Horse Carriage Quotes

Oh, I can never get enough," he said. "Which, incidentally, is what your sister said to me when - " The carriage door flew open. A hand shot out, grabbed Will by the back of the shirt, and hauled him inside. The door banged shut after him, and Thomas, sitting bolt upright, seized reins of the horses. A moment later the carriage had lurched forth into the night, leaving Gabriel staring, infuriated, after it.

You’ve one mark on your record,” Tamas said. “You once punched a na-baron in the face. Broke his jaw. Tell me about that.” Olem grimaced. “Officially, sir, I was pushing him out of the way of a runaway carriage. Saved his life. Half my company saw it.” “With your fist?” “Aye.” “And unofficially?” “The man was a git. He shot my dog because it startled his horse.” “And if I ever have cause to shoot your dog?” “I’ll punch you in the face.” “Fair enough. You have the job.

A swift carriage, of a dark night, rattling with four horses over roads that one can’t see--that’s my idea of happiness.

All those who love Nature she loves in return, and will richly reward, not perhaps with the good things, as they are commonly called, but with the best things of this world-not with money and titles, horses and carriages, but with bright and happy thoughts, contentment and peace of mind.

Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves And Immortality. We slowly drove, he knew no haste, And I had put away My labour, and my leisure too, For his civility. We passed the school where children played, Their lessons scarcely done; We passed the fields of gazing grain, We passed the setting sun. We paused before a house that seemed A swelling of the ground; The roof was scarcely visible, The cornice but a mound. Since then 'tis centuries; but each Feels shorter than the day I first surmised the horses' heads Were toward eternity.

Aaron wondered if the Sofanomin had also lulled him to sleep. He could feel the faint remnants of a strange dream; weird people in odd clothing, peculiar carriages that moved although no horses pulled them

Her carriage bespoke an exquisite misery, a wretchedness so perfect and so absolute that it manifested as dignity, as calm. More than a dark horse, she was darkness itself, the cloak of it.

Where they couldn't pick holes in our arguments they would drive horses and carriages through my character.

It's alright" said a dreamy voice from beside Harry as Ron vanished into the coach's dark interior. "You're not going mad or anything. I can see them too." "Can you?" said Harry desperately, turning to Luna. He could see the bat-winged horses reflected in her wide, silvery eyes. "Oh yes," said Luna, "I've been able to see them since my first year here. They've always pulled the carriages. Don't worry. You're just as sane as I am." Smiling faintly, she climbed into the musty interior of the carriage after Ron. Not altogether reassured, Harry followed her.

And he will have a great aunt called Elinor who tells him there's a world not like this one. A world with neither fairies nor glass men, but with animals who carry their young in a pouch in front of their bellies, and birds with wings that beat so fast it sounds like the humming of a bumblebee, with carriages that drive along without any horses and pictures that move on their own accord... She will tell him that even the most powerful men don't carry swords in the other world, but there are much, much more terrible weapons there...She will even claim that the people there have built coaches that can fly...So the boy will think that perhaps he'll have to go alone one day, if he wants to see that world...Because it must be exciting in that other world, much more exciting than in his own...

Those horses must have been Spanish jennets, born of mares mated with a zephyr; for they went as swiftly as the wind, and the moon, which had risen at our departure to give us light, rolled through the sky like a wheel detached from its carriage...

A Gift for You I send you... A cottage retreat on a hill in Ireland. This cottage is filled with fresh flowers, art supplies, and a double-wide chaise lounge in front of a wood-burning fireplace. There is a cabinet near the front door, where your favorite meals appear, several times a day. Desserts are plentiful and calorie free. The closet is stocked with colorful robes and pajamas, and a painting in the bedroom slides aside to reveal a plasma television screen with every movie you've ever wanted to watch. A wooden mailbox at the end of the lane is filled daily with beguiling invitations to tea parties, horse-and-carriage rides, theatrical performances, and violin concerts. There is no obligation or need to respond. You sleep deeply and peacefully each night, and feel profoundly healthy. This cottage is yours to return to at any time.

When one does something, one must do it wholly and well. Those bastard existences where you sell suet all day and write poetry at night are made for mediocre minds – like those horses that are equally good for saddle and carriage, the worst kind, that can neither jump a ditch nor pull a plow.

The carriage could only clop along at about ten miles per hour, which only accentuated Imogene’s excitement. She urged it onward: "Fly, horse, fly!

Beth stared at the bowl, a fragile piece of the past, such a delicate object in Ian’s large, blunt fingers. “Are you certain?” “Of course I’m certain.” His frown returned. “Do you not want it?” “I do want it,” Beth said hastily. She held her hands out for it. “I’m honored.” The frown faded, to be replaced by a slight quirk of his lips. “Is it better than a new carriage and horses and a dozen frocks?” “What are you talking about? It’s a hundred times better.” “It’s only a bowl.” “It’s special to you, and you gave it to me.” Beth took it carefully and smiled at the dragons chasing one another in eternal determination. “It’s the best gift in the world.” Ian took it gently back from her and replaced it in its slot. That made sense; in here it would stay safe and unbroken. But the kiss Ian gave her after that was anything but sensible. It was wicked and bruising, and she had no idea why he smiled so triumphantly.

As the carriage rolled under the Institute’s gates, James saw his parents standing in the courtyard. “And where have you been?” Will demanded as James clambered out of the carriage. The others leaped down behind him, the girls, being in gear, needing no help to dismount. “You stole our carriage.” James wished he could tell his father the truth, but that would be breaking their sworn promise to Ragnor. “It’s only the second-best carriage,” James protested. “Remember when Papa stole Uncle Gabriel’s carriage? It’s a proud family tradition,” said Lucie, as the group of them approached the Institute steps. “I did not raise you to be horse thieves and scallywags,” said Will. “And I recall very clearly that I told you—” “Thank you for letting them borrow the carriage to come and get me,” said Cordelia. Her eyes were wide, and she looked entirely innocent. James felt an amused stab of surprise: she was an interestingly skilful liar. “I had very much wanted to come to the Institute and see what I could do to help.” Will softened immediately. “Of course. You are always welcome here, Cordelia.

...we could see the parapet of Ryougoku Bridge, arching above the waves that flickered in the faint mid-autumn twilight and against the sky, as though an immense black Chinese ink stroke had been brushed across it. The silhouettes of the traffic, horses and carriages soon faded into the vaporous mist, and now all that could be seen were the dots of reddish light from the passengers' lanterns, rapidly passing to and fro in the darkness like small winter cherries.

My dear fellow " Said Albert, turning to Franz " here is an admirable adventure; we will fill our carriage with pistols, blunderbusses, and double-barreled shotguns. Luigi Vampa comes to take us, and we take him - we bring him back to Rome , and present him to him holiness the Pope, who asks how he can repay so great a service; Then we merely ask for a cariage and a pair of horses, and we will see the Carnival in the carriage , and doubtless the Roman people will crown us at the capitol , and proclaim us, like Curtius and the veiled Horatius, the preservers of there country." Whilst Albert proposed this scheme, signor Pastrini's face assumed an expression impossible to describe.

The sound of carriage wheels and horses was faint,seeming more distant than they actually were. Drops of water clung to the wool of my dress and my cloak, the men dragging in the grass. We were in a soft cocoon.It might have been romantic. If it wasn't for all the dead bodies. And the faint scratch of a footstep.

He was hard and tough and wiry - just the sort that won't say die - There was courage in his quick impatient tread; And he bore the badge of gameness in his bright and fiery eye, And the proud and lofty carriage of his head.

Love and the traditional marriage doesn't necessarily go together like a horse and carriage." -Serena Jade

I’d sort of lost the reins on my control, and the horses were running away with the carriage while I held on for dear life.

In a era of autonomously driven electric cars and vehicles capable of taking us to Mars, our education system is the equivalent of a horse and carriage.

There it was, a sign above a shop that said 221B BAKER STREET. My mouth hung open. I looked around at the ordinary street and the white-painted buildings, looking clean in the morning rain. Where were the fog, the streetlights, the gray atmosphere? The horses pulling carriages, bringing troubled clients to Watson and Holmes? I had to admit I had been impressed with Big Ben and all, but for a kid who had devoured the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, this was really something. I was on Baker Street, driving by the rooms of Holmes and Watson! I sort of wished it were all in black and white and gray, like in the movies.

