Nonfiction Books

"I did make an explanation once for "uffish thought" - It seems to suggest a state of mind when the voice is gruffish, the manner roughish, and the temper huffish."

"A friend of mine, called Mr. Lewis Carroll, tells me he means to send you a book. He is a very dear friend of mine. I have known him all my life (we are the same age) and have never left him. Of course he was with me in the Gardens, not a yard off—even while I was drawing those puzzles for you. I wonder if you saw him?"

"You say you "hope you will soon see me." That depends on yourself: if when I come, you look carefully the other way and never turn your head round, it wil probably be a long time before you see me."

"Don't talk to me of going quick," said Fox, "you howling Hound! My feet are done with patent glue, that sticks them to the ground."

"Some children have a most disagreeable way of getting grown-up: I hope you won't do anything of that sort before we meet again."

"I hope to come and see you for about half an hour on the 3rd of July 1872."

"My best love to yourself - to your mother my kindest regards - to your small, fat, impertinent, ignorant brother my hatred."

"No carte has yet been done of me that does real justice to my smile; and so I hardly like, you see, to send you one - however, I'll Consider if I will or not - meanwhile I send a little thing to give you an idea of what I look like when I'm lecturing. The merest sketch, you will allow - yet I still think there's something grand in the expression of the brow and in the action of the hand."

"I found out that she was called "Maggie" and lived in a Crescent! Of course I declared "After that" (the language I used doesn't matter), "I will not address her, that's flat! So do not expect me to flatter!""

"What is "F" before "Dymphna"? Is it Fatima, Fenella or Feodora? or is it (I hardly dare hope for so beautiful a name) Foscofornia?"

"As to your all having grown so old that I no longer care for you, a difficulty occurs to me: can you leave off caring for people before you have begun?"

"The book has got a moral - so I need hardly say it is not by Lewis Carroll."

"My room is very easy to find when you get here, and as for distance, you know - why, Oxford is as near to London as London is to Oxford. If your geography-book doesn't tell you that, it must be a wretched affair."

"Do not suppose I didn't write, hundreds of times; the difficulty has been with the directing - I directed the letters so violently at first, that they went far beyond the mark - some of them were picked up at the other end of Russia."

"They did things very simply in those days: if you had a lot of money, you just dug a hole under the hedge, and popped it in: then you said you had "put it in the bank""

"The only unlucky thing that happened to me was your writing to me. There!"

"It's been so frightfully hot here that been almost too weak to hold a pen, and even if I had been able, there was no ink — it had all evaporated into a cloud of black steam, and in that state it has been floating about the room, inking the walls and ceiling; till they're hardly fit to be seen: to-day it is cooler, and a little has come back into the ink-bottle in the form of black snow."

"Surely, if you go to morning parties in evening dress (which you do, you know), why not to evening parties in morning dress? ... doctors (not that I am a real one only an amateur) must always be in trim for an instant summons to a patient. And when you invite a doctor to dinner (say), do you not always add 'Morning Dress'? (I grant you it is done by initials in this case. And perhaps you will say you don't understand M.D. to stand for 'Morning Dress'? Then take a few lessons in elementary spelling.) Aye, and many and many a time have I received invitations to evening parties wherein the actual colours of the Morning Dress expected were stated! For instance, 'Red Scarf: Vest, Pink.' That is a very common form, though it is usually (I grant you) expressed by initials. ... You will say "What morning parties do I go to in evening dress?" I reply "Balls". You will say again, "What balls ever go on in the morning?" I reply "Most balls.""

"My one pupil has begun his work with me, and I will give you a description how the lecture is conducted. It is the most important point, you know, that the tutor should be dignified and at a distance from the pupil, and that the pupil should be as much as possible degraded. Otherwise, you know, they are not humble enough. So I sit at the further end of the room; outside the door (which is shut) sits the scout; outside the outer door (also shut) sits the sub-scout: half-way downstairs sits the sub-sub-scout; and down in the yard sits the pupil. The questions are shouted from one to the other, and the answers come back in the same way - it is rather confusing till you are well used to it. The lecture goes on something like this:Tutor. What is twice three? Scout. What's a rice tree? Sub-Scout. When is ice free? Sub-sub-Scout. What's a nice fee? Pupil (timidly). Half a guinea! Sub-sub-Scout. Can't forge any! Sub-Scout. Ho for Jinny! Scout. Don't be a ninny!Tutor (looks offended, but tries another question). Divide a hundred by twelve! Scout. Provide wonderful bells! Sub-Scout. Go ride under it yourself! Sub-sub-Scout. Deride the dunder-headed elf! Pupil (surprised). Who do you mean? Sub-sub-Scout. Doings between! Sub-Scout. Blue is the screen! Scout. Soup-tureen!And so the lecture proceeds."

