Little Lord Fauntleroy quotes

… come home and tell his mamma stories of the ladies who had stopped their carriages to look at and speak to him, and of how pleased they were when he talked to them in his cheerful little way, as if he had known them always.

His greatest charm was this cheerful, fearless, quaint little way of making friends with people.

I think it arose from his having a very confiding nature, and a kind little heart that sympathized with everyone, and wished to make everyone as comfortable as he liked to be himself.

“So I did!” returned Mr. Hobbs, stoutly. “And I meant it. Let ’em try it—that’s all!”

“Mr. Hobbs,” said Cedric, “one is sitting on this box now!”

Mr. Hobbs almost jumped out of his chair.

“I’m afraid not,” answered Cedric. “My mamma says that my papa would wish me to do it.

But if I have to be an earl, there’s one thing I can do: I can try to be a good one.

I’m not going to be a tyrant. And if there is ever to be another war with America, I shall try to stop it.”

And this view of the case seemed to cheer Billy Williams so much that he began to smile on the world again, and felt able to swagger a little, almost as if he had won the race instead of losing it.

Somehow, Ceddie Errol had a way of making people feel comfortable.

Even in the first flush of his triumphs, he remembered that the person who was beaten might not feel so gay as he did, and might like to think that he might have been the winner under different circumstances.

And then—oh! I’d give her a shawl. And, you see, her bones wouldn’t feel so badly. Her bones are not like our bones; they hurt her when she moves.

It’s very painful when your bones hurt you.

If I were rich enough to do all those things for her, I guess her bones would be all right.”

So if I were rich, I’d buy Jake out and get Dick a ‘boss’ sign—he says a ‘boss’ sign goes a long way; and I’d get him some new clothes and new brushes, and start him out fair.

He says all he wants is to start out fair.

”

and now that he was an old man, all this excitement and self-indulgence had only brought him ill health and irritability and a dislike of the world, which certainly disliked him.

In spite of all his splendor, there was never a more unpopular old nobleman than the Earl of Dorincourt, and there could scarcely have been a more lonely one.

He could fill his castle with guests if he chose. He could give great dinners and splendid hunting parties; but he knew that in secret the people who would accept his invitations were afraid of his frowning old face and sarcastic, biting speeches.

“Once, when I fell down and cut my knee, she gave me an apple for nothing. I’ve always remembered her for it. You know you always remember people who are kind to you.”

It had never occurred to his honest, simple little mind that there were people who could forget kindnesses.

The interview with Dick was quite exciting. Dick had just been having a great deal of trouble with Jake, and was in low spirits when they saw him.

and we shall be so happy together! It is a beautiful place. Your papa has often told me about it. He loved it very much; and you will love it too.”

“I should love it better if you were there,” his small lordship said, with a heavy little sigh.

He could not but feel puzzled by so strange a state of affairs, which could put his “Dearest” in one house and himself in another.

… conversation had, indeed, quite a nautical flavor at times, and on one occasion he raised a shout of laughter in a group of ladies and gentlemen who were sitting on deck, wrapped in shawls and overcoats, by saying sweetly, and with a very engaging expression:

“Shiver my timbers, but it’s a cold day!”

It surprised him when they laughed. He had picked up this seafaring remark from an “elderly naval man” of the name of Jerry, who told him stories in which it occurred frequently.

but as they all happened to Jerry—well, it’s very strange, you know, and perhaps sometimes he may forget and be a little mistaken, as he’s been scalped so often.

Being scalped a great many times might make a person forgetful.

”

but I have a little money of my own—enough to live simply upon—and I should rather not take the other. As he dislikes me so much, I should feel a little as if I were selling Cedric to him.

I am giving him up only because I love him enough to forget myself for his good, and because his father would wish it to be so.

”

“No,” replied the Earl, with his grim smile; “it is not becoming to me.”