But, along with the street lamp, everything breathes deceit. It lies all the time, this Nevsky Prospect, but most of all at the time when night heaves its dense mass upon it and sets off the white and pale yellow walls of the houses, when the whole city turns into a rumbling and brilliance, myriads of carriages tumble from the bridges, postillions shout and bounce on their horses, and the devil himself lights the lamps only so as to show everything not as it really looks.

he’d wanted to do for years while we dated—the whole princely sweep-you-off-your-feet shit. I liked to keep my feet firmly on the ground unless sex was involved, and you can’t really have sex in a horse-drawn carriage; it scares the horses.

Wherever in life it may be, whether amongst its tough, coarsely poor, and untidily moldering mean ranks, or its monotonously cold and boringly tidy upper classes, a man will at least once meet with a phenomenon which is unlike anything he has happened to see before, which for once at least awakens in him a feeling unlike those he is fated to feel all his life. Wherever, across whatever sorrow sour life is woven of, a resplendent joy will gaily race by, just as a splendid carriage with golden harness, picture-book horses, and a shining brilliance of glass sometimes suddenly and unexpectedly goes speeding by some poor, forsaken hamlet that has never seen anything but a country cart, and for a long time the muzhiks stand gaping open-mouthed, not putting their hats back on, though the wondrous carriage has long since sped away and vanished from sight.

It's all right," said a dreamy voice from beside Harry as Ron vanished into the coach's dark interior. "You're not going mad or anything. I can see them, too." "Can you?" said Harry desperately, turning to Luna. He could see the bat-winged horses reflected in her wide silvery eyes. "Oh, yes," said Luna, "I've been able to see them ever since my first day here. They've always pulled the carriages. Don't worry. You're just as sane as I am.

In history, and in evolution, progress is always a futile, Sisyphean struggle to stay in the same relative place by getting ever better at things. Cars move through the congested streets of London no faster than horse-drawn carriages did a century ago. Computers have no effect on productivity because people learn to complicate and repeat tasks that have been made easier.

Judging from the unfamiliar number, I assumed the text came from Shannon. If not, I would see who came by my house at 4:30 and go with it. Maybe it would be Mr. Darcy coming to pick me up in an extravagant horse-drawn carriage, but I couldn’t picture Mr. Darcy using a cell phone.

Where was Bewcastle? But then he was there, standing on the terrace some distance away, and such was the power of his presence that everyone seemed to sense it an fell back away from Alleyne even as they stopped talking. There was still all sorts of noise, of course - horses, carriage wheels, voices, the water spouting out of the fountain - but it seemed to Alleyne as if complete silence fell. Bewcastle had already seen him. His gaze was steady and silver-eyed and inscrutable. His hand reached for the gold-handled, jewel-studded quizzing glass he always wore with formal attire and raised it halfway to his eyes in a characteristic gesture. Then he came striding along the terrace with uncharacteristic speed and did not stop coming until he had caught Alleyne up in a tight, wordless embrace that lasted perhaps a whole minute while Alleyne dipped his forehead to his brother's shoulder and felt at last that he was safe. It was an extraordinary moment. He had been little more than a child when his father died, but Wulfric himself had been only seventeen. Alleyne had never thought of him as a father figure. Indeed, he had often resented the authority his brother wielded over them with such unwavering strictness, and often with apparant impersonality and lack of humor. He had always thought of his eldest brother as aloof, unfeeling, totally self sufficient. A cold fish. And yet it was in Wulfric's arm that he felt his homecoming most acutely. He felt finally and completely and unconditionally loved. An extraordinary moment indeed.

The night seemed varnished with a golden sheen. Carriages rounded the manor's drive, their horses pounding gravel as if to applaud the parade. One by one, gentry clothed in satin and velvet emerged from their boxes. They bid adieu to their drivers and flocked to the main house, glittering like jewels in the torchlight.

The driver, a black silhouette upon his box, whipped up his bony horses. Icy silence in the coach. Marius, motionless, his body braced in the corner of the carriage, his head dropping down upon his breast, his arms hanging, his legs rigid, appeared to await nothing now but a coffin; Jean Valjean seemed made of shadow, and Javert of stone.

The jeers that had risen as Barak’s and Greldik’s ships had been manoeuvred onto their wheeled carriages turned rather quickly into angry mutterings as the carriages, pulled by teams of Algar horses, rolled effortlessly toward the escarpment past men straining with every ounce of strength to move their ships a few inches at a time. To leave it all to artistry, Barak and Greldik ordered their men to lounge indolently on the decks of their ships, drinking ale and playing dice. King Anheg stared very hard at his impudently grinning cousin as the big ship rolled past. His expression was profoundly offended. “That’s going too far!” he exploded, jerking off his dented crown and throwing it down on the ground.

Is she pleasing to the eye?" Gabriel went to an inset sideboard to pour himself a brandy. "She's bloody ravishing," he muttered. Looking more and more interested, his father asked, "What is the problem with her, then?" "She's a perfect little savage. Constitutionally incapable of guarding her tongue. Not to mention peculiar: She goes to balls but never dances, only sits in the corner. Two of the fellows I went drinking with last night said they'd asked her to waltz on previous occasions. She told one of them that a carriage horse had recently stepped on her foot, and she told the other that the butler had accidentally slammed her leg in the door." Gabriel took a swallow of brandy before finishing grimly, "No wonder she's a wallflower." Sebastian, who had begun to laugh, seemed struck by that last comment. "Ahhh," he said softly. "That explains it." He was silent for a moment, lost in some distant, pleasurable memory. "Dangerous creatures, wallflowers. Approach them with the utmost caution. They sit quietly in corners, appearing abandoned and forlorn, when in truth they're sirens who lure men to their downfall. You won't even notice the moment she steals the heart right out of your body- and then it's hers for good. A wallflower never gives your heart back." "Are you finished amusing yourself?" Gabriel asked, impatient with his father's flight of fancy. "Because I have actual problems to deal with." Still smiling, Sebastian reached for some chalk and applied it to the tip of his cue stick. "Forgive me. The word makes me a bit sentimental.

Now the road was crossing orange groves in flower, and the nuptial scent of the blossoms absorbed the rest as a full moon does a landscape; the smell of sweating horses, the smell of leather from the carriage upholstery, the smell of Prince and the smell of Jesuit, were all cancelled out by that Islamic perfume evoking houris and fleshly joys beyond the grave.

Darling Daddy, This is Rose. Very good news. Caddy is going to marry Micheal. In case you have forgotten because you have not been home for so long he is the one with the ponytail and the earring that you do not like. And Caddy says she will have a white lace dress and three bridesmaids, Saffron and Sarah and me, and a big party for everyone, all her old boyfriends too. Fireworks. A band. A big tent called a marquee. But where will we put it? Carriages with white horses for us all to go to the church. Afterward Caddy and Micheal will go for a holiday to Australia to visit the Great Barrier Reef. Caddy has it all worked out and Mummy says Yes She Can Of Course You Can Darling Of Course You Must Do That. Saffron said That Will Cost a Few Weeks Housekeeping and Mummy said Yes But We Do Not Need to Worry About That. DADDY WILL PAY. Love, Rose.

The most difficult speculation for a science fiction writer to undertake is to imagine correctly the *secondary* implications of a new factor. Many people correctly anticipated the coming of the horseless carriage, some were bold enough to predict that everyone would use them and the horse would disappear. But I know of no writer, fiction or non-fiction, who saw ahead of time the vast change in the courting and mating habits of Americans which would result primarily from the automobile." Expanded Universe

Later on we read what Krishna says, “Even those who worship other deities are really worshipping me” (note 31). It is God incarnate whom man is worshipping. Would God be angry if you called Him by the wrong name? He would be no God at all! Can’t you understand that whatever a man has in his own heart is God — even if he worships a stone? What of that! We will understand more clearly if we once get rid of the idea that religion consists in doctrines. One idea of religion has been that the whole world was born because Adam ate the apple, and there is no way of escape. Believe in Jesus Christ — in a certain man’s death! But in India there is quite a different idea. [There] religion means realisation, nothing else. It does not matter whether one approaches the destination in a carriage with four horses, in an electric car, or rolling on the ground. The goal is the same. For the [Christians] the problem is how to escape the wrath of the terrible God. For the Indians it is how to become what they really are, to regain their lost Selfhood. ...

William: My brother has an appreciation of art, so I imagine the woman he chooses must be beautiful beyond the pale. Once he outgrows his current predilection with painting and accepts his family responsibilities, he'll need a wife who can move throughout society. She must have proper carriage and be a witty conversationalist. She should have excellent bloodlines as well, in the event of offspring. Emma: With the possible exception of a witty conversationalist, I believe you've described all the attributes of a racehorse.

