The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories Quotes

“Perhaps the best thing for the princess would have been to fall in love. But how a princess who had no gravity could fall into anything is a difficulty—perhaps the difficulty. As for her own feelings on the subject, she did not even know that there was such a beehive of honey and stings to be fallen into.”

“As a world that has no well, Darkly bright in forest dell; As a world without the gleam Of the downward-going stream; As a world without the glance Of the ocean’s fair expanse; As a world where never rain Glittered on the sunny plain; —Such, my heart, thy world would be, If no love did flow in thee.”

“Death alone from death can save. Love is death, and so is brave. Love can fill the deepest grave. Love loves on beneath the wave.”

“Love and water brought back all her strength.”

“But the princess had to learn to walk, before they could be married with any propriety. And this was not so easy at her time of life, for she could walk no more than a baby. She was always falling down and hurting herself. ‘Is this the gravity you used to make so much of?’ said she one day to the prince, as he raised her from the floor. ‘For my part, I was a great deal more comfortable without it.’ ‘No, no, that’s not it. This is it,’ replied the prince, as he took her up, and carried her about like a baby, kissing her all the time. ‘This is gravity.’ ‘That’s better,’ said she. ‘I don’t mind that so much.’ And she smiled the sweetest, loveliest smile in the prince’s face. And she gave him one little kiss in return for all his; and he thought them overpaid, for he was beside himself with delight. I fear she complained of her gravity more than once after this, notwithstanding.”

“She was a witch; and when she bewitched anybody, he very soon had enough of it; for she beat all the wicked fairies in wickedness, and all the clever ones in cleverness.”

“When she was angry her little eyes flashed blue. When she hated anybody, they shone yellow and green. What they looked like when she loved anybody, I do not know; for I never heard of her loving anybody but herself, and I do not think she could have managed that if she had not somehow got used to herself.”

“What business had you to pull me down out of the water, and throw me to the bottom of the air? I never did you any harm.”

″‘How do you like falling in?’ said the princess. ‘Beyond everything,’ answered he; ‘for I have fallen in with the only perfect creature I ever saw.’

“One day he lost sight of his retinue in a great forest. These forests are very useful in delivering princes from their courtiers, like a sieve that keeps back the bran. Then the princes get away to follow their fortunes. In this they have the advantage of the princesses, who are forced to marry before they have had a bit of fun. I wish our princesses got lost in a forest sometimes.”

“The princess burst into a passion of tears, and fell on the floor. There she lay for an hour and her tears never ceased.”

″‘My dear child,’ said the king, “you must be aware by this time that you are not exactly like other people.‘”

“If the nation could not provide one hero, it was time it should perish.”

“But the lake, your highness!” said the chamberlain, who, roused by the noise, came in, in his nightcap. “Go and drown yourself in it!” she said. This was the last rudeness of which the princess was ever guilty; and one must allow that she had good cause to feel provoked with the lord chamberlain.

“Then she would laugh like the very spirit of fun; only in her laugh there was something missing. What it was, I find myself unable to describe. I think it was a certain tone, depending upon the possibility of sorrow—morbidezza, perhaps. She never smiled.”

“He could not tell whether the queen meant light-haired or light-heired; for why might she not aspirate her vowels when she was ex-asperated herself?”

“All the queens of my acquaintance have children, some three, some seven, and some as many as twelve; and my queen has not one. I feel ill-used.”

“But at the same time she seemed more sedate than usual. Perhaps that was because a great pleasure spoils laughing.”

“Duplicity of any sort is exceedingly objectionable between married people of any rank, not to say kings and queens; and the most objectionable form duplicity can assume is that of punning.”

“So the prince and princess lived and were happy; and had crowns of gold, and clothes of cloth, and shoes of leather, and children of boys and girls, not one of whom was ever known, on the most critical occasion, to lose the smallest atom of his or her due proportion of gravity.”