Enola Holmes Quotes

Confound my genteel upbringing! I could not think of any name foul enough to call him.

"One cannot be a mother without first being a person; family, husband, and children should not be allowed, as is so often the case, to steal a woman’s selfhood and her dreams." Mother to Sherlock, Mycroft, and Enola Holmes by author Nancy Springer

I hope that the kind reader recognises this as a despairing attempt at humour.

Yet one could speak truth and still be a villain

All the words I had prepared turned coward and fled my mind like conscripts deserting a battlefield.

He would expect me to flee from him. Therefore, I would not. I would flee towards him.

And I ought to stop dreaming about it and start doing it. Right now.

The only way for me to be safe and free was to be - be what my name decreed me. Enola. Alone.

To be a man, apparently, was to lack the ability to be a woman

in the secret code of flowers, a rose of any sort signifies love.

the greatest harm I could possibly suffer would be to lose my liberty, to be forced into a conventional life of domestic duties and matrimony.

If any decent woman's calling consisted of taking her proper place in society (husband and house, plus voice lessons and a piano in the drawing-room), then this particular woman-to-be prefers to remain indecent.

My dear sister... His dear sister. Those words - how oddly they affected me

I think,” he says at last, “that it is a great pity she will not trust in me.

To S.H. & M.H.: Rot. E.H.

Grinning with delight even as my heart ached—a familiar bittersweet feeling, that of enjoying affection from afar—I watched until they all went inside, the cab and the barouche drove away, and it became apparent that the moment of drama was over.

To be a man, apparently, was to lack the ability to be a woman.

Curiosity goes hand in hand with intellect, and intellect runs in the family.

I could not be corseted, either literally or figuratively, into any conventional feminine mould.

One cannot be a mother without first being a person; family, husband and children should not be allowed, as is so often the case, to steal a woman's selfhood and her dreams.

There is method to her madness!

A talented artist who has unfortunately turned her energies to the cause of women’s so-called rights.

The bestowing of chrysanthemums indicates familial attachment and, by implication, affection.

I am a liar. All is not well. Not at all.

I watched him until he disappeared between the forest trees—watched after him almost as if I knew that, through no fault of his own, I would not converse with him again for a long time.

ABCDE FGHIJ KLMNO PQRST UVWXYZ And each part has five letters, except the last; but Z is used so seldom that it can be lumped together with Y. I then wrote my real message to Mum,

Había descubierto que montar en bici me permitía pensar sin preocuparme de que alguien se percatara de mis muecas y expresiones.

however, that most married women disappeared into the house every year

La noche de la ciudad no tenía el brillo de la luna o de las estrellas; solo algunos retazos de luz amarillenta procedente de los escaparates se reflejaban en el pavimento, tornando la oscuridad todavía más negra.

Wielki Sherlock Holmes pyta mnie o przemyślenia? Niestety, nie mogłam mu nic zaoferować. Byłam, bądź co bądź, dziewczyną o minimalnej objętości czaszki.

Pan Mycroft to, pan Mycroft tamto, pan Mycroft może iść się wypchać.

mostly naked, in a very different area than that whence they came. For this reason, few such children were allowed upon the street without the accompaniment of a guardian-servant. “For her clothing? The Duquessa is not a child!” To the contrary, I thought; she seemed quite childlike in many ways, but Sherlock laughed heartily. “Most far-fetched.

utterly still—except that my fingers tightened around my dagger hilt—and make no sound. Meanwhile, footfalls pounded up a nearby staircase. “The villain!” continued the shrieker. “She broke in ’ere! My ’ot’ouse!” “Flora, calm yourself.” Pertelote’s weary voice. “She’s long gone.” Would that it were so.

I had learned to trust the peculiar workings of my heart and mind

Horses sweat, you know, and men perspire, whereas ladies glow. I am sure I looked all of a glow also. Indeed, I could feel all-of-a-glow trickling down my sides beneath my corset, the steel ribs of which jabbed me under the arms most annoyingly.

At the next street-lamp, she sees a woman with painted lips and smudged eyes waiting in a doorway. A hansom cab drives up, stops, and a man in a tail coat and a shining silk top-hat gets out. Even though the woman in the doorway wears a low-cut evening gown that might once have belonged to a lady of the gentleman’s social class, the black-clad watcher does not think the gentleman is here to go dancing. She sees the prostitute’s haggard eyes, haunted with fear no matter how much her red-smeared lips smile. One like her was recently found dead a few streets away, slit wide open. Averting her gaze, the searcher in black walks on. An unshaven man lounging against a wall winks at her. “Missus, what yer doing all alone? Don’t yer want some company?” If he were a gentleman, he would not have spoken to her without being introduced. Ignoring him, she hastens past. She must speak to no one. She does not belong here. The knowledge does not trouble her, for she has never belonged anywhere. And in a sense she has always been alone. But her heart is not without pain as she scans the shadows, for she has no home now, she is a stranger in the world’s

It is quite a bad idea to go to sleep with wet hair, for it dries into the most extraordinary kinks and serpentines; one can go about for days looking like Medusa.

When looking to travel incognito, it's safest to travel as a widow. People are always anxious to avoid conversation about death. Widows scare them. And there's no better disguise than fear.

emphatically. “But even so, I don’t suppose we would have

I looked up ivy in The Meanings of Flowers. The clinging vine stood for “fidelity.

one cannot be a mother without first being a person; family, husband, and children should not be allowed, as is so often the case, to steal a woman’s selfhood and her dreams. I considered that, if I were not true to myself, then all the mothering I could give you would have been falsehood

for I could no longer think of him as lord, viscount, duke’s son; he was my comrade now

I desire this boat to rock. I demand, nay, I COMMAND, this boat to rock." And rock it did.