There's no present left. This is the problem for a novelist. [The problem] is the present is gone. We're all living in the future constantly . . . Back in the day Leo Tolstoy -- what a sweetheart of a count and of a writer -- in the 1860's he wanted to write about the Napoleonic Campaign, about 1812. If you write about 1812 in 1860, a horse is still a horse. A carriage is still a carriage. Obviously, there are been some technological advancements, et cetera, but you don't have to worry about explaining the next killer [iPhone] app or the next Facebook because right now things are happening so quickly. ("Gary Shteyngart: Finding 'Love' In A Dismal Future", NPR interview, August 2, 2010)

From afar at the end of Tsar Peter Straat, issued in the frosty air the tinkle of bells of the horse tramcars, appearing and disappearing in the opening between the buildings, like little toy carriages harnessed with toy horses and played with by people that appeared no bigger than children.

From that age until seventeen I did all the work done with horses, such as breaking up the land, furrowing, ploughing corn and potatoes, bringing in the crops when harvested, hauling all the wood, besides tending two or three horses, a cow or two, and sawing wood for stoves, etc., while still attending school. For this I was compensated by the fact that there was never any scolding or punishing by my parents; no objection to rational enjoyments, such as fishing, going to the creek a mile away to swim in summer, taking a horse and visiting my grandparents in the adjoining county, fifteen miles off, skating on the ice in winter, or taking a horse and sleigh when there was snow on the ground. While still quite young I had visited Cincinnati, forty-five miles away, several times, alone; also Maysville, Kentucky, often, and once Louisville. The journey to Louisville was a big one for a boy of that day. I had also gone once with a two-horse carriage to Chilicothe, about seventy miles, with a neighbor’s family, who were removing to Toledo, Ohio, and returned alone; and had gone once, in like manner, to Flat Rock, Kentucky, about seventy miles away. On this latter occasion I was fifteen years of age.

Independence changed everything. Independence changed nothing. Eight years after the British left, we now had free government schools, running water and paved roads. But Jaipur still felt the same to me as it had ten years ago, the first time I stepped foot on its dusty soil. On the way to our first appointment of the morning, Malik and I nearly collided with a man carrying cement bags on his head when a bicycle cut between us. The cyclist, hugging a six-foot ladder under his arm, caused a horse carriage to sideswipe a pig, who ran squealing into a narrow alley. At one point, we stepped aside and waited for a raucous band of hijras to pass. The sari-clad, lipstick-wearing men were singing and dancing in front of a house to bless the birth of a baby boy. So accustomed were we to the odors of the city—cow dung, cooking fires, coconut hair oil, sandalwood incense and urine—that we barely noticed them.

When I received my glossy black invitation in the mail a few days later, I could feel my heart swell with excitement. “Hef’s Midsummer Night’s Dream Party,” it read. On the front was a beautiful pinup illustration by famed artist Olivia De Berardinis and inside was a small piece of paper with directions. It was like Cinderella finally scoring an invitation to the ball—except instead of arriving by horse-drawn carriage, we would board a shuttle at a UCLA parking garage.

VIOLET: August . . . your month. Locusts are raging. “Summer psalm become summer wrath.” ’Course it’s only August out there. In here . . . who knows? All right . . . okay. “The Carriage held but just Ourselves,” dum-de-dum . . . mm, best I got . . . Emily Dickinson’s all I got . . . something something, “Horse’s Heads Were Toward Eternity . . .

When the car replaced the horse-drawn carriage, we didn’t upgrade the horses – we retired them. Perhaps it is time to do the same with Homo sapiens.

Jacob had seen too many horses whipped half to death to find anything romantic about horse-drawn carriages,

Didn't they tell you that I was a savage? Fuck your white horse and a carriage. Bet you never could imagine!

When cars replaced horse-drawn carriages, we didn’t upgrade the horses – we retired them. Perhaps it is time to do the same with Homo sapiens.

The history books say that life before the Revolution was completely different from what it is now. There was the most terrible oppression, injustice, poverty—worse than anything we can imagine. Here in London, the great mass of the people never had enough to eat from birth to death. Half of them hadn’t even boots on their feet. They worked twelve hours a day, they left school at nine, they slept ten in a room. And at the same time there were a very few people, only a few thousands—the capitalists, they were called—who were rich and powerful. They owned everything that there was to own. They lived in great gorgeous houses with thirty servants, they rode about in motor cars and four-horse carriages, they drank champagne, they wore top hats—

This Nevsky Prospect lies always, but more than ever, when the thick mass of night settles over it and makes the white and yellowish walls of houses stand out, when the whole town becomes thunderous and dazzling, a myriad carriages roll down the streets, postillions shout and mount their horses, and the devil himself lights the lamps in order to show everything in an unreal light

Because I could not stop for Death" (479) Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me – The Carriage held but just Ourselves – And Immortality. We slowly drove – He knew no haste And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For His Civility – We passed the School, where Children strove At Recess – in the Ring – We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain – We passed the Setting Sun – Or rather – He passed Us – The Dews drew quivering and Chill – For only Gossamer, my Gown – My Tippet – only Tulle – We paused before a House that seemed A Swelling of the Ground – The Roof was scarcely visible – The Cornice – in the Ground – Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses' Heads Were toward Eternity –

if you have ever wondered why horse-drawn carriages and dogsleds are far more common modes of travel than sheep-dragged sleighs, it is because sheep are not well-suited for employment in the transportation industry.

Health and programming should go together like a horse and carriage. You can't have one without the other. In our sedentary office work, we often forget that an absence of health is as bad as a lack of programming skills.

In his 2007 book Farewell to Alms, the Scottish-American economist Gregory Clark points out that we can learn a thing or two about our future job prospects by comparing notes with our equine friends. Imagine two horses looking at an early automobile in the year 1900 and pondering their future. “I’m worried about technological unemployment.” “Neigh, neigh, don’t be a Luddite: our ancestors said the same thing when steam engines took our industry jobs and trains took our jobs pulling stage coaches. But we have more jobs than ever today, and they’re better too: I’d much rather pull a light carriage through town than spend all day walking in circles to power a stupid mine-shaft pump.” “But what if this internal combustion engine thing really takes off?” “I’m sure there’ll be new new jobs for horses that we haven’t yet imagined. That’s what’s always happened before, like with the invention of the wheel and the plow.

find them always alive and rampant when I go back to semi-village life. For after all, though we live miles apart—everybody flying round on horses or in carriages—it amounts to a village community. Everybody knows exactly where to put the knife.

Your average genre novel is like a high speed car chase ending in a massive crash, with death, destruction, and balls of flame, from which the main characters (usually) emerge mostly unscathed. Everything builds up to the crash, and it’s the anticipation that keeps us turning pages. Anthony Trollope, by contrast, is like a pleasant Sunday afternoon drive through the countryside in an open carriage behind a pair of matched horses. There’s conflict, sure; a herd of sheep blocks the road, two countrymen come to blows outside the pub, the cows in this field are looking daggers at the cows in that field. But the point of the drive is the drive itself, not the destination, because of course you’re just going to end up at home anyway.

Madame de Pompadour never seems to have sold any of the objects which belonged to her. They accumulated in their thousands, and filled all her many houses to overflowing; after her death Marigny was obliged to take two big houses in Paris which, as well as the Elysée and the Réservoirs, contained her goods until the sale of them began. Furniture, china, statues, pictures, books, plants, jewels, linen, silver, carriages, horses, yards and hundreds of yards of stuff, trunks full of dresses, cellars full of wine; the inventory of all this, divided into nearly three thousand lots, very few lots containing less than a dozen objects, took two lawyers more than a year to make. Few human beings since the world began can have owned so many beautiful things.

It’s in that moment that pity is the overwhelming thing I feel. I feel sorry for this troglodyte because he has no idea that love doesn’t have to sour over time. I don’t need to be whisked away in a horse-drawn carriage, and I fully believe both partners are responsible for making a relationship romantic, if that’s what they want. Not whatever heteronormative bullshit that tells us guys are supposed to make the first move and pay for dinner and get down on one knee. But I do want something big and wild, something that fills my heart completely. I want a fraction of what Emma and Charlie or Lindley and Josef or Trisha and Rose have, even though they’re fictional. I’m convinced that when you’re with the right person, every date, every day feels that way.

Besides, the appearance of the caravan was formidable. The black horses of the Musketeers, their martial carriage, with the regimental step of these noble companions of the soldier, would have betrayed the most strict incognito. The lackeys followed, armed to the teeth.

The front three rows of students drew backwards as the carriage hurtled ever lower, coming in to land at a tremendous speed – then, with an almighty crash that made Neville jump backwards onto a Slytherin fifth-year’s foot – the horses’ hooves, larger than dinner plates, hit the ground.

