George MacDonald

“ But you're as strong as a mountain, Helfer.'
'You say so, dad. I think I'm all right. But I could carry ten times as much if it wasn't for my feet.'
'That is your weak point, I confess, my boy.'
'Ain't it yours too, father?'
'Well, to be honest, it's a goblin weakness. Why they come so soft, I declare I haven't an idea.'
'Specially when your head's so hard, you know, father.'
'Yes, my boy. The goblin's glory is his head. To think how the fellows up above there have to put on helmets and things when they go fighting! Ha! ”

“ How could the king have fallen in love with her?'
'You forget that she wore shoes. That is just why she wore them. That is why all the men, and women too, upstairs wear shoes. They can't bear the sight of their own feet without them.'
'Ah! now I understand. If ever you wish for shoes again, Helfer, I'll hit your feet - I will.'
'No, no, mother; pray don't.'
'Then don't you.'
'But with such a big box on my head -'
A horrid scream followed, which Curdie interpreted as in reply to a blow from his mother upon the feet of her eldest goblin. ”

“ The first queen, you see - I mean the king's first wife - wore shoes, of course, because she came from upstairs; and so, when she died, the next queen would not be inferior to her as she called it, and would wear shoes too. It was all pride. She is the hardest in forbidding them to the rest of the women.'
'I'm sure I wouldn't wear them - no, not for - that I wouldn't!' said the first voice, which was evidently that of the mother of the family. ”

“ One of the miners, indeed, who had had more schooling than the rest, was wont to argue that such must have been the primordial condition of humanity, and that education and handicraft had developed both toes and fingers - with which proposition Curdie had once heard his father sarcastically agree, alleging in support of it the probability that babies' gloves were a traditional remnant of the old state of things ”