To wish undone something you have done, to wish you could look back on kindness to someone you love, instead of on unkindness – that is a very terrible thing.
The point is not that I don’t recognise bad people when I see them – I grant you I may quite well be taken in by them – the point is that I know a good person when I see one.
I have written, probably, more books for children than any other writer, from story-books to plays, and can claim to know more about interesting children than most.
Never lose that honesty, Bobby – always be honest with yourself, know your own motives for what they are, good or bad, make your own decisions firmly and justly – and you will be a fine, strong character, of some real use in this muddled world of ours!
It was the most beautiful evening, with the lake as blue as a cornflower and the sky flecked with rosy clouds. They held their hard-boiled eggs in one hand and a piece of bread and butter in the other, munching happily.
They saw the flicker of bats overhead. They smelt the drifting scent of honeysuckle, and the delicious smell of wild thyme crushed under their bodies. A reed-warbler sang a beautiful little song in the reeds below, and then another answered.
A clown needn’t be the same out of the ring as he has to be when he’s in it. If you look at photographs of clowns when they’re just being ordinary men, they’ve got quite sad faces.
I do love the beginning of the summer hols,’ said Julian. They always seem to stretch out ahead for ages and ages.’ ‘They go so nice and slowly at first,’ said Anne, his little sister. ‘Then they start to gallop.
