile lit up his face. ”

“ COSMO. ‘Good lord, no.’ He thinks quickly. ‘You haven’t seen Amy yet. It isn’t fair of Amy. She should have been here to take some of it off me.’
ALICE. ‘Cosmo, you don’t mean that I bore you too!’
He is pained. It is now he who boldly encircles her. But his words, though well meant, are not so happy as his action. ‘I love you, mother; and I don’t think you’re so yellow.’
ALICE, the belle of many stations, ‘Yellow?’ Her brain reels. ‘Cosmo, do you think me plain?’
COSMO, gallantly, ‘No, I don’t. I’m not one of the kind who judge people by their looks. ”

“ When we pass in the street the poor deluded soul subdues her buoyancy, as if it were shame to walk happy before one she has lamed, and at such times the rustle of her gown is whispered words of comfort to me, and her arms are kindly wings that wish I was a little boy like David. I also detect in her a fearful elation, which I am unaware of until she has passed, when it comes back to me like a faint note of challenge. Eyes that say you never must, nose that says why don't you? and a mouth that says I rather wish you could: such is the portrait of Mary A—— as she and I pass by. ”

“ There was a gleam of legs, and instantly the lagoon seemed deserted. Marooners’ Rock stood alone in the forbidding waters, as if it were itself marooned.
The boat drew nearer. It was the pirate dinghy, with three figures in her, Smee and Starkey, and the third a captive, no other than Tiger Lily. Her hands and ankles were tied, and she knew what was to be her fate. She was to be left on the rock to perish, an end to one of her race more terrible than death by fire or torture, for is it not written in the book of the tribe that there is no path through water to the happy hunting-ground? ”

“ PHOEBE (paling) . Is it that you desire to make sport of me?
BLADES (honestly distressed) . Oh no, ma'am, I vow—but I—I am such a quiz, ma'am.
MISS SUSAN. Sister!
PHOEBE. I am sorry, sir, to have to deprive you of some entertainment, but I am not going to the ball.
MISS SUSAN (haughtily) . Ensign Blades, I bid you my adieux.
BLADES (ashamed) . If I have hurt Miss Phoebe's feelings I beg to apologise.
MISS SUSAN. If you have hurt them. Oh, sir, how is it possible for any one to be as silly as you seem to be. ”

“ And if I also live to a time when age must dim my mind and the past comes sweeping back like the shades of night over the bare road of the present it will not, I believe, be my youth I shall see but hers, not a boy clinging to his mother’s skirt and crying, ‘Wait till I’m a man, and you’ll lie on feathers,’ but a little girl in a magenta frock and a white pinafore, who comes toward me through the long parks, singing to herself, and carrying her father’s dinner in a flagon. ”

“ Jess's window was a beacon by night to travellers in the dark, and it will be so in the future when there are none to remember Jess. There are many such windows still, with loving faces behind them. From them we watch for the friends and relatives who are coming back, and some, alas! watch in vain. Not every one returns who takes the elbow of the brae bravely, or waves his handkerchief to those who watch from the window with wet eyes, and some return too late. To Jess, at her window always when she was not in bed, things happy and mournful and terrible came into view. ”

“ Then all went on their knees, and holding out their arms cried, "O Wendy lady, be our mother."
"Ought I?" Wendy said, all shining. "Of course it's frightfully fascinating, but you see I am only a little girl. I have no real experience."
"That doesn't matter," said Peter, as if he were the only person present who knew all about it, though he was really the one who knew least. "What we need is just a nice motherly person."
"Oh dear!" Wendy said, "you see I feel that is exactly what I am."
"It is, it is," they all cried; "we saw it at once." ”

“ She was clad in a soft gray, and her figure was of the smallest; there was such an air of youth about her that Tommy thought she could become a girl again by merely shortening her frock, not such a girl as gaunt Grizel, though, who would have looked a little woman had she let her frock down. In appearance indeed the Painted Lady resembled her plain daughter not at all, but in manner in a score of ways, as when she rocked her arms joyously at sight of a fresh bud or tossed her brown hair from her brows with a pretty gesture that ought, God knows, to have been for some man to love. ”

“ PURDIE. I know—how well I know—my dear brave love.
JOANNA. I am very fond of Mabel, Jack. I should like to be the best friend she has in the world.
PURDIE. You are, dearest. No woman ever had a better friend.
JOANNA. And yet I don't think she really likes me. I wonder why?
PURDIE (who is the bigger brained of the two.) It is just that Mabel doesn't understand. Nothing could make me say a word against my wife.
JOANNA (sternly) . I wouldn't listen to you if you did.
PURDIE. I love you all the more, dear, for saying that. But Mabel is a cold nature and she doesn't understand. ”

