library the-story-girl-books

The Story Girl

The Giaour
 She was a form of life and light
That seen, became a part of sight,
And rose, where’er I turn’d mine eye,
The morning-star of Memory!
2 Alice in Wonderland
 A Queen of Hearts
Golden Milestone The Awkward Man… calls his place Golden Milestone. I know why, because I’ve read Longfellow’s poems.
3 The Luck of Edenhall That cup has been here for forty years, and hundreds of people have drunk from it, and it has never been broken. Aunt Julia dropped it down the well once, but they fished it up, not hurt a bit except for that little nick in the rim. I think it is bound up with the fortunes of the King family, like the Luck of Edenhall in Longfellow’s poem. It is the last cup of Grandmother King’s second best set.
5 1 Samuel 19:24 “‘Is Saul also among the prophets?’ What can have induced you to turn church-goer, Peter, when all Olivia’s gentle persuasions were of no avail? The old, old argument I suppose–’beauty draws us with a single hair.’ “
The Rape of the Lock
 “‘Is Saul also among the prophets?’ What can have induced you to turn church-goer, Peter, when all Olivia’s gentle persuasions were of no avail? The old, old argument I suppose–’beauty draws us with a single hair.’ “
2 Samuel 1:23
 She read aloud the verse on the stone: “‘They were lovely and pleasant in their lives and in their death they were not divided.’ “
6 Bluebeard “…She expected to find the door locked as usual. It was not locked. She opened it and went in. What do you suppose she found?”
“Something like–like Bluebeard’s chamber?” suggested Felix in a scared tone.
7 There was a Little Girl “When he was good, he was very, very good, and when he was bad he was horrid.”
Annie Laurie He was thinking of her as he played ‘Annie Laurie,’ for Nancy was more beautiful than the lady of the song. ‘Her face, it is the fairest that e’er the sun shone on,’ hummed Donald–and oh, he thought so, too!
All’s Well that Ends Well
And it is said that Neil and Betty were the happiest couple in the world–happier even than Donald and Nancy. So all was well because it ended well!
10 A Daughter of Eve A Daugher of Eve
The Solitary Reaper
 We were all the hayloft. The Story Girl had been telling us a tale
Of old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago.”
11 Macbeth
“Just smell Mrs. Sampson’s flowers,” said Cecily, as we passed a trim white paling close to the road, over which blew odours sweeter than the perfume of Araby’s shore. “Her roses are all out and that bed of Sweet William is a sight by daylight.”
14 Hamlet Felicity might charm the palate, and the Story Girl bind captive the soul; but when pain and sickness wrung the brow it was Cecily who was the ministering angel.
15 The Walrus and the Carpenter There was no such thing as hurry in the world, while we lingered there and talked of “cabbages and kings.” A tale of the Story Girl’s, wherein princes were thicker than blackberries, and queens as common as buttercups, led to our discussion of kings. We wondered what it would be like to be a king.
19 Hamlet Felicity and the Story Girl had not been “speaking” to each other, and consequently there had been something rotten in the state of Denmark.
20 The Lays of Ancient Rome The orchard gate flew open and Felix was among us. One glimpse of his face told us that he was no bearer of glad tidings. He had been running hard and should have been rubicund. Instead, he was “as pale as are the dead.”
2 Joseph
 “There’s a good deal of it I don’t understand,” he said, “but I read every word, and that’s the main thing. That story about Joseph and his brother was so int’resting I almost forgot about the Judgment Day.”
Ruth
 “The Bible is an interesting book,” said the Story Girl, coming to Peter’s rescue. “And there are magnificent stories in it–yes, Felicity, magnificent. If the world doesn’t come to an end I’ll tell you the story of Ruth next Sunday–or look here! I’ll tell it anyhow. That’s a promise. Wherever we are next Sunday I’ll tell you about Ruth.”
21 Jeremiah 8:22
 Harvest was ended; and though summer was not yet gone, her face was turned westering.
Polichinelle The apples began to burn red on the bending boughs; crickets sang day and night; squirrels chattered secrets of Polichinelle in the spruces; the sunshine was as thick and yellow as molten gold; school opened, and we small denizens of the hill farms lived happy days of harmless work and necessary play, closing in nights of peaceful, undisturbed slumber under a roof watched over by autumnal stars.
22 Unknown As I turn the pages and glance over the naïve records, each one beginning, “Last night I dreamed,” the past comes very vividly back to me. I see that bowery orchard, shining in memory with a soft glow of beauty–”the light that never was on land or sea,”–where we sat on those September evenings and wrote down our dreams, when the cares of the day were over and there was nothing to interfere with the pleasing throes of composition.
23 Such Stuff as Dreams are Made On Such Stuff as Dreams are made on
Delilah Felicity wormed the secret out of Peter by the employment of Delilah wiles, such as have been the undoing of many a miserable male creature since Samson’s day.
25 Psalm 90
 There was a little space of silence; and then Uncle Alec began, in a low, impressive voice, to repeat the wonderful verses of the ninetieth Psalm–verses which were thenceforth bound up for us with the beauty of that night and the memories of our kindred. Very reverently we all listened to the majestic words.
From Greenland’s Icy Mountains
 I had decided to preach on missions, as being a topic more within my grasp than abstruse theological doctrines or evangelical discourses; and, mindful of the need of making an impression, I drew a harrowing picture of the miserable plight of the heathen who in their darkness bowed down to wood and stone. Then I urged our responsibility concerning them, and meant to wind up by reciting, in a very solemn and earnest voice, the verse beginning, “Can we whose souls are lighted.”
26 Inferno
 He proceeded to describe the bad place. Later on we discovered that he had found his material in an illustrated translation of Dante’s Inferno which had once been given to his Aunt Jane as a school prize.
27 Hamlet
 But to Felix everything suddenly became flat, stale, and unprofitable, because Peter continued to hold the championship of bitter apples.
Tithonus
 Truly, we had had a delectable summer; and, having had it, it was ours forever. “The gods themselves cannot recall their gifts.” They may rob us of our future and embitter our present, but our past they may not touch. With all its laughter and delight and glamour it is our eternal possession.”
29 Isaiah 61:3
 We had in very truth been given beauty for ashes and the oil of joy for mourning. Life was as a red rose once more.
30 A Vision of Poets
 Hence I can reproduce them verbatim, with the bouquet they have retained through all the long years since they were penned in that autumnal orchard on the hill, with its fading leaves and frosted grasses, and the “mild, delightsome melancholy” of the late October day enfolding.
The Safe Compass
 Cecily… I don’t believe anything will happen to you if you do take the measles; but if anything does I’d like that little red book of yours, The Safe Compass, just to remember you by. It’s such a good book to read on Sundays. It is interesting and religious, too.