Susanna Clarke

“There are people in this world, whose lives are nothing but a burden to them. A black veil stands between them and the world. They are utterly alone. They are like shadows in the night, shut off from joy and all gentle human emotions, unable to even give comfort to each other. Their days are full of nothing but darkness, misery and solitude.”

“A lovely young Italian girl passed by. Byron tilted his head to a very odd angle, half-closed his eyes and composed his features to suggest that he was about to expire from chronic indigestion. Dr Greysteel could only suppose that he was treating the young woman to the Byronic profile and the Byronic expression.”

“Saints, such as me, ought always to listen attentively to the prayers of poor, dirty, ragged men, such as you. No matter how offensively those prayers are phased.”

“Beautiful flames, can destroy so many things—prison walls that hold you, stitches that bind you fast.”

“She had been a comet; and her blazing descent through dark skies had been plain for all to see.”

“I have been most industriously talking up your extraordinary powers to all my wide acquaintance,' continued Mr Drawlight. 'I have been your John the Baptist, sir, preparing the way for you!”

“He was sick of the noise and sight of so many people and determined to go quietly away, but it so happened that just at that moment the crowds about the door were particularly impenetrable; he was caught up in the current of people and carried away to quite another part of the room. Round and round he went like a dry leaf caught up in a drain; in one of these turns around the room he discovered a quiet corner near a window. A tall screen of carved ebony inlaid with mother-of-pearl half-hid - ah! what bliss was this! - a bookcase. Mr Norrell slipped behind the screen, took down John Npier's A Plaine Discouverie of the Whole Revelation of St John and began to read.”

“Mr Norrell determined to establish himself in London with all possible haste. "You must get a house, Childermass," he said. "Get me a house that says to those that visit it that magic is a respectable profession - no less than Law and a great deal more so than Medicine."Childermass inquired drily if Mr Norrell wished him to seek out architecture expressive of the proposition that magic was as respectable as the Church?Mr Norrell (who knew there were such things as jokes in the world or people would not write about them in books, but who had never actually been introduced to a joke or shaken its hand) considered a while before replying at last that no, he did not think they could quite claim that.”

“Long, long ago, (said the voice), five hundred years ago or more, on a winter's day at twilight, a young man entered the Church with a young girl with ivy leaves in her hair. There was no one else there but the stones. No one to see him strangle her but the stones. He let her fall dead upon the stones and no one saw but the stones. He was never punished for his sin because there were no witnesses but the stones. The years went by and whenever the man entered the Church and stood among the congregation the stones cried out that this was the man who had murdered the girl with the ivy leaves wound into her hair, but no one ever heard us. But it is not too late! We know where he is buried! In the corner of the south transept! Quick! Quick! Fetch picks! Fetch shovels! Pull up the paving stones. Dig up his bones! Let them be smashed with the shovel! Dash his skull against the pillars and break it! Let the stones have vengeance too! It is not too late! It is not too late!”

“The Emperor Napoleon Buonaparte had been banished to the island of Elba. However His Imperial Majesty had some doubts wheter a quiet island life would suit him - he was, after all, accustomed to governing a large proportion of the known world.”

“I am, as far as I can tell, about a month behind Lord Byron. In every town we stop at we discover innkeepers, postillions, officials, burghers, potboys, and all kinds and sorts of ladies whose brains still seem somewhat deranged from their brief exposure to his lordship. And though my companions are careful to tell people that I am that dreadful being, an English magician, I am clearly nothing in comparison to an English poet and everywhere I go I enjoy the reputation- quite new to me, I assure you- of the quiet, good Englishman, who makes no noise and is no trouble to any one...”

“The next day Mrs Honeyfoot told her husband that John Segundus was exactly what a gentleman should be, but she feared he would never profit by it for it was not the fashion to be modest and quiet and kind-hearted.”

“I have no cause to love Mr. Norrell- far from it. But I know this about him: he is a magician first and everything else second- and Jonathan is the same. Books and magic are all either of them really care about.”

“If I were you, Mr. Lascelles," said Childermass, softly, "I would speak more guardedly. You are in the north now. In John Uskglass's own country. Our towns and cities and abbeys were built by him. Our laws were made by him. He is our minds and hearts and speech. Were it summer you would see a carpet of tiny flowers beneath every hedgerow, of a bluish-white colour. We call them John’s Farthings. When the weather is contrary and we have warm weather in winter or it rains in summer the country people say that John Uskglass is in love again and neglects his business. And when we are sure of something we say it is as safe as a pebble in John Uskglass’s pocket.” Lascelles laughed. “Far be it from me, Mr. Childermass, to disparage your quaint country sayings. But surely it is one thing to pay lip-service to one’s history and quite another to talk of bringing back a King who numbered Lucifer himself among his allies and overlords? No one wants that, do they? I mean apart from a few Jihannites and madmen?” “I am a North Englishman, Mr. Lascelles,” said Childermass. “Nothing would please me better than that my King should come home. It is what I have wished for all my life.”