“ ALICE. ‘Amy, tell me quickly, when did you see Steve for the first time?’
AMY. ‘When you were saying good-bye to him this afternoon.’
ALICE. ‘Can it be true!’
AMY. ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t have listened; but they always listen when there is a screen.’
ALICE. ‘Listened? What did you hear?’
AMY. ‘Everything, mother! We saw him kiss you and heard you make an assignation to meet him here.’
ALICE. ‘I shall whip you directly, but go on, darling.’
AMY, childishly, ‘You shan’t whip me.’ Then once more heroic, ‘As in a flash Ginevra and I saw that there was only one way to save you. ”

“ Oh, if I were a man I should wish to be everything that I am not, and nothing that I am. I should scorn to be a liar, I should choose to be open in all things, I should try to fight the world honestly. But I am only a woman, and so—well, that is the kind of man I should like to marry."
"A minister may be all these things," said Gavin, breathlessly.
"The man I could love," Babbie went on, not heeding him, almost forgetting that he was there, "must not spend his days in idleness as the men I know do." ”

“ It seemed to be Elspeth's helplessness that had made Tommy such a brother, and how it had always appealed to Aaron! No woman could be less helpless than herself, Grizel knew. She thought back and back, and she could not come to a time when she was not managing somebody. Women, she reflected, fall more or less deeply in love with every baby they see, while men, even the best of them, can look calmly at other people's babies. But when the helplessness of the child is in the woman, then other women are unmoved; but the great heart of man is stirred—woman is his baby. ”

“ PHOEBE. Fanny, you presume!
VALENTINE (puzzled) . If one of you ladies would deign to enlighten me. To begin with, what is Miss Livvy's malady?
MISS HENRIETTA. He does not know? Oh, Phoebe.
VALENTINE. Ladies, have pity on a dull man, and explain.
MISS FANNY (timidly) . Please not to ask us to explain. I fear we have already said more than was proper. Phoebe, forgive.
(To CAPTAIN BROWN this but adds to the mystery, and he looks to PHOEBE for enlightenment.)
PHOEBE (desperate) . I understand, sir, there is a belief that I keep Livvy in confinement because of your passion for her. ”

“ Ready, Wendy!
(The kite draws her out of sight across the lagoon.
The waters are lapping over the rock now, and PETER knows that it will soon be submerged. Pale rays of light mingle with the moving clouds, and from the coral grottoes is to be heard a sound, at once the most musical and the most melancholy in the Never Land, the mermaids calling to the moon to rise. PETER is afraid at last, and a tremor runs through him, like a shudder passing over the lagoon; but on the lagoon one shudder follows another till there are hundreds of them, and he feels just the one.) ”

“ LADY MARY. I can’t blame you, George.
(He salutes her.)
LORD BROCKLEHURST. Your father’s views are shocking to me, and I am glad I am not to be one of the party on the yacht. My respect for myself, Mary, my natural anxiety as to what mother will say. I shall see you, darling, before you sail.
(He bows to the others and goes.)
ERNEST. Selfish brute, only thinking of himself. What about my speech?
LADY MARY. One maid among three of us. What’s to be done?
ERNEST. Pooh! You must do for yourselves, that’s all.
LADY MARY. Do for ourselves. How can we know where our things are kept? ”

“ Hook raised his voice, but there was a quiver in it.
"Spirit that haunts this dark lagoon to-night," he cried, "dost hear me?"
Of course Peter should have kept quiet, but of course he did not. He immediately answered in Hook's voice:
"Odds, bobs, hammer and tongs, I hear you."
In that supreme moment Hook did not blanch, even at the gills, but Smee and Starkey clung to each other in terror.
"Who are you, stranger, speak?" Hook demanded.
"I am James Hook," replied the voice, "captain of the Jolly Roger."
"You are not; you are not," Hook cried hoarsely. ”

“ Feared him! Feared Smee! There was not a child on board the brig that night who did not already love him. He had said horrid things to them and hit them with the palm of his hand, because he could not hit with his fist, but they had only clung to him the more. Michael had tried on his spectacles.
To tell poor Smee that they thought him lovable! Hooked itched to do it, but it seemed too brutal. Instead, he revolved this mystery in his mind: why do they find Smee lovable? He pursued the problem like the sleuth-hound that he was. ”

“ In the lustiness of youth there are many who cannot feel that they, too, will die. The first fear stops the heart. Even then they would keep death at arm's length by making believe to disown him. Loved ones are taken away, and the boy, the girl, will not speak of them, as if that made the conqueror's triumph the less. In time the fire in the breast burns low, and then in the last glow of the embers, it is sweeter to hold to what has been than to think of what may be.
Twenty years had passed since Joey ran down the brae to play. Jess, his mother, shook her staff fondly at him. ”

“ A minute afterwards Gavin went to the door to look for the gypsy, and, behold, Nanny was no further than the gate. Have you who read ever been sick near to death, and then so far recovered that you could once again stand at your window? If so, you have not forgotten how the beauty of the world struck you afresh, so that you looked long and said many times, "How fair a world it is!" like one who had made a discovery. It was such a look that Nanny gave to the hill and Caddam while she stood at her garden gate. ”

