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Green Dolphin Street

Book by Elizabeth Goudge · 11 quotes · Firsts, Giving, Self

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Green Dolphin Street Quotes

“. . .a peal of laughter sounded from within the room where the firelight was. . . .it was a boy’s laughter, and the joy of it called to the unhappy Marianne as nothing in her life had ever called to her before. He was standing on the hearthrug as a lord of creation should, his legs straddling arrogantly, his arms above his head as he stretched himself, his laughter caught up upon a prodigious yawn. He was broad-shouldered, strong, yet possessed of an elegance that was strangely mature, taller than she was but much younger. . .the brilliance of it was entangled in the wildly untidy shock of red-gold curly hair and there seemed sparks in his tawny eyes. His face was round and ruddy, with freckles on the nose, but finely featured. He had full red lips and a deep cleft in his chin, and he showed a great deal of pink tongue as he yawned. His coat and waistcoat of vivid emerald green cloth were stained with seawater and torn linings protruded from the pockets. His white cravat was soiled, the straps that should have fastened his long peg-top trousers beneath his instep had snapped, so that they coiled round his legs like delirious green snakes, and his shoes needed a polish. Never was a male so much in need of female attention or so blissfully unaware of his need. . . .she stood with her back against the door, stiff and ungainly, staring at him with great dark eyes that seemed to devour his face with the intensity of her gaze, and she could not move or speak because her heart was beating so madly that it made her feel sick and faint. Her figure might have delayed to plump itself out into the womanly roundness proper to her age, but her heart did not delay to claim this male creature for her own. She was in love, in love at sixteen, desperately in love, as Juliet was, and with a boy who for all his height and strength and maturity was only a child of thirteen years. It was absurd. But then Marianne was never at any time in the least like other girls.”

Falling In LoveLove At First Sight
Book:Green Dolphin Street
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“Someone once said to me,” said Marguerite, “that our home, our special country, is where we find liberation. I suppose she meant that it is where our souls find it easiest to escape from self, and it seems to me it is that way with us when what is about us echoes the best that we are. You feel at home in places that are kind and with people who are good fun because you’re kind and amusing yourself.” “What’s your home like, Marguerite?” asked William. “I can’t describe it exactly,” said Marguerite. “But when I am living in a particular sort of way I say to myself that now I am in my own country. It is when I am living very simply, and rather hardly, and the light is clear and the wind cold and there aren’t any lies or subterfuges. When I am there I have a feeling that a door opens out of it into yet another country where my soul has always lived, and that one day I shall find out how to unlock the door.”

HomeOur Special Country
Book:Green Dolphin Street
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