Send word down the line,” he said. “We’ll camp here for the night.” Valik nodded and started to turn his horse around. “And Valik? There are lamps in the carriage that are apparently supposed to help her back heal faster. Have them set them up in my tents. I’ll see to the men while you get her settled.” At Valik’s raised brows, Wynter added, “Your face is prettier than mine, or so I’m told. She may find it easier to do what you ask than what I command.” “You’re forgetting she kicked me in my pretty face last time I asked her to do something she didn’t want to do.” Wyn gave a grunt of laughter. “Better than kicking you in the balls.” Then he sobered. “And see to it she actually eats and drinks something.” She’d taken little nourishment all day, and though he’d allowed it, knowing anything she ate was likely to come back up once they started moving again, they were stopping for the night now, and she needed to eat. Her body needed sustenance to heal. “If she balks, tell her I’ll force it down her throat myself if I must.” Valik shook his head. “I’ll let you tell her that.” He rubbed his jaw. “I want to be able to chew my dinner.

Pedestrianism, [William Bingley] claims, is the most 'useful' mode of travel, 'if health and strength are not wanting.' 'To a naturalist, it is evidently so; since, by this means, he is enabled to examine the country as he goes along; and when he sees occasion, he can also strike out of the road, amongst the mountains or morasses, in a manner completely independent of all those obstacles that inevitably attend the bringing of carriages or horses.' Bingley has a specific reason here for valuing the combination of freedom and intimacy with one's surroundings enjoyed by the pedestrian, but his rationale is generalisable to other travellers.

Now I know why you have always desired to see Andilain at this time of year. The sweet fragrance of the trees blossoming remind me of the soft skin at your neck. If we should ever travel here I will insist on taking a carriage. You know how I detest riding horses and after two days my backside would be grateful if I never beheld a saddle again.

When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer; say traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep; it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. All this fires my soul, and provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodized and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost finished and complete in my mind, so that I can survey it, like a fine picture or a beautiful statue, at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. When I proceed to write down my ideas the committing to paper is done quickly enough, for everything is, as I said before, already finished; and it rarely differs on paper from what it was in my imagination.

She stands there until she realizes she is waiting. Waiting for someone to help. To come and fix the mess she's in. But no one is coming. No one remembers, and if she resigns herself to waiting, she will wait forever. So she walks. And as she walks, she studies Paris. Makes note of this house, and that road, of bridges, and carriage horses, and the gates of a garden. Glimpses roses beyond the wall, beauty in the cracks.

The valet blanched at the thought of four hours in a carriage. "I've sent for Dr. Fansher." As if that would shorten their errand. He gave McNaught an even look. "I never told you not to." McNaught lifted the curtain and peered out the window, letting in the pale light of dawn. He settled back on the seat. "At least there's decent inns in Carlisle." Frowning, he said, "I wish you'd told me, my Lord. I'd have packed a change of clothes." "We're not staying the night." "But we'll be the entire day on the road. Dr. Fansher would never approve of this." "With Andrew's horses, I expect we'll make good time." McNaught shook his head. "Worse than a cat after a mouse when you've got an idea in your head, you are." "My one virtue." "Small consolation when both man and mouse are dead." "So long as you bury us both at sea, I don't give a damn.

A dark carriage pulled by four strong horses shot through the forest like a cannonball. A pair of swinging lanterns illuminated the path ahead and made the carriage resemble an enormous creature with glowing eyes. Two French soldiers of Napoleon’s Grande Armée rode beside the carriage. Black cloaks covered the soldiers’ colorful uniforms so they could travel in secrecy – the world was never to know what their agenda was tonight

Wine, wax-lights, comestibles, rouge, crinoline-petticoats, diamonds, wigs, Louis-Quatorze gimcracks, and old china, park hacks, and splendid high-stepping carriage horses⁠—all the delights of life, I say⁠—would go to the deuce, if people did but act upon their silly principles and avoid those whom they dislike and abuse. Whereas, by a little charity and mutual forbearance, things are made to go on pleasantly enough: we may abuse a man as much as we like, and call him the greatest rascal unhanged⁠—but do we wish to hang him therefore? No. We shake hands when we meet. If his cook is good we forgive him and go and dine with him, and we expect he will do the same by us. Thus trade flourishes⁠—civilization advances; peace is kept; new dresses are wanted for new assemblies every week; and the last year’s vintage of Lafitte will remunerate the honest proprietor who reared it.

Wine, furniture, music, horses, and linen consumed Jefferson’s resources. “For the articles of household furniture, clothes, and a carriage … I have been obliged to anticipate my salary from which however I shall never be able to repay it,” Jefferson wrote to Monroe.21 “I will pray you to touch this string, which I know to be a tender one with Congress, with the utmost delicacy. I’d rather be ruined in my fortune, than in their esteem.” He

Claire. It was the last candle left within the Indian Agent. The last glimmer. He curled himself around it to keep it alive, and when the storm inhaled he studied his right hand, could feel her beside him in the carriage that night and, as if he could insist on this, looked up the depression he was calling a road, for the cabman's blindered horse, huffing through the snow, its lanterns swinging. Claire waiting for him on the worn velvet seat.

In history and in evolution, progress is always a futile, Sisyphean struggle to stay in the same relative place by getting ever better at things. Cars move through the congested streets of London no faster than horse-drawn carriages did a century ago. Computers have no effect on productivity because people learn to complicate and repeat tasks that have been made easier.13 This concept, that all progress is relative, has come to be known in biology by the name of the Red Queen, after a chess piece that Alice meets in Through the Looking-Glass, who perpetually runs without getting very far because the landscape moves with her. It is an increasingly influential idea in evolutionary theory, and one that will recur throughout the book. The faster you run, the more the world moves with you and the less you make progress. Life is a chess tournament in which if you win a game, you start the next game with the handicap of a missing pawn.

Robert crossed Pulteney Bridge with a light step. He grinned at the boy raking odiferous horse manure to the curb and tipped him well for his service. He nodded—with a grin—to the puzzled driver of a hack heading into the city. And he bowed—with a grin—as he stepped aside to allow the weary-looking woman with two toddlers to pass. None to see him would realize that Robert had fallen under the hooves of a racing carriage and risen from the other side unscathed—metaphorically speaking, of course.

Thomas heard the stamping of hooves of horses, a shout of warning, and the Institute carriage came crashing through the Portal barely remaining on all four of its wheels as it came. Balios and Xanthos looked very pleased with themselves as the carriage spun in midair and landed, with a jarring thud, at the foot of the steps. Magnus Bane was in the driver’s seat, wearing a dramatic white opera scarf and holding the reins in his right hand. He looked even more pleased with himself than the horses. “I wondered if it was possible to ride a carriage through a Portal,” he said, jumping down from the seat. “As it turns out, it is. Delightful.” The carriage doors opened, and rather unsteadily, Will, Lucie, and a boy Thomas didn’t know clambered out. Lucie waved at Thomas before leaning against the side of the carriage; she was looking rather green about the gills. Will went around the carriage to unstrap the luggage, while the unfamiliar boy—tall and slender, with straight black hair and a pretty face—put a hand on Lucie’s shoulder. Which was surprising—it was an intimate gesture, one that would be considered impolite unless the boy and girl in question were friends or relatives, or had an understanding between them. It seemed, however, unlikely that Lucie could have an understanding with someone Thomas had never seen before. He rather bristled at the thought, in an older-brother way—James didn’t seem to be here, so someone had to do the bristling for him. “I told you it would work!” Will cried in Magnus’s direction. Magnus was busy magicking the unfastened baggage to the top of the steps, blue sparks darting like fireflies from his gloved fingertips. “We should have done that on the way out!” “You did not say it would work,” Magnus said. “You said, as I recall, ‘By the Angel, he’s going to kill us all.’ “Never,” said Will. “My faith in you is unshakable, Magnus. Which is good,” he added, rocking back and forth a little, “because the rest of me feels quite shaken indeed.

If every person is to be banished from society who runs into debt and cannot pay—if we are to be peering into everybody's private life, speculating upon their income, and cutting them if we don't approve of their expenditure—why, what a howling wilderness and intolerable dwelling Vanity Fair would be! Every man's hand would be against his neighbor in this case, my dear sir, and the benefits of civilization would be done away with. We should be quarreling, abusing, avoiding one another. Our houses would become caverns, and we should go in rags because we cared for nobody. Rents would go down. Parties wouldn't be given any more. All the tradesmen of the town would be bankrupt. Wine, wax-lights, comestibles, rouge, crinoline-petticoats, diamonds, wigs, Louis-Quatorze gimcracks, and old china, park hacks, and splendid high-stepping carriage horses—all the delights of life, I say,—would go to the deuce, if people did but act upon their silly principles and avoid those whom they dislike and abuse. Whereas, by a little charity and mutual forbearance, things are made to go on pleasantly enough: we may abuse a man as much as we like, and call him the greatest rascal unhanged—but do we wish to hang him therefore? No. We shake hands when we meet. If his cook is good we forgive him and go and dine with him, and we expect he will do the same by us. Thus trade flourishes—civilization advances; peace is kept; new dresses are wanted for new assemblies every week; and the last year's vintage of Lafitte will remunerate the honest proprietor who reared it.

