Home > Work > Lark Rise to Candleford
1 " One boy's a boy; two boys be half a boy, and three boys be no boy at all', ran the old country saying. "
― Flora Thompson , Lark Rise to Candleford
2 " There Laura spent many happy hours, supposed to be picking fruit for jam, but for the better part of the time reading or dreaming. One corner, overhung by a Samson tree and walled in with bushes and flowers, she called her 'green study'. "
3 " Twas a still, calm night and the moon's pale lightShone over hill and daleWhen friends mute with grief stood around the deathbedOf their loved, lost Lily Lyle.Heart as pure as forest lilyNever knowing guile,Had its home within the bosomOf sweet Lily Lyle. "
4 " Candleford Green was but a small village and there were fields and meadows and woods all around it. As soon as Laura crossed the doorstep, she could see some of these. But mere seeing from a distance did not satisfy her; she longed to go alone far into the fields and hear the birds singing, the brooks tinkling, and the wind rustling through the corn, as she had when a child. To smell things and touch things, warm earth and flowers and grasses, and to stand and gaze where no one could see her, drinking it all in. "
5 " When I am dead and in my headAnd all my bones are are rotten,Take this book and think of meAnd mind I'm not forgotten. "
6 " No, I be-ant expectin' nothin', but I be so yarnin "
7 " Traditions and customs which had lasted for centuries did not die out in a moment. "
8 " There is something exhilarating about pay-day, even when the pay is poor and already mortgaged for necessities. With "
9 " People were poorer and had not the comforts, amusements, or knowledge we have today; but they were happier. "
10 " The human eye loves to rest upon wide expanses of pure colour: the moors in the purple heyday of the heather, miles of green downland, and the sea when it lies calm and blue and boundless, all delight it; but to some none of these, lovely though they all are, can give the same satisfaction of spirit as acres upon acres of golden corn. There is both beauty and bread and the seeds of bread for future generations. "
11 " No book's too old for anybody who is able to enjoy it, and none too young, either, for that matter. Let her read what she likes. "
12 " to make up in an hour for all their wasted yesterdays. "
13 " Many of the great eaters grew very stout in later life; but this caused them no uneasiness; they regarded their [Pg 390] expanding girth as proper to middle age. Thin people were not admired. However cheerful and energetic they might appear, they were suspected of 'fretting away their fat' and warned that they were fast becoming 'walking miseries'. "
14 " You don't want to be poor and look poor, too,' they would say; and 'We've got our pride. Yes, we've got our pride. "