"I have been awfully busy, and I've had to write heaps of letters - wheelbarrows full, almost. And it tires me so that generally I go to bed again the next minute after I get up; and sometimes I go to bed again a minute before I get up! Did you ever hear of any one being so tired as that?"

"How far is it from Winckfield to Rotherwick? Now do not deceive me, you wretched child! If it is more than a hundred miles, I can't come to see you, and there is no use to talk about it. If it is less, the next question is, How much less? These are serious questions, and you must be as serious as a judge in answering them. There mustn't be a smile in your pen, or a wink in your ink (perhaps you'll say, "There can't be a wink in ink: but there may be ink in a wink" - but this is trifling; you mustn't make jokes like that when I tell you to be serious) while you write to Guildford and answer these two questions. You might as well tell me at the same time whether you are still living at Rotherwick - and whether you are at home - and whether you get my letter - and whether you're still a child, or a grown-up person--and whether you're going to the seaside next summer - and anything else (except the alphabet and the multiplication table) that you happen to know."

"Most things, you know, ought to be studied: even a trunk is studded with nails."

"This really will not do, you know, sending one more kiss every time by post: the parcel gets so heavy it is quite expensive. When the postman brought in the last letter, he looked quite grave. "Two pounds to pay, sir!" he said. "Extra weight, sir!" (I think he cheats a little, by the way. He often makes me pay two pounds, when I think it should be pence). "Oh, if you please, Mr. Postman!" I said, going down gracefully on one knee (I wish you could see me go down on one knee to a postman - it's a very pretty sight), "do excuse me just this once! It's only from a little girl!""Only from a little girl!" he growled. "What are little girls made of?" "Sugar and spice," I began to say, "and all that's ni-" but he interrupted me. "No! I don't mean that. I mean, what's the good of little girls, when they send such heavy letters?" "Well, they're not much good, certainly," I said, rather sadly."Mind you don't get any more such letters," he said, "at least, not from that particular little girl. I know her well, and she's a regular bad one!" That's not true, is it? I don't believe he ever saw you, and you're not a bad one, are you? However, I promised him we would send each other very few more letters - "Only two thousand four hundred and seventy, or so," I said. "Oh!" he said, "a little number like that doesn't signify. What I meant is, you mustn't send many."So you see we must keep count now, and when we get to two thousand four hundred and seventy, we mustn't write any more, unless the postman gives us leave."

"I am writing this to wish you many and many a happy return of your birthday to-morrow. I will drink your health, if only I can remember, and if you don't mind - but perhaps you object? You see, if I were to sit by you at breakfast, and to drink your tea, you wouldn't like that, would you? You would say "Boo! hoo! Here's Mr. Dodgson's drunk all my tea, and I haven't got any left!" So I am very much afraid, next time Sybil looks for you, she'll find you sitting by the sad sea-wave, and crying "Boo! hoo! Here's Mr. Dodgson has drunk my health, and I haven't got any left!" And how it will puzzle Dr. Maund, when he is sent for to see you! "My dear Madam, I'm very sorry to say your little girl has got no health at all! I never saw such a thing in my life!" "Oh, I can easily explain it!" your mother will say. "You see she would go and make friends with a strange gentleman, and yesterday he drank her health!" "Well, Mrs. Chataway," he will say, "the only way to cure her is to wait till his next birthday, and then for her to drink his health."And then we shall have changed healths. I wonder how you'll like mine! Oh, Gertrude, I wish you wouldn't talk such nonsense!"

"My dear Ada, - (Isn't that your short name? "Adelaide" is all very well, but you see when one's dreadfully busy one hasn't time to write such long words - particularly when it takes one half an hour to remember how to spell it - and even then one has to go and get a dictionary to see if one has spelt it right, and of course the dictionary is in another room, at the top of a high bookcase - where it has been for months and months, and has got all covered with dust - so one has to get a duster first of all, and nearly choke oneself in dusting it - and when one has made out at last which is dictionary and which is dust, even then there's the job of remembering which end of the alphabet "A" comes - for one feels pretty certain it isn't in the middle - then one has to go and wash one's hands before turning over the leaves - for they've got so thick with dust one hardly knows them by sight - and, as likely as not, the soap is lost, and the jug is empty, and there's no towel, and one has to spend hours and hours in finding things - and perhaps after all one has to go off to the shop to buy a new cake of soap -so, with all this bother, I hope you won't mind my writing it short and saying, "My dear Ada")."