A massive ball of brown water, uprooted tree trunks, sheared rooftops, bloated horses, stiff dogs and cats, shattered church windows, broken pews, sodden Bibles, Memorial Day flags, busted brick walls, twisted train cars, splintered rail lines, bowed streetlamps, upturned carriages, naked dolls, bent tin soldiers, dented red wagons, books, black stoves, beds, tables, armchairs, mantels, photographs, love letters, wedding dresses, baby booties, and masses of drowned humanity careens straight for us. Neither Eugene Eggar nor I can move.

have kitchens, who have liveries, who make good cheer, who eat moor-hens on Friday, who strut about, a lackey before, a lackey behind, in a gala coach, and who have palaces, and who roll in their carriages in the name of Jesus Christ who went barefoot! You are a prelate,—revenues, palace, horses, servants, good table, all the sensualities of life; you have this like the rest, and like the rest, you enjoy it; it is well; but this says either too much or too little; this does not enlighten me upon the intrinsic and essential value of the man

The prodigal son of the Scriptures went to live in a distant land to waste in dissipation all the wealth which his father had given him when he set out. But, to reach that land, he did not hire horses, carriages, or ships; he did not take to the air on real wings or set one foot before the other. For you were the Father who gave him riches. You loved him when he set out and you loved him still more when he came home without a penny. But he set his heart on pleasure and his soul was blinded, and this blindness was the measure of the distance he travelled away from you, so that he could not see your face.

I lean back against the velvet-cushioned seat and close my eyes to the sound of hooves pounding hard against the cobblestone streets. Their clip-clopping harmony keeping perfect tempo with the rumble of carriage wheels, affording a sound as sweet as any symphony I've ever heard. It's the sound of escape The sound of goodbye A sound that's served to soothe me in the past, providing the much-needed assurance that the unwelcome inquiries and suspicions of newly alerted acquaintances would soon fade - allowing for a brief respite in a new location, before I'm on the move again. I'm a gypsy. A nomad. A vagabond. A drifter.

Faster than fairies, faster than witches, Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches; And charging along like troops in a battle All through the meadows the horses and cattle: All of the sights of the hill and the plain Fly as thick as driving rain; And ever again, in the wink of an eye, Painted stations whistle by. Here is a child who clambers and scrambles, All by himself and gathering brambles; Here is a tramp who stands and gazes; And here is the green for stringing the daisies! Here is a cart runaway in the road Lumping along with man and load; And here is a mill, and there is a river: Each a glimpse and gone forever! From A Railway Carriage

The avenue seemed full of gay people these days, persons as happy as she. At intervals were stationed the mounted traffic police. Their splendid figures, their neat, well-fitting uniforms, their highly polished puttees protecting perfectly formed legs, the thigh outlined by pressure against the horse's side, all combined to make a picture which she found irresistibly appealing. She found herself looking for the mounted police. She formed preferences for one or the other. She thought of the Aztecs with their idea that men astride of horses were some kind of god,and she smiled to think that her poetic sense was interpreting these horsemen in the same light. She liked especially to view the officers from the back, the torso, the carriage, the outline of the leg all accentuated.

Ronan was waiting in his family’s stables. He played with the gloves in his hands as he stood watching Kestrel and Arin ride toward him. “I thought you would take the carriage,” Ronan said to Kestrel. “To go riding? Really, Ronan.” “But your escort.” His eyes cut to Arin sitting easily on the stallion. “I didn’t think any of your slaves rode.” Kestrel watched Ronan tug at the gloves’ fingers. “Is there a problem?” “Now that you are here, certainly not.” Yet his voice was strained. “Because if you don’t like the way in which I have come, you may ride to my house the next time you invite me, then escort me back to your estate, then see me safely home again, and go back the way you came.” He responded to her words as if they had been flirtatious. “It would be my pleasure. Speaking of pleasure, let’s take some together.” He mounted his horse. “Where is Jess?” “Sick with a headache.” Somehow Kestrel doubted that. She said nothing, however, and let Ronan lead the way out of the stables. She turned to follow, and Arin did the same. Ronan glanced back, blond hair brushing over his shoulder. “Surely you don’t intend for him to join us.” Arin’s horse, perfectly calm up until this point, began to shift and balk. It was sensing the tension Kestrel couldn’t see in its rider, who looked impassively at her, waiting for her to translate Ronan’s words into Herrani so that he could pretend it was necessary. “Wait here,” she told him in his language. He wheeled the horse back toward the stables. “You should vary your escorts,” Ronan told Kestrel as Arin rode away. “That one stays too close to your heels.

To the door of an inn in the provincial town of N. there drew up a smart britchka—a light spring-carriage of the sort affected by bachelors, retired lieutenant-colonels, staff-captains, land-owners possessed of about a hundred souls, and, in short, all persons who rank as gentlemen of the intermediate category. In the britchka was seated such a gentleman—a man who, though not handsome, was not ill-favoured, not over-fat, and not over-thin. Also, though not over-elderly, he was not over-young. His arrival produced no stir in the town, and was accompanied by no particular incident, beyond that a couple of peasants who happened to be standing at the door of a dramshop exchanged a few comments with reference to the equipage rather than to the individual who was seated in it. "Look at that carriage," one of them said to the other. "Think you it will be going as far as Moscow?" "I think it will," replied his companion. "But not as far as Kazan, eh?" "No, not as far as Kazan." With that the conversation ended. Presently, as the britchka was approaching the inn, it was met by a young man in a pair of very short, very tight breeches of white dimity, a quasi-fashionable frockcoat, and a dickey fastened with a pistol-shaped bronze tie-pin. The young man turned his head as he passed the britchka and eyed it attentively; after which he clapped his hand to his cap (which was in danger of being removed by the wind) and resumed his way. On the vehicle reaching the inn door, its occupant found standing there to welcome him the polevoi, or waiter, of the establishment—an individual of such nimble and brisk movement that even to distinguish the character of his face was impossible. Running out with a napkin in one hand and his lanky form clad in a tailcoat, reaching almost to the nape of his neck, he tossed back his locks, and escorted the gentleman upstairs, along a wooden gallery, and so to the bedchamber which God had prepared for the gentleman's reception. The said bedchamber was of quite ordinary appearance, since the inn belonged to the species to be found in all provincial towns—the species wherein, for two roubles a day, travellers may obtain a room swarming with black-beetles, and communicating by a doorway with the apartment adjoining. True, the doorway may be blocked up with a wardrobe; yet behind it, in all probability, there will be standing a silent, motionless neighbour whose ears are burning to learn every possible detail concerning the latest arrival. The inn's exterior corresponded with its interior. Long, and consisting only of two storeys, the building had its lower half destitute of stucco; with the result that the dark-red bricks, originally more or less dingy, had grown yet dingier under the influence of atmospheric changes. As for the upper half of the building, it was, of course, painted the usual tint of unfading yellow. Within, on the ground floor, there stood a number of benches heaped with horse-collars, rope, and sheepskins; while the window-seat accommodated a sbitentshik[1], cheek by jowl with a samovar[2]—the latter so closely resembling the former in appearance that, but for the fact of the samovar possessing a pitch-black lip, the samovar and the sbitentshik might have been two of a pair.

Through the door at the end of the hall, Bushrod could see daylight. Gray and sullen it was, but daylight all the same. Through the years Bushrod had seen the dawn come to many fields, after many hard fights, and it was always a sacred moment to him--proof that the universe was still intact in spite of the blood on the ground, the hosts of Departed beginning their first day in eternity, the dead horses and broken gun carriages and scattered equipment--in spite of all the panoramic ruin of the battlefield so brutal and grotesque that it was a wonder God did not bury it in darkness forever--and with it the guilty living, who crept from their holes or their stiff blankets and looked about with astonishment on what they had done. But God never would bury it. He always seemed to want to start over again, whether out of anger or pity Bushrod could not say. And now here was another dawn, after another great fight, and once more God had permitted Bushrod Carter to live.

