Linnets and Valerians

by Elizabeth Goudge

Haha - the practical one, even his motives are practical.

By washing behind their ears

similes - metaphor

Yesterday had been warm and sunny and today the southwesterly gale from the sea was emptying buckets of water over a drowning world.

once he was out of doors he found it was fun collecting snails in the wet.

Haha

Simile

Their world had contracted and Lion Tor and Linden Manor seemed very far away.

It was ghastly and yet at moments it was briefly rather glorious,

Simile!

Years later they discovered that Uncle Ambrose in his working days had been considered one of the greatest educators in England, and they knew how privileged they had been to be grounded by him.

Present-day narrator

the grounding seemed gritty.

Simile

Every mistress of a household has her parlour.

Your temperament, my dear, is reflective, as mine is, and as you grow older you will increasingly need somewhere to go when you wish to be private.

Haha

‘Lady Alicia,’ asked Nan, astonished. ‘She is a daughter of a previous vicar,’

When she was eighteen she married the squire of Linden Manor and thereafter her father kept bees to comfort him.

I am the third vicar in succession to maintain his bees. You are wondering why I fancy that Lady Alicia used this room as a girl. To the right of the fireplace, hidden in the panelling, there is a cupboard and i...

Haha

Simile

But it’s oh, so right. Haha

Uncanny

beautiful pointed handwriting,

Lady Alicia’s

Mary Alicia Trumpington,

fine copperplate handwriting.

Emma Cobley. Her book.

Simile

Uncle Ambrose

Timothy

This child, he feared, was not as strong as the others and would need special care.

Ezra,

Haha

Uncle Ambrose had cleaned shoes as a boy and had not forgotten the trick of it.

Simile

‘Manual labour,’

‘can be of great assistance in the development both of intellectual and spiritual powers.’

‘The Cistercian monks are agriculturists,’ continued Uncle Ambrose, ‘and all great saints either dig or cook according to sex or temperament.’

Haha

Haha

Haha

For one awful moment Timothy thought he was to be educated in the middle of the afternoon,

Haha

‘But he isn’t playing any more, only listening to the echoes, and he’s sad.’ ‘No doubt,’ said Ambrose, and he sounded sad too. ‘Turned to stone. Silenced by men’s unbelief.’

Haha so sweet

“Star of evening, bringing all things that bright dawn has scattered,

Sappho fragment https://symmachus.wordpress.com/category/sappho/

Uncle Ambrose’s eyes twinkled. ‘That, Timothy,’ he said, ‘is a most unsuitable suggestion to make to a clergyman of the Church of England. I am no longer permitted to believe in the ancient gods. You, of course, can do as you wish.’

Haha

they would be out from the first cry of the bird of dawning until the star of evening brought them home.

Note the echo of Sappho

Double simile

Haha

Nan was already coming to recognise this twitching as amusement on the part of Uncle Ambrose, amusement which it was necessary to control lest Robert get too great an opinion of himself.

Haha

A penny a day = sixpence a week