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There was very little about her face and figure that was in any way remarkable, but it was the sort of face which, when animated by conversation or laughter, is completely transformed. She had a lively disposition, a quick mind and a fondness for the comical. She was always very ready to smile and, since a smile is the most becoming ornament that any lady can wear, she had been known upon occasion to outshine women who were acknowledged beauties in three counties.
“Oh!” said Strange. “I think that the quicker one gets these things out of one’s brain and on to the paper and off to the printers, the better. I dare say, sir,” and he smiled at Mr Norrell in a friendly manner, “that you find the same.” Mr Norrell, who had never yet got any thing successfully out of his brain and off to the printers, whose every attempt was still at some stage or other of revision, said nothing.
He also said that he had resolved to think no more about Mr Norrell. In this he was not entirely successful for several times in the next few days Arabella found herself listening to a long recital of all Mr Norrell’s faults, both professional and personal.
They are the best fellows in the world.” “Really? It was reported in London that Wellington had called them the scum of the earth.” Briscall laughed as if being the scum of the earth were a very minor sort of indiscretion and indeed a large part of the Army’s charm. This was, thought Strange, an odd position for a clergyman to take. “Which are they?” he asked. “They are both, Mr Strange. They are both.
“Oh, it is a little confusing at first, like most things,” said Strange, “but having now experienced many of the adventures a war affords, I grow used to it. I have been robbed – once. I have been shot at – once. Once I found a Frenchman in the kitchen and had to chase him out, and once the house I was sleeping in was set on fire.” “By the French?” inquired General Stewart. “No, no. By the English. There was a company of the 43rd who were apparently very cold that night and so they set fire to the house to warm themselves.” “Oh, that always happens!” said General Stewart.
“Can a magician kill a man by magic?” Lord Wellington asked Strange. Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. “I suppose a magician might,” he admitted, “but a gentleman never could.”
tightrope-walking is not a trade that combines well with drinking
Being a politician, he was never dissuaded from giving any body his opinion by the mere fact that they were not inclined to hear it.
How is a magician to exist without books? Let someone explain that to me. It is like asking a politician to achieve high office without the benefit of bribes or patronage.”
To young men of a studious turn of mind, who did not desire to go into the Church or the Law, magic was very appealing, particularly since Strange had triumphed on the battlefields of Europe. It is, after all, many centuries since clergymen distinguished themselves on the field of war, and lawyers never have.
When he awoke it was dawn. Or something like dawn. The light was watery, dim and incomparably sad. Vast, grey, gloomy hills rose up all around them and in between the hills there was a wide expanse of black bog. Stephen had never seen a landscape so calculated to reduce the onlooker to utter despair in an instant. “This is one of your kingdoms, I suppose, sir?” he said. “My kingdoms?” exclaimed the gentleman in surprize. “Oh, no! This is Scotland!”
“As far as neighbours go, those trees are quite exemplary. They mind their own affairs and have never troubled me. I rather think that I will return the compliment.” “But they are blocking the light.” “So are you, Henry, but I have not yet taken an axe to you.”
Today Spitalfields is inhabited by the low and the poor and is much plagued with small boys, thieves and other persons inimicable to the peace of the citizens.
“Can one of you go after Strange and bring him back?” asked Mr Murray. “Oh, certainly! Hadley-Bright is your man for that!” declared Henry Purfois. “He was one of the Duke’s aides-de-camp at Waterloo, you know. There is nothing he likes better than dashing about on a horse at impossible speeds.”
“Whoever heard of cats doing anything useful!” “Except for staring at one in a supercilious manner,” said Strange. “That has a sort of moral usefulness, I suppose, in making one feel uncomfortable and encouraging sober reflection upon one’s imperfections.”
Chaston wrote that men and fairies both contain within them a faculty of reason and a faculty of magic. In men reason is strong and magic is weak. With fairies it is the other way round: magic comes very naturally to them, but by human standards they are barely sane.
Of course it may be objected that Wellington himself was Irish, but a patriotic English pen does not stoop to answer such quibbling.