She had better have stayed at home,” cried Elizabeth; “perhaps she meant well, but, under such a misfortune as this, one cannot see too little of one’s neighbours. Assistance is impossible; condolence insufferable. Let them triumph over us at a distance, and be satisfied.” She then proceeded to inquire into the measures which her father had intended to pursue, while in town, for the recovery of his daughter. “He meant I believe,” replied Jane, “to go to Epsom, the place where they last changed horses, see the postilions and try if anything could be made out from them. His principal object must be to discover the number of the hackney coach which took them from Clapham. It had come with a fare from London; and as he thought that the circumstance of a gentleman and lady’s removing from one carriage into another might be remarked he meant to make inquiries at Clapham. If he could anyhow discover at what house the coachman had before set down his fare, he determined

Ethan! What on earth are you doing?" "Excuse us,please.It is very warm in here and my wife has begun to feel a little faint." With a smile fixed on his face,giving a series of the same brief explanation,he carried her through the crush,out the front door of the mansion,along the gravel drive to where his carriage was parked. "Home,Jennings," he said to the coachman as a footman opened the door. "And don't spare the horses." Setting her swiftly on the carriage seat, he climbed in and took a place beside her. "Are you insane?" Grace stared at him with disbelief as the matched pair of grays stepped into their traces and the coach jolted forward. "We can't just leave. We're the guests of honor! What will people think?" "They will thank that I am ravenous for my wife's lovely body,and I am." "But-" "Another word,Grace, and I swear I will take you right here." Her eyes widened for an instant, then she sat back on the seat of the carriage, careful to keep facing forward, casting him only an occasional sideways glance. If his body hadn't been throbbing with such urgent need,he might have smiled.

He took her horse. Kestrel saw the logic. Her carriage had been abandoned on the road and the stables were largely empty, since many horses had gone with her father. Javelin was the best of those that remained. In war, property goes to those who can seize and keep it, so the stallion was Arin’s. But it hurt. He studied her warily as he saddled Javelin. The stables rang with noise: the sounds of other Herrani readying horses to ride, the beasts whickering as they smelled human tension, the thumps of wood under hooves and feet. Yet Arin was silent, and watched Kestrel. The first thing he had done after entering the stables was grab a set of reins, slice the leather with a knife, bind Kestrel’s hands, and place her under guard. It didn’t matter that she was powerless. He watched her as if she weren’t. Or maybe he was just contemplating how hard it would be to bring a captive on horseback into the city and down to the harbor. This would have given Kestrel some satisfaction if she hadn’t been very aware of what he should do. Knock her unconscious, if he wanted to keep his prize. Kill her, if he had changed his mind. Imprison her, if she was too much trouble either way. She saw his solutions as well as he must.

And then England—southern England, probably the sleekest landscape in the world. It is difficult when you pass that way, especially when you are peacefully recovering from seasickness with the plush cushions of a boat-train carriage underneath you, to believe that anything is really happening anywhere. Earthquakes in Japan, famines in China, revolutions in Mexico? Don’t worry, the milk will be on the doorstep tomorrow morning, the New Statesman will come out on Friday. The industrial towns were far away, a smudge of smoke and misery hidden by the curve of the earth’s surface. Down here it was still the England I had known in my childhood: the railway-cuttings smothered in wild flowers, the deep meadows where the great shining horses browse and meditate, the slow-moving streams bordered by willows, the green bosoms of the elms, the larkspurs in the cottage gardens; and then the huge peaceful wilderness of outer London, the barges on the miry river, the familiar streets, the posters telling of cricket matches and Royal weddings, the men in bowler hats, the pigeons in Trafalgar Square, the red buses, the blue policemen—all sleeping the deep, deep sleep of England, from which I sometimes fear that we shall never wake till we are jerked out of it by the roar of bombs.

Until that moment Elizabeth wouldn’t have believed she could feel more humiliated than she already did. Robbed of even the defense of righteous indignation, she faced the fact that she was the unwanted gest of someone who’d made a fool of her not once but twice. “How did you get here? I didn’t hear any horses, and a carriage sure as well can’t make the climb.” “A wheeled conveyance brought us most of the way,” she prevaricated, seizing on Lucinda’s earlier explanation, “and it’s gone on now.” She saw his eyes narrow with angry disgust as he realized he was stuck with them unless he wanted to spend several days escorting them back to the inn. Terrified that the tears burning the backs of her eyes were going to fall, Elizabeth tipped her head back and turned it, pretending to be inspecting the ceiling, the staircase, the walls, anything. Through the haze of tears she noticed for the first time that the place looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned in a year. Beside her Lucinda glanced around through narrowed eyes and arrived at the same conclusion. Jake, anticipating that the old woman was about to make some disparaging comment about Ian’s house, leapt into the breach with forced joviality. “Well, now,” he burst out, rubbing his hands together and striding forward to the fire. “Now that’s all settled, shall we all be properly introduced? Then we’ll see about supper.” He looked expectantly at Ian, waiting for him to handle the introductions, but instead of doing the thing properly he merely nodded curtly to the beautiful blond girl and said, “Elizabeth Cameron-Jake Wiley.” “How do you do, Mr. Wiley,” Elizabeth said. “Call me Jake,” he said cheerfully, then he turned expectantly to the scowling duenna. “And you are?” Fearing that Lucinda was about to rip up at Ian for his cavalier handling of the introductions, Elizabeth hastily said, “This is my companion, Miss Lucinda Throckmorton-Jones.” “Good heavens! Two names. Well, no need to stand on formality, since we’re going to be cooped up together for at least a few days! Just call me Jake. What shall I call you?” “You may call me Miss Throckmorton-Jones,” she informed him, looking down the length of her beaklike nose. “Er-very well,” he replied, casting an anxious look of appeal to Ian, who seemed to be momentarily enjoying Jake’s futile efforts to create an atmosphere of conviviality. Disconcerted, Jake ran his hands through his disheveled hair and arranged a forced smile on her face. Nervously, he gestured about the untidy room. “Well, now, if we’d known we were going to have such…ah…gra…that is, illustrious company, we’d have-“ “Swept off the chairs?” Lucinda suggested acidly. “Shoveled off the floor?

When the result of the lawsuit was made known (and rumour flew much quicker than the telegraph which has supplanted it), the whole town was filled with rejoicings. [Horses were put into carriages for the sole purpose of being taken out. Empty barouches and landaus were trundled up and down the High Street incessantly. Addresses were read from the Bull. Replies were made from the Stag. The town was illuminated. Gold caskets were securely sealed in glass cases. Coins were well and duly laid under stones. Hospitals were founded. Rat and Sparrow clubs were inaugurated. Turkish women by the dozen were burnt in effigy in the market place, together with scores of peasant boys with the label ‘I am a base Pretender’, lolling from their mouths. The Queen’s cream-coloured ponies were soon seen trotting up the avenue with a command to Orlando to dine and sleep at the Castle, that very same night. Her table, as on a previous occasion, was snowed under with invitations from the Countess of R., Lady Q., Lady Palmerston, the Marchioness of P., Mrs. W.E. Gladstone, and others, beseeching the pleasure of her company, reminding her of ancient alliances between their family and her own, etc.] — all of which is properly enclosed in square brackets, as above, for the good reason that a parenthesis it was without any importance in Orlando’s life. She skipped it, to get on with the text

When the result of the lawsuit was made known (and rumour flew much quicker than the telegraph which has supplanted it), the whole town was filled with rejoicings. [Horses were put into carriages for the sole purpose of being taken out. Empty barouches and landaus were trundled up and down the High Street incessantly. Addresses were read from the Bull. Replies were made from the Stag. The town was illuminated. Gold caskets were securely sealed in glass cases. Coins were well and duly laid under stones. Hospitals were founded. Rat and Sparrow clubs were inaugurated. Turkish women by the dozen were burnt in effigy in the market place, together with scores of peasant boys with the label ‘I am a base Pretender’, lolling from their mouths. The Queen’s cream-coloured ponies were soon seen trotting up the avenue with a command to Orlando to dine and sleep at the Castle, that very same night. Her table, as on a previous occasion, was snowed under with invitations from the Countess of R., Lady Q., Lady Palmerston, the Marchioness of P., Mrs. W.E. Gladstone, and others, beseeching the pleasure of her company, reminding her of ancient alliances between their family and her own, etc.] — all of which is properly enclosed in square brackets, as above, for the good reason that a parenthesis it was without any importance in Orlando’s life. She skipped it, to get on with the text.