“Mr. Hobbs said you always wore it,” said Cedric; “but after he thought it over, he said he supposed you must sometimes take it off to put your hat on.”

“Yes,” said the Earl, “I take it off occasionally.”

Then he paused an instant and looked across the table rather wistfully.

“It’s a very big house for just two people to live in, isn’t it?”

he said.

His little lordship hesitated a moment.

“I was only thinking,” he said, “that if two people lived in it who were not very good companions, they might feel lonely sometimes.”

“Do you think I shall make a good companion?” inquired the Earl.

it was the simple, natural kindliness in the little lad which made any words he uttered, however quaint and unexpected, sound pleasant and sincere. As the rector looked at Cedric, he forgot to think of the Earl at all.

Nothing in the world is so strong as a kind heart, and somehow this kind little heart, though it was only the heart of a child, seemed to clear all the atmosphere of the big gloomy room and make it brighter.

“I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Lord Fauntleroy,” said the rector. “You made a long journey to come to us. A great many people will be glad to know you made it safely.”

He leaned back against the cushions and regarded the Earl with rapt interest for a few minutes and in entire silence.

“I think you must be the best person in the world,” he burst forth at last.

“You are always doing good, aren’t you?—and thinking about other people. Dearest says that is the best kind of goodness; not to think about yourself, but to think about other people. That is just the way you are, isn’t it?”

His lordship was so dumbfounded to find himself presented in such agreeable colors, that he did not know exactly what to say. He felt that he needed time for reflection.

To see each of his ugly, selfish motives changed into a good and generous one by the simplicity of a child was a singular experience.

Fauntleroy went on, still regarding him with admiring eyes—those great, clear, innocent eyes!

“Oh, Ceddie!” she had said to him the evening before, as she hung over him in saying good night, before he went away; “oh, Ceddie, dear, I wish for your sake I was very clever and could say a great many wise things!

But only be good, dear, only be brave, only be kind and true always, and then you will never hurt anyone, so long as you live, and you may help many, and the big world may be better because my little child was born.

And that is best of all, Ceddie—it is better than everything else, that the world should be a little better because a man has lived—even ever so little better, dearest.”

But I’m not going to ask any questions. And when I miss her very much, I go and look out of my window to where I see her light shine for me every night through an open place in the trees.

It is a long way off, but she puts it in her window as soon as it is dark, and I can see it twinkle far away, and I know what it says.

”

“When I am dead,” his grandfather answered.

“Then I don’t want it,” said Fauntleroy; “I want you to live always.”

“That’s kind,” answered the Earl in his dry way; “nevertheless, some day it will all be yours—some day you will be the Earl of Dorincourt.”

“Newick finds out for me,” he said, and he pulled his great gray mustache, and looked at his small questioner rather uneasily.

“We will go home now,” he added; “and when you are an earl, see to it that you are a better earl than I have been!”

He was very silent as they rode home. He felt it to be almost incredible that he who had never really loved anyone in his life, should find himself growing so fond of this little fellow—as without doubt he was.

After two or three such conversations, he was able to enlighten the Earl on the subject of brick-making, as they rode home.

“I always like to know about things like those,” he said, “because you never know what you are coming to.”

When he left them, the workmen used to talk him over among themselves, and laugh at his odd, innocent speeches;

Often as he watched the little fellow lying upon the hearth, conning some big book, the light shining on the bright young head, his old eyes would gleam and his cheek would flush.

“The boy can do anything,” he would say to himself, “anything!”

He never spoke to anyone else of his feeling for Cedric; when he spoke of him to others it was always with the same grim smile.

Why, the child actually loves him—leans on his chair and against his knee.

His own children would as soon have thought of nestling up to a tiger.

”

“Come here, Lord Fauntleroy,” she said, smiling; “and tell me why you look at me so.”

“I was thinking how beautiful you are,” his young lordship replied.

Then all the gentlemen laughed outright, and the young lady laughed a little too, and the rose color in her cheeks brightened.