“A patrol had been sent out to look at the road between two towns, but some Portuguese had come along and told the patrol that this was one of the English magician's roads and was certain to disappear in an hour or two taking everyone upon it to Hell - or possibly England.”

“Mr. Norrell gazed at Strange with an odd expression upon his face as though he would have been glad of a little conversation with him, but had not the least idea how to begin.”

“…any cat he spoke to would stay quite still with an expression of faint surprise on its face as if it had never heard such good sense in all its life nor ever expected to again.”

“Not long, not long my father saidNot long shall you be oursThe Raven King knows all too wellWhich are the fairest flowers.The priest was all too worldlyThough he prayed and rang his bellThe Raven King three candles litThe priest said it was wellHer arms were all too feebleThough she claimed to love me soThe Raven King stretched out his handShe sighed and let me goThe land is all too shallowIt is painted on the skyAnd trembles like the wind-shook rainWhen the Raven King goes by For always and for alwaysI pray remember meUpon the moors, beneath the starsWith the King’s wild company.”

“I have a scholar's love of silence and solitude. To sit and pass hour after hour in idle chatter with a roomful of strangers is to me the worst sort of torment.”

“Poor gentleman," said Mr Segundus. "Perhaps it is the age. It is not an age for magic or scholarship, is it sir? Tradesmen prosper, sailors, politicians, but not magicians. Our time is past.”

“Besides,” said Mr Norrell, “I really have no desire to write reviews of other people's books. Modern publications upon magic are the most pernicious things in the world, full of misinformation and wrong opinions.” “Then sir, you may say so. The ruder you are, the more the editors will be delighted.” “But it is my own opinions which I wish to make better known, not other people's.” “Ah, but, sir,” said Lascelles, “it is precisely by passing judgements upon other people's work and pointing out their errors that readers can be made to understand your own opinions better. It is the easiest thing in the world to turn a review to one's own ends. One only need mention the book once or twice and for the rest of the article one may develop one's theme just as one chuses. It is, I assure you, what every body else does.” “Hmm,” said Mr Norrell thoughtfully, “you may be right. But, no. It would seem as if I were lending support to what ought never to have been published in the first place.”

“In his madness and his blindness he was Lear and Gloucester combined.”

“I was told once by some country people that a magician should never tell his dreams because the telling will make them come true. But I say that is great nonsense.”

“I mean that two of any thing is a most uncomfortable number. One may do as he pleases. Six may get along well enough. But two must always struggle for mastery. Two must always watch each other. The eyes of all the world will be on two, uncertain which of them to follow.”

“..perhaps mortals are not formed for fairy bliss?”

“Well, I suppose one ought not to employ a magician and then complain that he does not behave like other people.”

“You were always cheerful - tho' often left to your own devices. You were hardly ever out of temper - tho' often severely provoked. Your every speech was remarkable for its wit and genius - tho' you got no credit for it and almost always received a flat contradiction.”

“One day," he said,"I shall find the right spell and banish the Darkness And on that day I will come to you.”

“Yet it is true—skin can mean a great deal. Mine means that any man may strike me in a public place and never fear the consequences. It means that my friends do not always like to be seen with me in the street. It means that no matter how many books I read, or languages I master, I will never be anything but a curiosity—like a talking pig or a mathematical horse.”

“And I hope that all my readers are acquainted with an old English Cathedral town or I fear the significance of Mr Norrell’s chusing that particular place will be lost upon them. They must understand that in an old Cathedral town the great old church is not one building among many; it is the building - different from all others in scale, beauty, and solemnity. Even in modern times when an old Cathedral town may have provided itself with all the elegant appurtenances of civic buildings, assembly and meeting rooms (and York was well-stocked with these) the Cathedral rises above them - a witness to the devotion of our forefathers. It is as if the town contains within itself something larger than itself. When going about ones business in the muddle of narrow streets one is sure to lose sight of the Cathedral, but then the town will open out and suddenly it is there, many times taller and many times larger than any other building, and one realizes that one has reached the heart of the town and that all streets and lanes have in some way led here, to a place of mysteries much deeper than any Mr Norrell knew of. Such were Mr Segundus’s thoughts as he entered the Close and stood before the great brooding blue shadow of the Cathedral’s west face.”

“He understood for the first time that the world is not dumb at all, but merely waiting for someone to speak to it in a language it understands.”

“Beware Stephen! There will probably be a magical combat of some sort. I daresay I shall have to take on different forms – cockatrice, raw head and bloody bones, rains of fire, etc., etc. You may wish to stand back a little!”

“Could soldiers read? Mr Norrell did not know. He turned with a look of desperate appeal to Childermass.Childermass shrugged.”

“It is also true that his hair had a reddish tinge and, as everybody knows, no one with red hair can ever truly be said to be handsome.”

“Oh, Mr Norrell! Such a noodle I am upon occasion!”