When the result of the lawsuit was made known (and rumour flew much quicker than the telegraph which has supplanted it), the whole town was filled with rejoicings. [Horses were put into carriages for the sole purpose of being taken out. Empty barouches and landaus were trundled up and down the High Street incessantly. Addresses were read from the Bull. Replies were made from the Stag. The town was illuminated. Gold caskets were securely sealed in glass cases. Coins were well and duly laid under stones. Hospitals were founded. Rat and Sparrow clubs were inaugurated. Turkish women by the dozen were burnt in effigy in the market place, together with scores of peasant boys with the label ‘I am a base Pretender’, lolling from their mouths. The Queen’s cream-coloured ponies were soon seen trotting up the avenue with a command to Orlando to dine and sleep at the Castle, that very same night. Her table, as on a previous occasion, was snowed under with invitations from the Countess of R., Lady Q., Lady Palmerston, the Marchioness of P., Mrs. W.E. Gladstone, and others, beseeching the pleasure of her company, reminding her of ancient alliances between their family and her own, etc.] — all of which is properly enclosed in square brackets, as above, for the good reason that a parenthesis it was without any importance in Orlando’s life. She skipped it, to get on with the text.

Jackaby did not speak as we left the building. We were three or four blocks away from the station house when Lydia Lee caught up to us, the coach rattling and clinking and the dappled gray horse stamping its hooves impatiently on the cobblestones. Miss Lee managed to convince the Duke to clop to a halt just ahead of us, and my employer climbed into the carriage wordlessly. Miss Lee gave me an inquisitive look, but Jackaby finally broke his silence before I could explain. “Don’t bother with niceties. Take me home, Miss Lee.” He thought for a moment. “I’m going to need you to go to jail for me afterward.” “That is the second time a man’s said those words to me,” she replied gamely. “Although the last time I got flowers and a dance first, if memory serves.” “Bail,” amended Jackaby as Miss Lee hopped back into the driver’s box. “They usually do, in the end,” she said, sighing. “What? Listen, I have a jar of banknotes in my office earmarked for bail. I’ll bring it out to you as soon as we arrive. I need you to bring it to the processing officer at the Mason Street Station. He’ll sort out the paperwork. Just sign where he tells you to. Ask for Alton.” “Allan,” I corrected. “I’m fairly sure it’s Alton,” said Jackaby. “You want me to post bail for somebody?” Miss Lee called down as the carriage began to rattle on down the street. “I guess I can do that.” “Thank you,” Jackaby called back to her. “Who am I bailing out?” “Everyone.” The carriage bumped along the paving stones for a silent stretch. “By everyone, you mean . . . ?” “It is a rather large jar of banknotes,” said Jackaby. “Right,” came Miss Lee’s voice at length. “You’re the boss.

I'm unaccustomed to being cooped up all day-I really must insist that you permit me to enjoy a short walk." "Not on your life," Fletcher growled. From the sound, Breckenridge realized the group had moved closer to the tap. "You don't need to think you're going to give us the slip so easily," Fletcher said again. "My dear good man"-Heather with her nose in the air; Breckenridge could tell by her tone-"just where in this landscape of empty fields do you imagine I'm going to slip to?" Cobbins opined that she might try to steal a horse and ride off. "Oh,yes-in a round gown and evening slippers," Heather jeered. "But I wasn't suggesting you let me ramble on my own-Martha can come with me." That was Martha's cue to enter the fray, but Heather stuck to her guns, refusing to back down through the ensuing, increasingly heated verbal stoush. Until Fletcher intervened, aggravated frustration resonating in his voice. "Look you-we're under strict orders to keep you safe, not to let you wander off to fall prey to the first shiftless rake who rides past and takes a fancy to you." Silence reigned for half a minute, then Heather audibly sniffed. "I'll have you know that shiftless rakes know better than to take a fancy to me." Not true, Breckenridge thought, but that wasn't the startling information contained in Fletcher's outburst. "Come on, Heather-follow up." As if she'd heard his muttered exhortation, she blithely swept on. "But if rather than standing there arguing, you instead treated me like a sensible adult and told me what your so strict orders with respect to me were, I might see my way to complying-or at least to helping you comply with them." Breckenridge blinked as he sorted through that pronouncement; he could almost feel for Fletcher when he hissed out a sigh. "All right," Fletcher's frustration had reached breaking point. "If you must know, we're to keep you safe from all harm. We're not to let a bloody pigeon pluck so much as a hair from your head. We're to deliver you up in prime condition, exactly as you were when he grabbed you." From the change in Fletcher's tone, Breckenridge could visualize him moving closer to tower over Heather to intimidate her into backing down; he could have told him it wouldn't work. "So now you see," Fletcher went on, voice low and forceful, "that it's entirely out of the question for you to go out for any ramble." "Hmm." Heather's tone was tellingly mild. Fletcher was about to get floored by an uppercut. For once not being on the receiving end, Breckenridge grinned and waited for it to land. "If, as you say, your orders are to-do correct me if I'm wrong-keep me in my customary excellent health until you hand me over to your employer, then, my dear Fletcher, that will absolutely necessitate me going for a walk. Being cooped up all day in a carriage has never agreed with me-if you don't wish me to weaken or develop some unhealthy affliction, I will require fresh air and gentle exercise to recoup." She paused, then went on, her tone one of utmost reasonableness, "A short excursion along the river at the rear of the inn, and back, should restore my constitution." Breckenridge was certain he could hear Fletcher breathing in and out through clenched teeth. A fraught moment passed on, then, "Oh, very well! Martha-go with her. Twenty minutes, do you hear? Not a minute more." "Thank you, Fletcher. Come, Martha-we don't want to waste the light." Breckenridge heard Heather, with the rather slower Martha, leave the inn by the main door. He sipped his ale, waited. Eventually, Fletcher and Cobbins climbed the stairs, Cobbins grumbling, Fletcher ominously silent. The instant they passed out of hearing, Breckenridge stood, stretched, then walked out of the tap and into the foyer. Seconds later, he slipped out of the front door.

Maxim’s grandmother suffered her in patience. She closed her eyes as though she too were tired. She looked more like Maxim than ever. I knew how she must have looked when she was young, tall, and handsome, going round to the stables at Manderley with sugar in her pockets, holding her trailing skirt out of the mud. I pictured the nipped-in waist, the high collar, I heard her ordering the carriage for two o’clock. That was all finished now for her, all gone. Her husband had been dead for forty years, her son for fifteen. She had to live in this bright, red-gabled house with the nurse until it was time for her to die. I thought how little we know about the feelings of old people. Children we understand, their fears and hopes and make-believe. I was a child yesterday. I had not forgotten. But Maxim’s grandmother, sitting there in her shawl with her poor blind eyes, what did she feel, what was she thinking? Did she know that Beatrice was yawning and glancing at her watch? Did she guess that we had come to visit her because we felt it right, it was a duty, so that when she got home afterwards Beatrice would be able to say, “Well, that clears my conscience for three months”? Did she ever think about Manderley? Did she remember sitting at the dining room table, where I sat? Did she too have tea under the chestnut tree? Or was it all forgotten and laid aside, and was there nothing left behind that calm, pale face of hers but little aches and little strange discomforts, a blurred thankfulness when the sun shone, a tremor when the wind blew cold? I wished that I could lay my hands upon her face and take the years away. I wished I could see her young, as she was once, with color in her cheeks and chestnut hair, alert and active as Beatrice by her side, talking as she did about hunting, hounds, and horses. Not sitting there with her eyes closed while the nurse thumped the pillows behind her head.

let my thoughts be bestowed on her who has shown so much devotion for me. Madame de Belliere ought to be there by this time," he said, as he turned towards the secret door. After he had locked himself in, he opened the subterranean passage, and rapidly hastened towards the means of communicating between the house at Vincennes and his own residence. He had neglected to apprise his friend of his approach, by ringing the bell, perfectly assured that she would never fail to be exact at the rendezvous; as, indeed, was the case, for she was already waiting. The noise the superintendent made aroused her; she ran to take from under the door the letter he had thrust there, and which simply said, "Come, marquise; we are waiting supper for you." With her heart filled with happiness Madame de Belliere ran to her carriage in the Avenue de Vincennes, and in a few minutes she was holding out her hand to Gourville, who was standing at the entrance, where, in order the better to please his master, he had stationed himself to watch her arrival. She had not observed that Fouquet's black horse arrived at the same time, all steaming and foam-flaked, having returned to Saint-Mande with Pelisson and the very jeweler to whom Madame de Belliere had sold her plate and her jewels. Pelisson introduced the goldsmith into the cabinet, which Fouquet had not yet left. The superintendent thanked him for having been good enough to regard as a simple deposit in his hands, the valuable property which he had every right to sell; and he cast his eyes on the total of the account, which amounted to thirteen hundred thousand francs. Then, going for a few moments to his desk, he wrote an order for fourteen hundred thousand francs, payable at sight, at his treasury, before twelve o'clock the next day. "A hundred thousand francs profit!" cried the goldsmith. "Oh, monseigneur, what generosity!" "Nay, nay, not so, monsieur," said Fouquet, touching him on the shoulder; "there are certain kindnesses which can never be repaid. This profit is only what you have earned; but the interest of your money still remains to be arranged." And, saying this, he unfastened from his sleeve a diamond button, which the goldsmith himself had often valued at three thousand pistoles.