"That text is consecrated for me by the memory of one of the greatest sorrows I have known — the death of my dear father. In those solemn days, when we used to steal, one by one, into the darkened room, to take yet another look at the dear calm face, and to pray for strength, the one feature in the room that I remember was a framed text, illuminated by one of my sisters, "Then are they glad, because they are at rest ; and so he bringeth them into the haven where they would be!" That text will always have, for me, a sadness and a sweetness of its own. Thank you again for sending it me. Please don't mention this when we meet. I can't talk about it."

"The greatest blow that has ever fallen on my life was the death, nearly thirty years ago, of my own dear father; so, in offering you my sincere sympathy, I write as a fellow-sufferer. And I rejoice to know that we are not only fellow-sufferers, but also fellow-believers in the blessed hope of the resurrection from the dead, which makes such a parting holy and beautiful, instead of being merely a blank despair."

"It's hardly an incendiary exposé, but Fenwick's open-minded scrutiny should deglamourize the est movement."

"Finally. Here's someone who is willing to disclose the details of Erhard Seminars Training, and then go on to analyze them from a psychological point of view."

"[it is difficult to determine whether est] produces any more than a superficial catharsis, or whether it might be harmful to certain people"

"est uses techniques indiscriminately which, in a certain proportion of the population, are known to be harmful and potentially quite dangerous."

"The authoritarianism of the training is a beginner's course in the totalitarianism you will be subject to if you join the est organization."

"Trainers in est do not and cannot take the precautions that would be considered appropriate for psychotherapy. They use techniques such as confrontation which undermine psychological defenses and strip away resistance. They use some techniques whose effect is to increase anxiety and other techniques which encourage regression to developmentally more primitive modes of functioning."

"Many of the deprivations, such as the restriction on bathroom privileges, could be expected to have the effect of creating anxiety. For many people, the extensive rules and their authoritarian enforcement might be expected to create anger. Anger and anxiety are both states of emotional arousal. Deprivation creates arousal, which under such conditions is referred to as motivation. If you want to teach a rat to run in a maze, you deprive it of food so you can control its behavior by doling out food when it does what you want it to do."

"The bathroom restrictions are only one of many aspects of the est training which add up to the fact that the training takes place in a state of deprivation. During the training you are deprived of sleep because you arrive home around 3 A.M. and have to be back at the hotel by 8:30 the next morning."

"I took the training. It was an extraordinary experience. And I have some serious concerns about the implications of the est phenomenon. I think people ought to know about it. I think people ought to think about it."

"a thorough discussion of est training methods and the psychology behind them."

"A plethora of newspaper and magazine reports, along with books written by graduates ... have attempted to explain the phenomenon of this self-help program, but none has done it as well or as objectively as this writer."

"[Fenwick's] analysis of the function of the group, the restrictive rules, and the enforced discomfort is convincing."

"the only useful critical look at this essential issue."

"So we're all right, an' I, for one, Don't think our cause'll lose in vally By rammin' Scriptur' in our gun, An' gittin' Natur' for an ally."

"Starres are poore books, and oftentimes do misse; This book of starres lights to eternal blisse."

"Bibles laid open, millions of surprises."

"Shallows where a lamb could wade and depths where an elephant would drown."

"It was a common saying among the Puritans, "Brown bread and the Gospel is good fare.""

"The word unto the prophet spoken Was writ on tablets yet unbroken: The word by seers or sibyls told, In groves of oak or fanes of gold, Still floats upon the morning wind, Still whispers to the willing mind."

"Out from the heart of nature rolled The burdens of the Bible old."

"And that the Scriptures, though not everywhere Free from corruption, or entire, or clear, Are uncorrupt, sufficient, clear, entire In all things which our needful faith require."

"One day at least in every week, The sects of every kind Their doctrines here are sure to seek, And just as sure to find."

"A glory gilds the sacred page, Majestic like the sun, It gives a light to every age, It gives, but borrows none."