Amaryllis at the Fair quotes

Amaryllis found the first daffodil flowering by the damask rose, and immediately ran to call her father to come and see it.

There are no damask roses now, like there used to be in summer at Coombe Oaks.

I have never seen one since I last gathered one from that very bush. There are many grand roses, but no fragrance—the fragrance is gone out of life.

The wind had blown thus round that corner every March for a century, and in no degree abated its bitter force because a beautiful human child, full of the happiness of a flower, came carelessly into its power.

Nothing ever shows the least consideration for human creatures.

The moss on the ridge of the wall under which she stood to breathe looked shrivelled and thin, the green tint dried out of it.

Amaryllis’ lip fell; she turned and walked slowly away along the path, her head drooping forward.

Did ever anyone have a beautiful idea or feeling without being repulsed?

She had not reached the end of the path, however, when the father began to change his attitude; he stood up, dropped his “dibbler,” scraped his foot on his spade, and, grumbling to himself, went after her.

Always at work, and he could talk so cleverly, too, and knew everything, and yet they were so short of money. How could this be?

What a fallacy it is that hard work is the making of money; I could show you plenty of men who have worked the whole of their lives as hard as ever could possibly be, and who are still as far off independence as when they began.

In fact, that is the rule; the winning of independence is rarely the result of work, else nine out of ten would be well-to-do.

… scent did Amaryllis dare to sprinkle on her handkerchief, not one drop of oil did she dare put on her beautiful hair unless surreptitiously, and then she could not go near him, for he was certain to detect it and scorch her with withering satire.

Yet, however satirized, feminine faith in perfumes and oils and so forth is like a perennial spring, and never fails.

Such splendid hair as Amaryllis possessed needed no dressing—nothing could possibly improve it, and the chances therefore were that whatever she used would injure—yet in her heart she yearned to rub it with oil.

… am not a Roman Catholic, but I must confess that if I could be assured any particular piece of wood had really formed a part of the Cross I should think it the most valuable thing in the world, to which Koh-i-noors would be mud.

I am a pagan, and think the heart and soul above crowns.

That panel was in effect a cross on which a heart had been tortured for the third of a century, that is, for the space of time allotted to a generation.

A long psychological discussion might be held on this apparent inconsistency, but I shall leave analysis to those who like it, and go on recording facts. I will only make one remark.

That nothing is consistent that is human. If it was not inconsistent it would have no association with a living person.

From the merest thin slit, as it were, between his eyelids, Iden watched the mice feed and run about his knees till, having eaten every crumb, they descended his leg to the floor.

Iden’s forehead might have been sculptured for Shakespeare’s. There was too much thought in it for the circumstances of his life.

It is possible to think till you cannot act.

After the mice descended Iden did sleep for a few minutes. When he awoke he looked at the clock in a guilty way, and then opening the oven of the grate, took out a baked apple.

Compared with the Continental folk, most Englishmen are big, and therefore, as their “best” suits do not fit in with their character as written in limbs and shoulders, the Continent thinks us clumsy.

The truth is, it is the Continent that is little.

“Isn’t he ugly?” thought Amaryllis, looking down on poor John Duck. “Isn’t he ugly?” Now the top of the wall was crusted with moss, which has a way of growing into bricks and mortar, and attaching particles of brick to its roots.

… time Iden left his old post at the russet apple, and went up the meadow to the horse-chestnut trees that he himself had planted, and there, in peace and quietness and soft cool shadow, waded about in the dew, without anyone to grumble at him.

How crookedly things are managed in this world!

It is the modern fashion to laugh at the East, and despise the Turks and all their ways, making Grand Viziers of barbers, and setting waiters in high places, with the utmost contempt for anything reasonable—all so incongruous and chance-ruled.

Iden making butter in a dull farmhouse, and wearing shoes out at the toes.

So our lives go on, rumble-jumble, like a carrier’s cart over ruts and stones, thumping anyhow instead of running smoothly on new-mown sward like a cricket-ball.

It all happens in the Turkish manner.

the acanthus is hidden in earth. At the foot of the oak, where it is oldest, the bark becomes dense and thick, impenetrable, and without sensitiveness; you may cut off an inch thick without reaching the sap.

A sort of scale or caking in long, long time grows over original feelings.

