The Amber Gods and Other Stories Quotes

“The winds were warm about us, the whole earth seemed the wealthier for our love.”
― Harriet Prescott Spofford, The Amber Gods and Other Stories

“A full moon is poison to some; they shut it out at every crevice, and do not suffer a ray to cross them; it has a chemical or magical effect; it sickens them. But I am never more free and royal than when the subtile celerity of its magic combinations, whatever they are, is at work.”
― Harriet Prescott Spofford, The Amber Gods and Other Stories

“I'm not good, of course; I wouldn't give a fig to be good. So it's not vanity. It's on a far grander scale; a splendid selfishness, - authorized, too; and papa and mamma brought me up to worship beauty, -and there's the fifth commandment, you know.”
― Harriet Prescott Spofford, The Amber Gods and Other Stories

“When we hold it (amber) in our hands, we hold also that furious epoch where rioted all monsters and poisons, where death fecundated and life destroyed, where superabundance demanded such existences, no souls, but fiercest animal fire - just for that I hate it!”
― Harriet Prescott Spofford, The Amber Gods and Other Stories

“Can you say those words and not like it? Don't it bring to you a magnificent picture of the pristine world, - great seas and other skies, - a world of accentuated crises, that sloughed off age after age, and rose fresher from each plunge? Don't you see, or long to see, that mysterious magic tree out of whose pores oozed this fine solidified sunshine? What leaf did it have? What blossom? What great wind shivered its branches? Was it a giant on a lonely coast, or thick low growth blistered in ravines and dells? That's the witchery of amber, - that it has no cause, - that all the world grew to produce it, maybe, - died and gave no other sign, - that its tree, which must have been beautiful, dropped all its fruits, and how bursting with juice must they have been -”
― Harriet Prescott Spofford, The Amber Gods and Other Stories

“Why, observe the thing; turn it over; hold it up to the window; count the beads, long, oval, like some seaweed bulbs, each an amulet. See the tint; it's very old; like clots of sunshine, aren't they? Now bring it near; see the carving, here corrugated, there faceted, now sculptured into hideous, tiny, heathen gods. You didn't notice that before! How difficult it must have been, when amber is so friable! Here's one with a chessboard on his back, and all his kings and queens and pawns slung round him. Here's another with a torch, a flaming torch, its fire pouring out inverted. They are grotesque enough; but this, this is matchless: such a miniature woman, one hand grasping the round rock behind, while she looks down into some gulf, perhaps, beneath, and will let herself fall. 0, you should see her with a magnifying-glass! You want to think of calm satisfying death, a mere exhalation, a voluntary slipping into another element? There it is for you. They are all gods and goddesses. They are all here but one; I've lost one, the knot of all, the love of the thing.
Well! Wasn't it queer for a Catholic girl to have at prayer?”
― Harriet Prescott Spofford, The Amber Gods and Other Stories