It is foolish to be in thrall to fame and fortune, engaged in painful striving all your life with never a moment of peace and tranquillity. Great wealth will drive you to neglect your own well-being in pursuit of it. It is asking for harm and tempting trouble. Though you leave behind at your death a mountain of gold high enough to prop up the North Star itself, it will only cause problems for those who come after you. Nor is there any point in all those pleasures that delight the eyes of fools. Big carriages, fat horses, glittering gold and jewels – any man of sensibility would view such things as gross stupidity. Toss your gold away in the mountains; hurl your jewels into the deep. Only a complete fool is led astray by avarice. Everyone would like to leave their name unburied for posterity – but the high-born and exalted are not necessarily fine people, surely. A dull, stupid person can be born into a good house, attain high status thanks to opportunity and live in the height of luxury, while many wonderfully wise and saintly men choose to remain in lowly positions, and end their days without ever having met with good fortune. A fierce craving for high status and position is next in folly to the lust for fortune. We long to leave a name for our exceptional wisdom and sensibility – but when you really think about it, desire for a good reputation is merely revelling in the praise of others. Neither those who praise us nor those who denigrate will remain in the world for long, and others who hear their opinions will be gone in short order as well. Just who should we feel ashamed before, then? Whose is the recognition we should crave? Fame in fact attracts abuse and slander. No, there is nothing to be gained from leaving a lasting name. The lust for fame is the third folly. Let me now say a few words, however, to those who dedicate themselves to the search for knowledge and the desire for understanding. Knowledge leads to deception; talent and ability only serve to increase earthly desires. Knowledge acquired by listening to others or through study is not true knowledge. So what then should we call knowledge? Right and wrong are simply part of a single continuum. What should we call good? One who is truly wise has no knowledge or virtue, nor honour nor fame. Who then will know of him, and speak of him to others? This is not because he hides his virtue and pretends foolishness – he is beyond all distinctions such as wise and foolish, gain and loss. I have been speaking of what it is to cling to one’s delusions and seek after fame and fortune. All things of this phenomenal world are mere illusion. They are worth neither discussing nor desiring.

My bisnonno is such a man...Fine, you laugh again. Not so handsome,I think,but just as proud. He struts through the square with his new shoes. He buys a carriage. But he gives to the poor,too, to the Church.He is kind to his siters; he is a friend to many.He is raffinato, a gentleman. And the girl he chooses? Hmm? Hmm?" "I don't know, Nonna. Elizabeth Benedetto?" "Hah!" Nonna slapped her hand hard against her knee. It bounced soundlessly off the leopard plush. "Elisabetta. Elisabetta, daughter of a man who works on another's boat. Elisabetta who has many sisters and who is intended for the Church if she does not marry. I don't remember her family name, if I ever knew. Maybe Benedetto.Why not? It does not matter.What matters is that no one understands why Michelangelo Costa chooses this girl. No one can...oh,the word...to say a picture of: descrivere." "Describe?" "Si. Describe.No one can describe her.Small,they think. Brown, maybe. Maybe not so pretty, not so ugly. Just a girl. She sits by the seawall mending nets her family does not own. She is odd,too,her neighbors think.They think it is she who leaves little bit of shell and rock when she is done with the nets, little mosaico on the wall. So why? the piu bella girls ask, the ones with long,long necks, and long black hair, and noses that turn up at the end. Why this odd, nobody girl in her ugly dresses, with her dirty feet? "Michelangelo sends his cousins to her with gifts. A cameo, silk handkerchiefs, a fine pair of gloves. Again,the laugh.Then, you would not have laughed at a gift of gloves, piccola. Oh,you girls now. You want what? E-mails and ePods?" "That's iPods,Nonna." "Whatever. See,that word I know. Now, Elisabetta sends back the little girst. So my bisnonno sends bigger: pearls, meters of silk cloth, a horse. These,too,she will not take. And the people begin to look,and ask: Who is she, this nobody girl,to refuse him? No money,no beauty,no family name.You are a fool,they tell her. Accept. Accept! "And my proud bisnonno does not understand. He can have any girl in the town.So again,he gathers the gifts, he carries them himself, leads the horse. But Elisabetta is not to be found. She is not at her papa's house or in the square or at the seawall. Michelangelo fears she has gone to the convent. But no. As he stands at the seawall, a seabird,a gull, lands on his shoulder and says-" "Nonna-" "Shh! The girl tells him to follow the delfino....delfin? Dolphin! So he looks, and there, a dolphin with its head above the water says, 'Follow!' So he follows,the sack with gifts for Elisabetta on his back,like a peddler, the horse trailing behind.The dolphin leads him around the bay to a beach, and there is Elisabetta, old dress covered in sand,feet bare, just drawing circles in the sand. She starts to run, but Michelangelo calls to her. 'Why,' he asks her. 'Why do you hide? Why will you not take my gifts?' And she says..." I'd been fighting a losing battle with yawning for a while. I was failing fast. "I have no idea. 'I'm in love with someone else.'?

That black horse we used for packin’ up here is the most cantankerous beast alive,” Jake grumbled, rubbing his arm. Ian lifted his gaze from the initials on the tabletop and turned to Jake, making no attempt to hide his amusement. “Bit you, did he?” “Damn right he bit me!” the older man said bitterly. “He’s been after a chuck of me since we left the coach at Hayborn and loaded those sacks on his back to bring up here.” “I warned you he bites anything he can reach. Keep your arm out of his way when you’re saddling him.” “It weren’t my arm he was after, it was my arse! Opened his mouth and went for it, only I saw him outter the corner of my eye and swung around, so he missed.” Jakes’s frown darkened when he saw the amusement in Ian’s expression. “Can’t see why you’ve bothered to feed him all these years. He doesn’t deserve to share a stable with your other horses-beauties they are, every one but him.” “Try slinging packs over the backs of one of those and you’ll see why I took him. He was suitable for using as a pack mule; none of my other cattle would have been,” ian said, frowning as he lifted his head and looked about at the months of accumulated dirt covering everything. “He’s slower’n a pack mule,” Jake replied. “Mean and stubborn and slow,” he concluded, but he, too, was frowning a little as he looked around at the thick layers of dust coating every surface. “Thought you said you’d arranged for some village wenches to come up here and clean and cook fer us. This place is a mess.” “I did. I dictated a message to Peters for the caretaker, asking him to stock the place with food and to have two women come up here to clean and cook. The food is here, and there are chickens out in the barn. He must be having difficulty finding two women to stay up here.” “Comely women, I hope,” Jake said. “Did you tell him to make the wenches comely?” Ian paused in his study of the spiderwebs strewn across the ceiling and cast him an amused look. “You wanted me to tell a seventy-year-old caretaker who’s half-blind to make certain the wenches were comely?” “Couldn’ta hurt ‘t mention it,” Jake grumbled, but he looked chastened. “The village is only twelve miles away. You can always stroll down there if you’ve urgent need of a woman while we’re here. Of course, the trip back up here may kill you,” he joked referring to the winding path up the cliff that seemed to be almost vertical. “Never mind women,” Jake said in an abrupt change of heart, his tanned, weathered face breaking into a broad grin. “I’m here for a fortnight of fishin’ and relaxin’, and that’s enough for any man. It’ll be like the old days, Ian-peace and quiet and naught else. No hoity-toity servants hearin’ every word what’s spoke, no carriages and barouches and matchmaking mamas arrivin’ at your house. I tell you, my boy, though I’ve not wanted to complain about the way you’ve been livin’ the past year, I don’t like these servents o’ yours above half. That’s why I didn’t come t’visit you very often. Yer butler at Montmayne holds his nose so far in t’air, it’s amazin’ he gets any oxhegen, and that French chef o’ yers practically threw me out of his kitchens. That what he called ‘em-his kitchens, and-“ The old seaman abruptly broke off, his expression going from irate to crestfallen, “Ian,” he said anxiously, “did you ever learn t’ cook while we was apart?” “No, did you?” “Hell and damnation, no!” Jake said, appalled at the prospect of having to eat anything he fixed himself.