E. Nesbit

“ As he drew near he saw that she and the bicycle lay in a heap, the glitter of metal and the white of her dress dazzling together. And when he was quite close he perceived that the bicycle had fallen on her, that her dress was caught in the pedal, that her eyes were shut, and that there was blood on her forehead. ”

“ The young man whom you are now to see topping the steep hill cut in the chalk of the downs, lacked almost all the physical attributes which we are accustomed to ascribe to the heroes of adventure. He was neither conspicuously tall nor noticeably handsome. His hair was a little too long, and the shabby knapsack that bent his narrow shoulders bulged with more things than a hero, the favorite of fortune, would ever have found need for. ”

“ Adventures are to the adventurous. Which, I suppose, means, if it means anything, that you get what you expect; that if you keep your eyes open, you will probably see what you are looking out for; and that, in a general way, Life will give you what you ask of her, if only you ask long enough and plainly enough. At the same time the prayer to life must be the soul's sincere desire, uttered or unexpressed—the motion of that hidden fire, and so on. ”

“ To the hero for whom agreeable and exciting adventures lurk in every hedge and by every wayside, a rough blanket, a kettle, and half a dozen pet books would merely be in the way; but to this young man, a clerk taking his holiday in the cheapest possible fashion by a long tramp across the sunny Southern counties, they were necessities. His mouth and his hands were the mouth and the hands of a dreamer, but nothing else in him betrayed his kinship to the brotherhood of the Romantics, save the eyes that questioned the face of the world, as a dog's eyes question the face of his master. ”

“ There was no least shadow anywhere to which he could move her, even if he could have moved her, and even if he had not felt that he dared not move her. So he propped the bicycle up in a cart-rut close to her head and spread his blanket over it and so made a patch of shadow about her. Then he put more cold tea on her forehead, and took her hands which were very cold and rubbed them between his own, and wished that his hands had not been dirty with the dust of the road. ”