There was no one in the world so affectionate and loving as Mrs. Iden—no one who loved a father so dearly; just as Amaryllis loved her father.

that circumstances should so wall in their lives with insurmountable cliffs of granite facts, compelling them to tread the sunless gorge; that the coldness of death alone could open the door to pleasure.

They sat at the theatre with grey hearts.

With the music and the song, the dancing, the colours and gay dresses, it was sadder there than in the silent rooms at the house where the dead had been. Old Flamma alone had been dead there; they were dead here.

With the music and the song, the dancing, the colours and gay dresses, it was sadder there than in the silent rooms at the house where the dead had been. Old Flamma alone had been dead there; they were dead here.

Dead in life⁠—at the theatre.

They had used to go joyously to the theatre thirty years before, when Iden came courting to town; from the edge of the grave they came back to look on their own buried lives.

But neither mother nor daughter ever had a whole pair of boots—whole and sound as the very cottagers had.

If Amaryllis had sat there with naked feet she would have been prouder than ever, and that is why I always loved her so; she was not to be put down by circumstances, she was above external things.

But as time went on, and the dinner was nearly over—she had scarcely eaten anything—and as she glanced from time to time at her father’s empty chair, and knew that he would not come, and that his defection would revive the old quarrel which might …

Seven hundred years—the weight of seven hundred years—hung over them both in that old Abbey.

Into that Past he was soon to disappear: she came out to the Future.

Thence he took her to an arched door, nail-studded, in the passage wall, and giving her the key, told her to open it, and stood watching her in triumph, as if it had been the door to some immense treasury.

The exquisite delight of utterly abandoned extravagance, no counting—anathemas on counting and calculation!

If life be not a dream, what is the use of living?

Say what you will, the truth is, we all struggle on in hope of living in a dream some day. This is my dream. Dreadfully, horribly wicked, is it not, in an age that preaches thrift and—twaddle? No joy like waste in London streets;

The exquisite delight of utterly abandoned extravagance, no counting—anathemas on counting and calculation! If life be not a dream, what is the use of living?

Say what you will, the truth is, we all struggle on in hope of living in a dream some day.

This is my dream. Dreadfully, horribly wicked, is it not, in an age that preaches thrift and—twaddle? No joy like waste in London streets; happy waste, imaginative extravagance; to and fro like a butterfly!

It is well worth a ten-pound note any day in May; fifty pounds sometimes at 1 p.m., merely to look on, I mean, it is worth it; but you can see this living show for nothing.

Let the grandees go to the opera; for me, the streets.

So I can’t throw dirt at Raleigh, who often had a hatful of money, and could and did just what seemed pleasant in his sight.

The fellow who said that “No man is a hero to his valet” seemed to suppose that the world worships good and divine qualities only.

Nothing of the sort; it is not the heroic, it is the low and coarse and blackguard part the mass of people regard with such deep admiration.

If only Nobbs could have been “he,” no doubt whatever he would have “done it” very big indeed.

But we have all heard about taking the horse to water and finding that he would not drink.

If you cannot even make a horse, do you think you are likely to make a woman do anything?

Amaryllis walked beside her grandfather quietly enough now, but she would not see or hear; he pointed out to her the old armour, the marble, the old oak; he mumbled on of the staircase where John Pamment, temp. Hen. VII, was seized for high treason;

If she could not have been the wife he would have forced her to be the mistress.

There is no one so cruel⁠—so utterly inhuman⁠—as an old man, to whom feeling, heart, hope have long been dead words.

“Now you can see,” he said, softly and kindly. “Is it not noble?”

The hoarse baying of the hungry wolves around the house had shaken the pencil from her fingers—Siberian wolves they were, racing over the arid deserts of debt, large and sharp-toothed, ever increasing in number and ferocity, ready to tear the very door down.

There are no wolves like those debt sends against a house.

Every knock at the door, every strange footstep up the approach, every letter that came, was like the gnawing and gnashing of savage teeth.

Immediately the sacred day was past they fell in all their fury upon Iden. Pay me that thou owest! The one only saying in the Gospel thoroughly engrained in the hearts of men.

Pay me that thou owest! This is the message from the manger at Bethlehem of our modern Christmas.