“ AMY. ‘Ginevra, what’s to be done?’
GINEVRA. ‘Thank heaven, we know exactly what to do. It rests with you to save her.’
AMY, trembling, ‘You mean I must go—to his chambers?’
GINEVRA, firmly, ‘At any cost.’
AMY. ‘Evening dress?’
GINEVRA. ‘It is always evening dress. And don’t be afraid of his Man, dear; they always have a Man.’
AMY. ‘Oh, Ginevra.’
GINEVRA. ‘First try fascination. You remember how they fling back their cloak—like this, dear. If that fails, threaten him. You must get back the letters. There are always letters.’
AMY. ‘If father should suspect and follow? ”

“ MARY ROSE. It isn’t you I am thinking of; it is father, it is poor father. Oh, Simon, how could you? Isn’t it hateful of him, Daddy!
MR. MORLAND. I should just say it is. Is your mother crying too?
MARY ROSE (squeaking) . Yes.
MR. MORLAND. I see I am going to have an abominable day. If you two don’t mind very much being left alone, I think I’ll go up and sit in the apple-room and cry with your mother. It is close and dark and musty up there, and when we feel we can’t stick it any longer I’ll knock on the floor, Simon, as a sign that we are coming down. ”

“ To a woman, I who know assure you that nothing can be more delicious. Your feeling for him, as you and I well know, is but a sentiment of attraction because he loves you as you are unable to love him, and as you are so pained by this quarrel, consider how much more painful it must be to him. You think you have been slighted; that when a man has seemed to like you so much you have a right to be told so by him, that you may help him with your sympathy. Oh, Elspeth, you think yourself unhappy just now when you are really in the middle of one of the pleasantest bits of it! ”

“ For almost the only time in his life that I know of, Peter was afraid. “Don’t turn up the light,” he cried.
She let her hands play in the hair of the tragic boy. She was not a little girl heart-broken about him; she was a grown woman smiling at it all, but they were wet-eyed smiles.
Then she turned up the light, and Peter saw. He gave a cry of pain; and when the tall beautiful creature stooped to lift him in her arms he drew back sharply.
“What is it?” he cried again.
She had to tell him.
“I am old, Peter. I am ever so much more than twenty. I grew up long ago.” ”

“ PHOEBE. Oh, sister, were it not for you, how gladly would I go into a decline.
MISS SUSAN (after she has soothed PHOEBE a little) . My dear, what is to be done about her? We cannot have her supposed to be here for ever.
PHOEBE. We had to pretend that she was ill to keep her out of sight; and now we cannot say she has gone away, for the Miss Willoughby's windows command our door, and they are always watching.
MISS SUSAN (peeping from the window) . I see Fanny watching now. I feel, Phoebe, as if Livvy really existed.
PHOEBE (mournfully) . We shall never be able to esteem ourselves again. ”

“ Only something terrible, Gavin thought, could have brought Babbie to him at such an hour; yet when he left his mother’s room it was to stand motionless on the stair, waiting for a silence in the manse that would not come. A house is never still in darkness to those who listen intently; there is a whispering in distant chambers, an unearthly hand presses the snib of the window, the latch rises. Ghosts were created when the first man woke in the night.
Now Margaret slept. Two hours earlier, Jean, sitting on the salt-bucket, had read the chapter with which she always sent herself to bed. ”

“ GINEVRA, with a clever glance at Amy, ‘Cosmo, you promised to see me home.’
COSMO, the polite, ‘Right O.’
GINEVRA. ‘But you haven’t got your boots on.’
COSMO. ‘I won’t be a minute.’ He pauses at the door. ‘I say I believe you’re trying to get rid of me. Look here, I won’t budge till you tell me what mother is speaking about to father.’
AMY. ‘It is about the drawing-room curtains.’
COSMO. ‘Good lord!’ As soon as he has gone they rush at each other; they don’t embrace; they stop when their noses are an inch apart, and then talk. This is the stage way for lovers. ”

“ Great were the rejoicings when Peter reached the home under the ground almost as soon as Wendy, who had been carried hither and thither by the kite. Every boy had adventures to tell; but perhaps the biggest adventure of all was that they were several hours late for bed. This so inflated them that they did various dodgy things to get staying up still longer, such as demanding bandages; but Wendy, though glorying in having them all home again safe and sound, was scandalised by the lateness of the hour, and cried, 'To bed, to bed,' in a voice that had to be obeyed. ”

“ At once he overflowed with pity. As a boy he had exulted in Grizel's fear of him; as a man he could feel only the pain of it. There was no one, he thought, less to be dreaded of a woman than he; oh, so sure Tommy was of that! And he must lay this ghost; he gave his whole heart to the laying of it.
Few men, and never a woman, could do a fine thing so delicately as he; but of course it included a divergence from the truth, for to Tommy afloat on a generous scheme the truth was a buoy marking sunken rocks. ”