More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
CHAPTER 1
Chapter One: Exposition
The princess, whose name was Irene, was born there, but she was sent soon after her birth, because her mother was not very strong, to be brought up by country people in a large house, half castle, half farmhouse, on the side of another mountain, about half-way between its base and its peak.
Her face was fair and pretty, with eyes like two bits of night sky, each with a star dissolved in the blue. Those eyes you would have thought must have known they came from there, so often were they turned up in that direction.
But for some reason or other, concerning which there were different legendary theories, the king had laid what they thought too severe taxes upon them, or had required observances of them they did not like, or had begun to treat them with more severity, in some way or other, and impose stricter laws; and the consequence was that they had all disappeared from the face of the country.
Lots of possibilities here. I think it's a little heavy handed without quite knowing either! Lol
But I suspect those who said so had mistaken some of their animal companions for the goblins themselves—of which more by and by.
That was a long spiel to get to these peeps are goblins.
I have said the Princess Irene was about eight years old when my story begins. And this is how it begins.
Atrocious
Perhaps you will wonder how the princess could tell that the old lady was an old lady, when I inform you that not only was she beautiful, but her skin was smooth and white.
The repetition is atrocious. This description is clunky as fuck too.
Irene,
Is this the first time we get the princess's name? And is this the princess?
'In my bedroom.'
Who's saying this?
'There!' said the boy, as he stood still opposite them. 'There! that'll do for them. They can't bear singing, and they can't stand that song. They can't sing themselves, for they have no more voice than a crow; and they don't like other people to sing.'
But at that instant the something in the middle of the way, which had looked like a great lump of earth brought down by the rain, began to move. One after another it shot out four long things, like two arms and two legs, but it was now too dark to tell what they were.
'I should like to see him!' repeated the nurse, and said no more. She did not want to open a new cause of strife with the princess by saying more plainly what she meant.
As I have indicated already, the chief defence against them was verse, for they hated verse of every kind, and some kinds they could not endure at all.
showing that there water must have once run.
not a fan of this wording!
I wish I could describe the king so that you could see him in your mind.
What? He wishes he could describe the king and then describes him. Hmmm...
The end of this string he fastened to his pickaxe, which figured no bad anchor, and then, with the ball in his hand, unrolling it as he went, set out in the dark through the natural gangs of the goblins' territory.
Four or five nights of doing this with a string tether and not one goblin discovered this string? I find that a little off the cob.
but that is the way fear serves us: it always sides with the thing we are afraid of.
It is when people do wrong things wilfully that they are the more likely to do them again.
'Yes. But, remember, it may seem to you a very roundabout way indeed, and you must not doubt the thread. Of one thing you may be sure, that while you hold it, I hold it too.'
it is so silly of people to fancy that old age means crookedness and witheredness and feebleness and sticks and spectacles and rheumatism and forgetfulness! It is so silly! Old age has nothing whatever to do with all that. The right old age means strength and beauty and mirth and courage and clear eyes and strong painless limbs.
Would you like to see them?' he asked, wishing to have another try after their secret.
Curdie definitely needs no help in finding trouble! Why go inspect what's happening while escape is the plan? Also why leave the string?!
'Then you must believe without seeing,' said the princess; 'for you can't deny it has brought us out of the mountain.'
'But do come, dear Curdie.'
Needs a new paragraph, because, this must be the princess who says this dialogue.
'People must believe what they can, and those who believe more must not be hard upon those who believe less. I doubt if you would have believed it all yourself if you hadn't seen some of it.'
Seeing is not believing—it is only seeing.
We are all very anxious to be understood, and it is very hard not to be. But there is one thing much more necessary.' 'What is that, grandmother?' 'To understand other people.'
large silver bath; for as she looked into it, again she saw no bottom, but the stars shining miles away, as it seemed, in a great blue gulf.
It vanished, like the poetry in a dream,
There is something you cannot explain, and her explanation may be the right one.' 'It's no explanation at all, mother; and I can't believe it.' 'That may be only because you do not understand it.
the truest princess is just the one who loves all her brothers and sisters best, and who is most able to do them good by being humble towards them.
Here I should like to remark, for the sake of princes and princesses in general, that it is a low and contemptible thing to refuse to confess a fault, or even an error. If a true princess has done wrong, she is always uneasy until she has had an opportunity of throwing the wrongness away from her by saying: 'I did it; and I wish I had not; and I am sorry for having done it.' So you see there is some ground for supposing that Curdie was not a miner only, but a prince as well. Many such instances have been known in the world's history.
Interesting comparison with Curdie and the foolish notion that princes and princesses are honest and true. I like it for the sake of the story, but I call bullshit on this dynamic that princes and princesses have some grief that comes upon them for being privileged, spoiled cunts.
'I declare it's the same young rascal of a miner that was rude to me and the princess on the mountain. He actually wanted to kiss the princess. I took good care of that—the wretch!
I really don’t like Lootie. After Curdie had seen them home, she has the audacity to throw him under the bus with a bullshit account of him. Fuck her!
Lootie was almost silly with terror, and, although scarcely able to walk would not leave Curdie's side for a single moment.
Again, fuck Lootie, Curdie should have let hairlip have her after what she did to him with her purposeful and false testimony.
something touched his hand. It was the slightest touch, and when he looked he could see nothing. Feeling and peering about in the grey of the dawn, his fingers came upon a tight thread. He looked again, and narrowly, but still could see nothing. It flashed upon him that this must be the princess's thread.
A good many of the goblins with their creatures escaped from the inundation out upon the mountain. But most of them soon left that part of the country, and most of those who remained grew milder in character, and indeed became very much like the Scotch brownies.