How clever he must be to know all these things! You see she did not know how wonderful is the gift of observation, which Iden possessed to a degree that was itself genius. Nothing escaped him; therefore his store was great.

No other garden was planted as Iden’s garden was, in the best of old English taste, with old English flowers and plants, herbs and trees.

In summer time it was a glory to see: a place for a poet, a spot for a painter, loved and resorted to by every bird of the air. Of a bare old farmhouse he had made a beautiful home.

She had no name—no repute, therefore had her drawings been equal to the finest ever produced they would not have been accepted.

Until the accident of reputation arises genius is of no avail.

Except an author, or an artist, or a musician, who on earth would attempt to win success by merit? That alone proves how correct the world is in its estimation of them; they must indeed be poor confiding fools. Succeed by merit!

She had no name—no repute, therefore had her drawings been equal to the finest ever produced they would not have been accepted. Until the accident of reputation arises genius is of no avail.

Except an author, or an artist, or a musician, who on earth would attempt to win success by merit?

That alone proves how correct the world is in its estimation of them; they must indeed be poor confiding fools. Succeed by merit!

the steed by then has grown used to starvation, waiting for the grass to grow. Look about you: Are the prosperous men of business men of merit? are they all clever? are they geniuses? They do not exactly seem to be so.

Nothing so hard as to succeed by merit; no path so full of disappointments; nothing so incredibly impossible.

I would infinitely rather be a tallow-chandler, with a good steady income and no thought, than an author; at the first opportunity I mean to go into the tallow business.

Nothing so hard as to succeed by merit; no path so full of disappointments; nothing so incredibly impossible.

I would infinitely rather be a tallow-chandler, with a good steady income and no thought, than an author; at the first opportunity I mean to go into the tallow business.

Until the accident of reputation chanced to come to her, Amaryllis might work and work, and hope and sigh, and sit benumbed in her garret, and watch her father, Shakespeare Iden, clearing the furrows in the rain, under his sack.

Amaryllis having arranged her violets in the tumbler of water in the window niche, sat down at the table and leant her head on her hand, and tried to think what she could do, as she had thought these many, many days.

The drawings were so unreal, and a sovereign so real.

Nothing in all the world at these moments seemed to her to be so good and precious as the round disk of gold which rules everything. The good that she could do with it—with just one of those golden disks!

Flowers, and trees, and grass, seemed to spring up wherever Iden set down his foot: fruit and flowers fell from the air down upon him.

It was his genius to make things grow⁠—like sunshine and shower; a sort of Pan, a half-god of leaves and boughs, and reeds and streams, a sort of Nature in human shape, moving about and sowing Plenty and Beauty.

One side of the summerhouse was a thick holly-bush, Iden had set it there; he builded the summerhouse and set the ivy; and the pippin at the back, whose bloom was white; the copper-birch near by;

When the east wind ceases, and the sun shines above, and the flowers beneath, “a summer’s day in lusty May,” then is the time an Interlude in Heaven.

And all this, summerhouse and all, had dropped out of the pocket of Iden’s ragged old coat.

There was a magic power of healing in the influences of this place which Iden had created. Both Amadis and Alere Flamma had already changed for the better.

His passion they were still as he drew near fifty, and saw all things become commonplace. That is the saddest of thoughts—as we grow older the romance fades, and all things become commonplace.

Half our lives are spent in wishing for tomorrow, the other half in wishing for yesterday.

Wild flowers alone never become commonplace.

Half our lives are spent in wishing for tomorrow, the other half in wishing for yesterday.

Wild flowers alone never become commonplace.

The white wood-sorrel at the foot of the oak, the violet in the hedge of the vale, the thyme on the windswept downs, they were as fresh this year as last, as dear today as twenty years since, even dearer, for they grow now, as …

Perhaps the reason Alere never took to colours was because of his inherent and unswerving truthfulness of character. Genuine to a degree, he could not make believe—could not deceive—could not masquerade in a dress-coat.

Now, most of the landscape-painting in vogue today is nature in a dress-coat.

In a whole saloon of water colours, in a whole Academy, or Grosvenor Gallery you shall hardly find three works that represent any real scene in the fields.

