British novelist (1831-1919)
He's a bad man, sent with sorrow and shame wherever he goes, and I know it just as I know the long dead roll of the waves and the white creeping mist--like a dirty thief--which makes me cry out at sea 'All hands to reef! Quick! All hands to reef!'
AMELIA E. BARR
A Singer from the Sea
There was an iron-gray sky above a black tumbling sea; and the rain, driven by a mad wind, smote the face like a blow from a passionate hand.
AMELIA E. BARR
A Daughter of Fife
It takes a man to know men and all the wickedness mixed up in their flesh and blood.
AMELIA E. BARR
A Singer from the Sea
I doubt if any child is born without some measure of that vision and faculty divine which apprehends the supernatural.
AMELIA E. BARR
All the Days of My Life
I brought my soul with me—an eager soul, impatient for the loves and joys, the struggles and triumphs of the dear, unforgotten world. No doubt it had been aware of the earthly tabernacle which was being prepared for its home, and its helper in the new onward effort; and was waiting for the moment which would make them companions. The beautifully fashioned little body was already dear, and the wise soul would not suffer it to run the risks of a house left empty and unguarded. Some accident might mar its beauty, or cripple its powers, or still more baneful, some alien soul might usurp the tenement, and therefore never be able effectually to control, or righteously use it.
AMELIA E. BARR
All the Days of My Life
All education has this provisional quality. In school, as well as in dreams, we learn in childhood a great deal that finds no immediate use or expression. For many years we may scarcely remember the lesson, then comes the occasion for it, and the information needed is suddenly restored.
AMELIA E. BARR
All the Days of My Life
The inevitable has always found me ready and hopeful.
AMELIA E. BARR
All the Days of My Life
We hear voices in solitude, we never hear in the hurry and turmoil of life; we receive counsels and comforts, we get under no other condition.
AMELIA E. BARR
All the Days of My Life
There was something so final about the man's manner that Roland was compelled to accept the dismissal, but it deeply offended him, and the unreasonable anger opened the door for evil thoughts; and evil thoughts—having a cursed and powerful vitality—immediately began to take form and to make plans for their active gratification.
AMELIA E. BARR
A Singer from the Sea
For the woman within, if she be of noble strain, is never content with what she has attained; she unceasingly presses forward, in lively hope of some better way, or some more tangible truth.
AMELIA E. BARR
All the Days of My Life
O love! love! love! Is there any sorrow in life like loving?
AMELIA E. BARR
A Singer from the Sea
He said the words so sternly that they seemed to make a gloom in the cottage, but Joan's cheerful laugh cleared it away.
AMELIA E. BARR
A Singer from the Sea
I loved God with all my child heart. He was truly to me "my Father who art in heaven." Well then, death whom He sent to every one, even to little babies, must be something good and not evil. Also, I thought, if the dead are unhappy, their faces would show it, and I had never seen a dead face without being struck by its strange quiet.
AMELIA E. BARR
All the Days of My Life
She was a beautiful woman; tall, supple, erect; with a positive splendor of health and color. Her dress was that of the Fife fishergirl; a blue flannel jacket, a very short white and yellow petticoat, and a white cap drawn over her hair, and tied down with a lilac kerchief knotted under the chin. This kerchief outlined the superb oval of her face; and made more remarkable the large gray eyes, the red curved mouth, and the wide white brow. She was barefooted, and she tapped one foot restlessly upon the wet sands, to relieve, by physical motion, her mental tension and sorrow.
AMELIA E. BARR
A Daughter of Fife
It was about this time I began to seriously try to write. I commenced a tragedy which I called "Seneca." I do not remember anything about the work, except that it was laid in ancient Rome, and that Seneca was a philosopher and a senator. I showed the first act to Father, and he gave it back to me with a smile, and the opinion that "it might have been worse."
AMELIA E. BARR
All the Days of My Life
One of the cruelest things about a wrong love is that it delights in tangles and hidden ways; that it teaches and practices deceit from its first inception; that its earliest efforts are toward destroying all older and more sacred attachments.
AMELIA E. BARR
A Singer from the Sea
A child that has not been taught to reverence God, and all that represents God to man—honor, honesty, justice, mercy, truth, love, courage, self-sacrifice, is sent into the world like a boat sent out to sea, without rudder, ballast, compass or captain.
AMELIA E. BARR
All the Days of My Life
O Love! what cruelties are done in thy name! We think of thee as coming with a rose, and a song, and a smile.
AMELIA E. BARR
A Singer from the Sea
A child is a deep mystery. It has a life of its own, which it reveals to no one unless it meets with sympathy. Snub its first halting confidences concerning the inner life, or laugh at them, or be cross or indifferent, and you close the door against yourself forever.
AMELIA E. BARR
All the Days of My Life
Alas! it is not the renunciation of our past and future selves that is difficult; it is the steady denial of our present self which makes the disciple.
AMELIA E. BARR
A Singer from the Sea