Novelists From England

"“A bumpity ride in a wagon of hay”"

"So, blind to Someone I must be."

"Old Rover in his moss-greened house Mumbles a bone, and barks at a mouse."

"Dobbin at manger pulls his hay: Gone is another summer’s day."

"Poor tired Tim! It’s sad for him He lags the long bright morning through, Ever so tired of nothing to do."

"All but blind In his chambered hole Gropes for worms The four-clawed Mole."

"Softly along the road of evening, In a twilight dim with rose, Wrinkled with age, and drenched with dew Old Nod, the shepherd, goes."

"His are the quiet steeps of dreamland, The waters of no-more-pain; His ram’s bell rings ‘neath an arch of stars, “Rest, rest, and rest again.”"

"We wake and whisper awhile, But, the day gone by, Silence and sleep like fields Of amaranth lie."

"Some one came knocking At my wee, small door; Some one came knocking, I’m sure—sure—sure."

"‘What is the world, O soldiers? It is I, I, this incessant snow, This northern sky."

"Wonderful lovely there she sat, Singing the night away, All in the solitudinous sea Of that there lonely bay."

"For beauty with sorrow Is a burden hard to be borne: The evening light on the foam, and the swans, there; That music, remote, forlorn."

"Oh, no man knows Through what wild centuries Roves back the rose."

"A face peered. All the grey night In chaos of vacancy shone; Nought but vast sorrow was there— The sweet cheat gone."

"Do diddle di do, Poor Jim Jay Got stuck fast In Yesterday."

"It's a very odd thing— As odd as can be— That whatever Miss T. eats Turns into Miss T."

"‘Who knocks?’ ‘I, who was beautiful, Beyond all dreams to restore, I from the roots of the dark thorn am hither, And knock on the door.’"

"Here lies a most beautiful lady, Light of step and heart was she; I think she was the most beautiful lady That ever was in the West Country."

"But beauty vanishes; beauty passes; However rare—rare it be; And when I crumble, who will remember This lady of the West Country?"

"Three jolly huntsmen, In coats of red, Rode their horses Up to bed."

""Is anybody there?" said the Traveler, Knocking on the moonlit door; And his horse in the silence champed the grasses Of the forest's ferny floor."

"Look thy last on all things lovely, Every hour—let no night Seal thy sense in deathly slumber Till to delight Thou hast paid thy utmost blessing."

"Slowly, silently, now the moon Walks the night in her silver shoon."

"A harvest mouse goes scampering by, With silver claws and silver eye; And moveless fish in the water gleam, By silver reeds in a silver stream."

"Bang! Now the animal Is dead and dumb and done. Nevermore to peep again, creep again, leap again, Eat or sleep or drink again, oh, what fun!"

""Tell them I came, and no one answered, That I kept my word," he said."

"Never the least stir made the listeners, Though every word he spake Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house From the one man left awake: Aye, they heard his foot upon the stirrup, And the sound of iron on stone, And how the silence surged softly backward, When the plunging hoofs were gone."

"Who said "Peacock Pie"? The old king to the sparrow: Who said "Crops are ripe"? Rust to the harrow. Who said, "Ay, mum's the word"? Sexton to willow. Who said, "Green dusk for dream?" Moss for a pillow. Who said, "All Time’s delight Hath she for narrow bed; Life’s troubled bubble broken"?— That’s what I said."

"The delicate, invisible web you wove The inexplicable mystery of sound."

"Or when the lawn Is pressed by unseen feet, and ghosts return Gently at twilight, gently go at dawn, The sad intangible who grieve and yearn..."

"Walter de la Mare's "The Listeners"-I will never forget that poem."

"De la Mare’s poetry represents some of the finest, beautifully crafted, classical verse of the twentieth century. It is truly tragic that his poems remain largely neglected, forgotten as the world passed them by."

"Yes, society must go on; it must breed, like rabbits. That is what we are here for. But then, I don't like society — much. I am that absurd figure, an American millionaire, who has bought one of the ancient haunts of English peace. I sit here, in Edward's gun-room, all day and all day in a house that is absolutely quiet. No one visits me, for I visit no one. No one is interested in me, for I have no interests. In twenty minutes or so I shall walk down to the village, beneath my own oaks, alongside my own clumps of gorse, to get the American mail. My tenants, the village boys and the tradesmen will touch their hats to me. So life peters out. I shall return to dine and Nancy will sit opposite me with the old nurse standing behind her. Enigmatic, silent, utterly well-behaved as far as her knife and fork go, Nancy will stare in front of her with the blue eyes that have over them strained, stretched brows. Once, or perhaps twice, during the meal her knife and fork will be suspended in mid-air as if she were trying to think of something that she had forgotten. Then she will say that she believes in an Omnipotent Deity or she will utter the one word "shuttle-cocks", perhaps. It is very extraordinary to see the perfect flush of health on her cheeks, to see the lustre of her coiled black hair, the poise of the head upon the neck, the grace of the white hands — and to think that it all means nothing — that it is a picture without a meaning. Yes, it is queer."

