There is a connection between Dal mations and gipsies. Many people believe that it was the gipsies who first brought Dalmatians to England, long, long ago. And nothing like as long ago as that, there were gipsies who travelled round England with Dalmatians trained to do tricks. And these performing dogs earned money for the gipsies.
How indescribable the scent of autumn flowers was– barely a scent at all, really; just a faint, strange smell, pleasant but sad. Could a smell be sad or was it just the association with the dying summer?
But during the many happy hours that Cadpig was to sit watching it in the warm kitchen she never liked it quite so much as that other television, that still silent television she had seen on Christmas Eve when the puppies had rested so peacefully in that strange lofty building. She often remembered that building and wondered who owned it. Someone very kind she was sure for in front of every one of the many seats there had been a little carpet-eared puppy-sized dog-bed.
Then I told myself that as I never gave the Church a thought when I was feeling happy, I could hardly expect it to do anything for me when I wasn’t. You can’t get insurance money without paying in premiums.
In addition, I think religion has a chance of a look-in whenever the mind craves solace in music or poetry – in any form of art at all. Personally, I think it is an art, the greatest one; an extension of the communication all the other arts attempt.
Doing things for others gives you a lovely glow.” “So does port,” I said cynically.
Because there’s so much that just can’t be said plainly. Try describing what beauty is – plainly – and you’ll see what I mean.
I go backwards and forwards, recapturing the past, wondering about the future – and, most unreasonably, I find myself longing for the past more than for the future.
What with books and chocolate, there’s not much else you could have in it, is there?
I am not so sure I should like the facts of life, but I have got over the bitter disappointment I felt when I first heard about them, and one obviously has to try them sooner or later.
I think your father believes that the interest so many people take in puzzles and problems – which often starts in earliest childhood – represents more than a mere desire for recreation; that it may even derive from man’s eternal curiosity about his origin. Anyway, it makes use of certain faculties for progressive, cumulative search which no other mental exercise does.
The pictures are postcard reproductions of Old Masters. She has lots of metal animals about an inch long, little wooden shoes, painted boxes only big enough to hold stamps.
Perhaps he found beauty saddening – I do myself sometimes. Once when I was quite little I asked father why this was and he explained that it was due to our knowledge of beauty’s evanescence, which reminds us that we ourselves shall die.
I pulled my mind off the table and stared into the dimness beyond, and then I gradually saw the servants as real people, watching us, whispering instructions to each other, exchanging glances. I noticed a girl from Godsend village and gave her a tiny wink – and wished I hadn’t, because she let out a little snort of laughter and then looked in terror at the butler.
Just to be in love seemed the most blissful luxury I had ever known.
Perhaps the effect wears off in time, or perhaps you don’t notice it if you are born with it, but it does seem to me that the climate of richness must always be a little dulling to the senses. Perhaps it takes the edge off joy as well as off sorrow.
Well, for inexperienced pray-ers it sometimes is. You see, they’re apt to think of God as a slot-machine. If nothing comes out they say ‘I knew dashed well it was empty’ – when the whole secret of prayer is knowing the machine’s full.” “But how can one know?” “By filling it oneself.” “With faith?” “With faith.
My whole heart was so full of Simon that even my pity for Stephen wasn’t quite real – it was only something I felt I ought to feel, more from my head than my heart. And I knew I ought to pity him all the more because I could pity him so little.
What I’d really hate would be the settled feeling, with nothing but happiness to look forward to.
Our Clare doesn’t much care for real life,′ Drew told Jane. ‘What she needs is to live in a book– the kind that no longer gets written.