“For this is England where a man's neighbours will never suffer him to live entirely bereft of society, let him be as dry and sour-faced as he may.”

“...in the old days, silvery bells would often sound just as some Englishman or Englishwoman of particular virtue or beauty was about to be stolen away by fairies to live in strange, ghostly lands for ever.”

“Houses, like people, are apt to become rather eccentric if left too much on their own; this house was the architectural equivalent of an old gentleman in a worn dressing-gown and torn slippers, who got up and went to bed at odd times of day, and who kept up a continual conversation with friends no one else could see.”

“The governess was not much liked in the village. She was too tall, too fond of books, too grave, and, a curious thing, never smiled unless there was something to smile at.”

“I reached out my hand, England's rivers turned and flowed the other way...I reached out my hand, my enemies's blood stopt in their veins...I reached out my hand; thought and memory flew out of my enemies' heads like a flock of starlings;My enemies crumpled like empty sacks.I came to them out of mists and rain;I came to them in dreams at midnight;I came to them in a flock of ravens that filled a northern sky at dawn;When they thought themselves safe I came to them in a cry that broke the silence of a winter wood...The rain made a door for me and I went through it;The stones made a throne for me and I sat upon it;Three kingdoms were given to me to be mine forever;England was given to me to be mine forever.The nameless slave wore a silver crown;The nameless slave was a king in a strange country...The weapons that my enemies raised against me are venerated in Hell as holy relics;Plans that my enemies made against me are preserved as holy texts;Blood that I shed upon ancient battlefields is scraped from the stained earth by Hell's sacristans and placed in a vessel of silver and ivory.I gave magic to England, a valuable inheritanceBut Englishmen have despised my giftMagic shall be written upon the sky by the rain but they shall not be able to read it;Magic shall be written on the faces of the stony hills but their minds shall not be able to contain it;In winter the barren trees shall be a black writing but they shall not understand it...Two magicians shall appear in England...The first shall fear me; the second shall long to behold me;The first shall be governed by thieves and murderers; the second shall conspire at his own destruction;The first shall bury his heart in a dark wood beneath the snow, yet still feel its ache;The second shall see his dearest posession in his enemy's hand...The first shall pass his life alone, he shall be his own gaoler;The second shall tread lonely roads, the storm above his head, seeking a dark tower upon a high hillside...I sit upon a black throne in the shadows but they shall not see me.The rain shall make a door for me and I shall pass through it;The stones shall make a throne for me and I shall sit upon it...The nameless slave shall wear a silver crownThe nameless slave shall be a king in a strange country...”

“He gave her his heart. She took it and placed it quietly in the pocket of her gown. No one observed what she did.”

“Such nonsense!" declared Dr Greysteel. "Whoever heard of cats doing anything useful!""Except for staring at one in a supercilious manner," said Strange. "That has a sort of moral usefulness, I suppose, in making one feel uncomfortable and encouraging sober reflection upon one's imperfections.”

“I hope there may be bogs and that John McKenzie may drown in them.”

“I have always heard that Italian women are rather fierce.”

“Above all remember this: that magic belongs as much to the heart as to the head and everything which is done, should be done from love or joy or righteous anger (from Ladies of Grace Adieu).”

“When he awoke it was dawn. Or something like dawn. The light was watery, dim and incomparably sad. Vast, grey, gloomy hills rose up all around them and in between the hills there was a wide expanse of black bog.Stephen had never seen a landscape so calculated to reduce the onlooker to utter despair in an instant. "This is one of your kingdoms, I suppose, sir?" he said. "My kingdoms?" exclaimed the gentleman in surprize. "Oh, no! This is Scotland!”

“He had once found himself in a room with Lady Bessborough's long-haired white cat. He happened to be dressed in an immaculate black coat and trousers, and was there thoroughly alarmed by the cat's stalking round and round and making motions as if it proposed to sit upon him. He waited until he believed himself to be unobserved, then he picked it up, opened a window, and tossed it out. Despite falling three storeys to the ground, the cat survived, but one of its legs was never quite right afterward and it always evinced the greatest dislike of gentlemen in black clothes.”

“He was one of those people whose ideas are too lively to be confinedin their brains and spill out into the world to the consternation ofpassers-by. He talked to himself and the expression on his facechanged constantly. Within the space of a single moment he lookedsurprized, insulted, resolute, and angry--emotions which werepresumably the consequences of the energetic conversation he washolding with the ideal people inside his head.”

“There was very little about her face and figure that was in any wayremarkable, but it was the sort of face which, when animated byconversation or laughter, is completely transformed. She had a lovelydisposition, a quick mind and a fondness for the comical. She wasalways very ready to smile and, since a smile is the most becomingornament that any lady can wear, she had been known upon occasion tooutshine women who were acknowledged beauties in three countries.”

“Ha!' said the tall man drily. 'He was in high luck. Rich old uncles who die are in shockingly short supply.”