"The first war had ruined him. He had volunteered, though he was over military age and was fighting a country he loved; his health was broken, and he came back to a new literary world which had carefully eliminated him. For some of his later work he could not even find a publisher in England. No wonder he preferred to live abroad — in Provence or New York. But I don't suppose failure disturbed him much: he had never really believed in human happiness, his middle life had been made miserable by passion, and he had come through — with his humour intact, his stock of unreliable anecdotes, the kind of enemies a man ought to have, and a half-belief in a posterity which would care for good writing."

"Mind, I am not preaching anything contrary to accepted morality. I am not advocating free love in this or any other case. Society must go on, I suppose, and society can only exist if the normal, if the virtuous, and the slightly deceitful flourish, and if the passionate, the headstrong, and the too-truthful are condemned to suicide and to madness."

"She asked him perpetually what he wanted. What did he want? What did he want? And all he ever answered was: "I have told you". He meant that he wanted the girl to go to her father in India as soon as her father should cable that he was ready to receive her. But just once he tripped up. To Leonora's eternal question he answered that all he desired in life was that — that he could pick himself together again and go on with his daily occupations if — the girl, being five thousand miles away, would continue to love him. He wanted nothing more, He prayed his God for nothing more. Well, he was a sentimentalist."

"You may well ask why I write. And yet my reasons are quite many. For it is not unusual in human beings who have witnessed the sack of a city or the falling to pieces of a people to set down what they have witnessed for the benefit of unknown heirs or of generations infinitely remote; or, if you please, just to get the sight out of their heads."

"Our intimacy was like a minuet, simply because on every possible occasion and in every possible circumstance we knew where to go, where to sit, which table we unanimously should choose; and we could rise and go, all four together, without a signal from any one of us, always to the music of the Kur orchestra, always in the temperate sunshine, or, if it rained, in discreet shelters."

"No, by God, it is false! It wasn't a minuet that we stepped; it was a prison — a prison full of screaming hysterics, tied down so that they might not outsound the rolling of our carriage wheels as we went along the shaded avenues of the Taunus Wald. And yet I swear by the sacred name of my creator that it was true. It was true sunshine; the true music; the true splash of the fountains from the mouth of stone dolphins. For, if for me we were four people with the same tastes, with the same desires, acting — or, no, not acting — sitting here and there unanimously, isn't that the truth? If for nine years I have possessed a goodly apple that is rotten at the core and discover its rottenness only in nine years and six months less four days, isn't it true to say that for nine years I possessed a goodly apple?"

"This is the saddest story I have ever heard."

"No more Hope, no more Glory, no more parades for you and me any more. Nor for the country... nor for the world, I dare say... None... Gone."

"No author, I think, is deserving of much censure for vanity if, taking down one of his ten-year-old books, he exclaims: "Great heavens, did I write as well as that then?" for the implication always is that one does not write any longer so well and few are so envious as to censure the complacencies of an extinct volcano."

"I couldn't regard myself as personally repulsive. No man can, or, if he ever comes to do so, that is the end of him."

"For the judging of contemporary literature the only test is one's personal taste. If you much like a new book, you must call it literature even though you find no other soul to agree with you, and if you dislike a book you must declare that it is not literature though a million voices should shout you that you are wrong. The ultimate decision will be made by Time."

"One recalls how much the creative impulse of the best-sellers depends upon self-pity. It is an emotion of great dramatic potential."

"On one plane, the very great writers and the popular romancers of the lower order always meet. They use all of themselves, helplessly, unselectively. They are above the primness and good taste of declining to give themselves away."

"There is more magic in sin if it is not committed."

"To be identified with the public is the divine gift of the best-sellers in popular Romance and, no doubt, in popular realism. E. M. Forster once spoke of the novelist as sending down a bucket into the unconscious; the author of She installed a suction pump. He drained the whole reservoir of the public's secret desires. Critics speak of the reader suspending unbelief; the best-seller knows better; man is a believing animal."

"Pride and reserve are not the only things in life; perhaps they are not even the best things. But if they happen to be your particular virtues you will go all to pieces if you let them go."