“Ah, Fauntleroy,” said one of the gentlemen who had laughed most heartily, “make the most of your time! When you are older you will not have the courage to say that.”

“But nobody could help saying it,” said Fauntleroy sweetly. “Could you help it? Don’t you think she is pretty, too?”

“We are not allowed to say what we think,” said the gentleman, while the rest laughed more than ever.

And queer as the big, flaming, spotted thing was, there was a serious, affectionate look in his eyes, which prevented his audience from laughing very much.

“You see, I like it,” he said, “because Dick is my friend.”

But though he was talked to so much, as the Earl had said, he was in no one’s way. He could be quiet and listen when others talked, and so no one found him tiresome.

There were some marks on the long legs which made him feel quite dejected and melancholy. They were marks made by the heels of the next Earl of Dorincourt, when he kicked and talked at the same time.

It seems that even youthful earls kick the legs of things they sit on;⁠—noble blood and lofty lineage do not prevent it.

After looking at those marks, Mr. Hobbs would take out his gold watch and open it and stare at the inscription: “From his oldest friend, Lord Fauntleroy, to Mr. Hobbs. When this you see, remember me.”

This went on for two or three weeks before any new idea came to him.

Being slow and ponderous, it always took him a long time to reach a new idea. As a rule, he did not like new ideas, but preferred old ones.

After two or three weeks, however, during which, instead of getting better, matters really grew worse, a novel plan slowly and deliberately dawned upon him. He would go to see Dick.

“There’s his very kicks,” he said impressively; “his very kicks. I sit and look at ’em by the hour.

This is a world of ups an’ it’s a world of downs.

Why, he’d set there, an’ eat crackers out of a box, an’ apples out of a barrel, an’ pitch his cores into the street; an’ now he’s a lord a-livin’ in a castle. Them’s a lord’s kicks; they’ll be a earl’s kicks some day.

One day Mr. Hobbs made a pilgrimage to a book store down town, for the express purpose of adding to their library. He went to the clerk and leaned over the counter to speak to him.

“I want,” he said, “a book about earls.”

“A book,” repeated the grocery-man, “about earls.”

Mr. Hobbs was much disturbed. He looked down on the floor—then he looked up.

“None about female earls?” he inquired.

“I’m afraid not,” said the clerk with a smile.

“So it is,” said Mr. Hobbs, still mopping his forehead; “so it is. An’ the newspapers are not sayin’ anything about any racks, thumbscrews, or stake-burnin’s—but still it doesn’t seem as if ’twas safe for him over there with those queer folks.

Why, they tell me they don’t keep the Fourth o’ July!

”

“He oughtn’t to ’ve married,” he said solemnly, as he rose to get a match.

“Women⁠—I never could see any use in ’em myself.”

As he took the match from its box, he stopped and looked down on the counter.

He was so dumbfounded that he actually changed his exclamation. It had always been his habit to say, “I will be jiggered,” but this time he said, “I am jiggered.”

Perhaps he really was jiggered. There is no knowing.

“Well,” said Dick, “the whole thing’s bust up, hasn’t it?”

She was no more afraid of him than Cedric had been, and she looked at him just as Cedric would have looked, and he, having been an old tyrant all his life, was privately pleased by it.

People so seldom dared to differ from him that there was an entertaining novelty in it.

“I suppose,” he said, scowling slightly, “that you would much prefer that he should not be the Earl of Dorincourt.”

Her fair young face flushed.

“It is a very magnificent thing to be the Earl of Dorincourt, my lord,” she said. “I know that, but I care most that he should be what his father was⁠—brave and just and true always.”

“In striking contrast to what his grandfather was, eh?” said his lordship sardonically.

It is astonishing how short a time it takes for very wonderful things to happen.

It had taken only a few minutes, apparently, to change all the fortunes of the little boy dangling his red legs from the high stool in Mr.