The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen Quotes

“[Walking] is the perfect way of moving if you want to see into the life of things. It is the one way of freedom. If you go to a place on anything but your own feet you are taken there too fast, and miss a thousand delicate joys that were waiting for you by the wayside.”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen

“There is nothing so absolutely bracing for the soul as the frequent turning of one's back on duties.”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen

“How good it is to look sometimes across great spaces, to lift one’s eyes from narrowness, to feel the large silence that rests on lonely hills!”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen

“I have a peculiar capacity for doing nothing and yet enjoying myself.”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen

“It was a place to bless God in and cease from vain words.”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen

“Put out? My dear Gertrud, I have been thinking of very serious things. You cannot expect me to frolic along paths of thought that lead to mighty and unpleasant truths. Why should I always smile? I am not a Cheshire cat.’

‘I trust the gracious one will come in now and enter her bed,’ said Gertrud decidedly, who had never heard of Cheshire cats, and was sure that the mention of them indicated a brain in need of repose.”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen

“It might have been the entrance to some holy place, so strange and solemn was the quiet; and looking from out of its shadows to the brightness shining at the upper end where the sun was flooding the bracken with happy morning radiance, I felt suddenly that my walk had ceased to be a common thing, and that I was going up into the temple of God to pray.”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen

“What a place for him who intends to pass an examination, to write a book, or who wants the crumples got by crushing together too long with his fellows to be smoothed out of his soul.”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen

“Oh Gertrud,' I cried, intolerably stirred by the bare mention of that
bed, 'this is a bleak and mischievous world, isn't it? Do you think we
shall ever be warm and comfortable and happy again?”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen

“and indeed I think we waste a terrible amount of time repenting. The healthy attitude, the only reasonable one towards a fault made or a sin committed is surely a vigorous shake of one's moral shoulders, vigorous enough to shake it off and out of remembrance. The sin itself was a sad waste of time and happiness, and absolutely no more should be wasted in lugubriously reflecting on it. Shall we, poor human beings at such a disadvantage from the first in the fight with Fate through the many weaknesses and ailments of our bodies, load our souls as well with an ever-growing burden of regret and penitence? Shall we let a weight of vivid memories break our hearts? How are we to get on with our living if we are continually dropping into sloughs of bitter and often unjust self-reproach? Every morning comes the light, and a fresh chance of doing better. Is it not the sheerest folly and ingratitude to let yesterday spoil the God-given to-day?”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rugen by Elizabeth von Arnim

“The guide–book warmly recommends the seashore when the wind is in the east (which it was) as the quickest and firmest route from Göhren to Thiessow; but I chose rather to take the road over the plain because there was a poem in the guide–book about the way along the shore, and the guide–book said it described it extremely well, and I was sure that if that were so I would do better to go the other way. This is the poem — the translation is exact, the original being unrhymed, and the punctuation is the poet’s —


Splashing waves
Rocking boat
Dipping gulls —
Dunes.

Raging winds
Floating froth.
Flashing lightning
Moon!

Fearful hearts
Morning grey —
Stormy nights
Faith!

I read it, marvelled, and went the other way.”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen

“Oh the gloriousness of freedom and silence, of being alone with my own soul!”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen

“Many a time have I wondered at the unworthy ways of Fate, at the pettiness of the pleasure it takes in frustrating plans that are small and innocent, at its entire want of dignity, at its singular spitefulness, at the resemblance of its manners to those of an evilly-disposed kitchen-maid....”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen