The Phoenix and the Carpet quotes

The fact that the nursery carpet was ruined occasioned but little surprise, nor was anyone really astonished that bed should prove the immediate end of the adventure.

It has been said that all roads lead to Rome; this may be true, but at any rate, in early youth I am quite sure that many roads lead to bed, and stop there⁠—or you do.

The rest of the fireworks were confiscated, and mother was not pleased when father let them off himself in the back garden, though he said, “Well, how else can you get rid of them, my dear?”

the egg burst in two, and out of it came a flame-coloured bird. It rested a moment among the flames, and as it rested there the four children could see it growing bigger and bigger under their eyes.

Every mouth was agape, every eye a-goggle.

The bird rose in its nest of fire, stretched its wings, and flew out into the room. It flew round and round, and round again, and where it passed the air was warm. Then it perched on the fender. The children looked at each other.

“Phoenix—in ornithology, a fabulous bird of antiquity.”

“Antiquity is quite correct,” said the Phoenix, “but fabulous⁠—well, do I look it?”

Everyone shook its head. Cyril went on—

Robert shut up. But he knew as well as you do that the adventures of that carpet and that Phoenix were only just beginning.

Father and mother had not the least idea of what had happened in their absence. This is often the case, even when there are no magic carpets or Phoenixes in the house.

The next morning—but I am sure you would rather wait till the next chapter before you hear about that.

“But we’ve got the carpet and the Phoenix,” said Anthea.

“Excuse me,” said the bird, with an air of wounded dignity, “I do so hate to seem to interfere, but surely you must mean the Phoenix and the carpet?”

“To—to eat?” whispered Jane, as well as she could through the water which the plunging Lamb was dashing in her face with happy fat hands and feet.

“Hardly,” rejoined the bird. “Who wants cooks to eat? Cooks are engaged, not eaten. They wish to engage her.”

“How can you understand what they say?” asked Cyril, doubtfully.

“She’s all right, anyhow,” said Anthea, and went back to bed. “I’m glad somebody’s pleased. But mother will never believe me when I tell her.”

The story is indeed a little difficult to believe. Still, you might try.

Biddle understand that what she was walking on was not a schoolroom floor, or even, as she presently supposed, a dropped pincushion, but the living hand of a suffering child. When she became aware that she really had hurt him, she grew very angry indeed.

When people have hurt other people by accident, the one who does the hurting is always much the angriest. I wonder why.

“I’m very sorry, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Biddle; but she spoke more in anger than in sorrow. “Come out! whatever do you mean by creeping about under the stalls, like earwigs?”

The Phoenix strutted up and down the leather-covered table, looking over its shoulder at its pretty back.

“You see what a convincing manner I have,” it said proudly.

And now a new gentleman came in and said, bowing low—

And when the children went to bed that night it was still trying to cut down the last line to the proper length without taking out any of what it wanted to say.

That is what makes poetry so difficult.

“There!” said Robert. “I hope you’re satisfied!”

“Everything has two ends,” said the Phoenix, softly; “even a quarrel or a secret passage.”

So they turned round and went back, and Robert was made to go first with one of the candles, because he was the one who had begun to talk about bones. And Cyril carried the carpet.

For they couldn’t help feeling that this was just the dark dreary winter’s evening when an armed burglar might easily be expected to appear at any moment.

There is nothing like light when you are afraid of burglars⁠—or of anything else, for that matter.

And when all the gas-jets were lighted it was quite clear that the Phoenix had made no mistake, and that Eliza and cook were really out, and that there was no one in the house except the four children, and the Phoenix, and the carpet, …

… one candle, with the mewing and the screaming going like a dozen steam sirens, twenty waiting on motorcars, and half a hundred squeaking pumps, four agitated voices shouted to the policeman four mixed and wholly different explanations of the very mixed events of the evening.

Did you ever try to explain the simplest thing to a policeman?

She knew he was a burglar at once, because he wore a fur cap and a red and black charity-check comforter, and he had no business where he was.

If you had been stood in jane’s shoes you would no doubt have run away in them, appealing to the police and neighbours with horrid screams.

But Jane knew better. She had read a great many nice stories about burglars, as well as some affecting pieces of poetry, and she knew that no burglar will ever hurt a little girl if he meets her when burgling.

“That would be ages and ages,” said Cyril, “and we couldn’t conceal him here. Father might come home at any moment, and if he found the burglar here he wouldn’t believe the true truth any more than the police would.

That’s the worst of the truth. Nobody ever believes it.

Couldn’t we take him somewhere else?”

But I had to tell you the other first.

That is one of the most annoying things about stories, you cannot tell all the different parts of them at the same time.

Robert’s first remark when he found himself seated on the damp, cold, sooty leads was—

And Jane and Robert felt quite ill with helplessness and hopelessness.

A really conscientious curate is a very difficult thing to manage.

And then, just as the hopelessness and the helplessness were getting to be almost more than they could bear, the two children suddenly felt that extraordinary shrinking feeling that you always have when you are just going to vanish.

Even at that awful moment Robert looked round to see if the bird had overheard a speech which, however natural, was hardly polite or grateful.

The Phoenix was gone.

“Look here,” said Cyril, “I’ve read about fires in papers; I’m sure it’s all right. Let’s wait here, as father said.”

Anthea was now ready to deceive her mother for as long as ever she could.

Deceit is very wrong, we know, but it seemed to Anthea that it was her plain duty to keep her mother from being frightened about the Lamb as long as possible.

And the Phoenix might help.