One thing Alere never attempted to draw—a bird in flight. He recognized that it was impossible; his taste rejected every conventional attitude that has been used for the purpose; the descending pigeon, the Japanese skewered birds, the swallow skimming as heavily as a pillow.

You cannot draw a bird in flight. Swallows are attempted oftenest, and done worst of all.

How can you draw life itself? What is life? you cannot even define it. The swallow’s wing has the motion of life—its tremble—its wonderful delicacy of vibration—the instant change—the slip of the air;—no man will ever be able to draw a flying swallow.

You call in your “practical” architect, and he builds you a brick box; not for a hundred thousand pounds in fees could he build you a palace or a cathedral.

The most ignorant of men are the “practical” people.

It is meet and fitting that they should be worshipped and set on high. The calf worshipped of old was at least golden, and these are of lead.

But Alere could not go; he would do anything he was asked in this way; he would take infinite pains to please, but he could not leave Fleet Street for any mansion.

When a man once gets into Fleet Street he cannot get out.

Conventionally, I suppose, it would be the right thing to represent Alere as a great genius neglected, or as a genius destroyed by intemperance. The conventional type is so easy—so accepted—so popular;

Only those who share its dangers Comprehend its mystery.

Only those who have shared the struggle literally for bread⁠—for a real, actual loaf⁠—understand the dread realities of man’s existence.

Let but a morsel of wood—a little splinter of deal, a curl of carpenter’s shaving—lie in Fleet Street, and it draws to it the wretched human beasts as surely as the offal draws the beast of the desert to the camp.

Hatless, shoeless, bound about with rags, their faces white and scarred with nameless disease, their eyes bleared, their hair dirty; little things, such as in happy homes are sometimes set on the table to see how they look.

How can people pass without seeing them?

Alere saw them, and his hand went to his waistcoat pocket.

How can people pass without seeing them?

Alere saw them, and his hand went to his waistcoat pocket.

The rich folk round about this great Babylon of Misery, where cruel Want sits on the Seven Hills—make a cartoon of that!—the rich folk who receive hundreds on the turn of a stock, who go to the Bank of England on dividend days—how easily the …

One great advantage is conspicuous in this system: by no possible means can you risk giving a penny to a man not of high moral character, though he be perishing of starvation.

If a man asks for bread, will ye give him a stone? Certainly not; give him a ticket.

They did not understand how to do things in Judea Anno Domini I.

If the German thinkers had not found out twenty years ago that there was no Devil, one would be inclined to ascribe this spurious, lying, false, and abominable mockery to the direct instigation of a Satan.

The organization of charity! The very nature of charity is spontaneousness.

You should have heard Alere lash out about this business; he called it charity suppression.

Because I have been a Patient.

It is so much easier to be a doctor than a patient. The doctor imagines what his prescriptions are like and what they will do; he imagines, but the Patient knows.

To produce an image of a starling flying, you must draw all this.

The swift feathers are almost liquid; they leave a streak behind in the air like a meteor.

Thus the genial Goliath ale renewed the very blood in Alere’s veins.

“I’m afraid I’m not,” said poor Amadis. His chin fell and his face lengthened—his eyes grew larger—his temples pinched; disappointment wrung at his heart.

Convalescence is like walking in sacks; a short waddle and a fall.

“I can tell ’ee of a vine thing, measter,” said Bill Nye, “as I knows on; you get a pint measure full of snails—”

Adam was made of clay (who was the sculptor’s ghost that modelled him?) and when the breath of life was breathed into him, he rose on his arm and began to eat before his lower limbs were yet vivified. This is a fact.

“Verily, man is made up of impatience.”

As the angel had never had a stomach or anything to sit upon, as the French say, he need not have made so unkind a remark;

He had even ventured a little way up the meadow-path, but it made him giddy to stoop to pick a buttercup. They told him he was better; he could eat a very little more, and sip a wineglassful of Goliath.

Better! What a mockery to a man who could once row, and ride, and shoot, and walk his thirty miles, and play his part in any sport you chose!

It was absinthe to him.

He, with all his ideas, his ambitions, his exalted hopes, his worship of Amaryllis—he was nothing. Less than nothing—a shadow.

To despise oneself is more bitter than absinthe.

Let us go to Al Hariri once again, and hear what he says. The speaker has been very, very ill, but is better:—