FROM THE PAGES OF THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS

‘Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing—absolutely nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.’ (p. 10)

 

Packing the basket was not quite such pleasant work as unpacking the basket. It never is. (p. 15 )

 

This day was only the first of many similar ones for the emancipated Mole, each of them longer and fuller of interest as the ripening summer moved onward. He learnt to swim and to row, and entered into the joy of running water; and with his ear to the reed-stems he caught, at intervals, something of what the wind went whispering so constantly among them. (p. 18)

 

‘The poetry of motion! The real way to travel! The only way to travel! Here today—in next week tomorrow! Villages skipped, towns and cities jumped—always somebody else’s horizon!’ (p. 28)

 

‘Who ever heard of a door-mat telling any one anything? They simply don’t do it. They are not that sort at all. Door-mats know their place.’ (p. 40)

 

‘It was the talk of the burrows.’ (p. 49)

 

Villagers all, this frosty tide,

Let your doors swing open wide,

Though wind may follow, and snow beside,

Yet draw us in by your fire to bide;

Joy shall be yours in the morning! (p. 64)

 

‘It’s for your own good, Toady, you know.’ (p. 74)

‘Rouse thee, old loon, and take over from us this vile Toad, a criminal of deepest guilt and matchless artfulness and resource. Watch and ward him with all thy skill; and mark thee well, grey-beard, should aught untoward befall, thy old head shall answer for his—and a murrain on both of them!’ (p. 81)

 

‘I feel just as you do, Mole; simply dead tired, though not body-tired.

It’s lucky we’ve got the stream with us, to take us home. Isn’t it jolly to feel the sun again, soaking into one’s bones! And hark to the wind playing in the reeds!’ (p. 91 )

 

The clever men at Oxford

Know all that there is to be knowed.

 

But they none of them know one half as much

As intelligent Mr. Toad! (p. 130)

 

Toad, with no one to check his statements or to criticize in an unfriendly spirit, rather let himself go. Indeed, much that he related belonged more properly to the category of what-might-have-happened-had-I-only-thought-of it-in-time-instead-of ten-minutes-afterwards. Those are always the best and raciest adventures; and why should they not be truly ours, as much as the somewhat inadequate things that really come off? (p. 151 )

 

Bang! go the drums!

The trumpeters are tooting and the soldiers are saluting,

And the cannon they are shooting and the motor-cars are hooting,

As the—Hero—comes!

 

 

Shout—Hoo-ray!

And let each one of the crowd try and shout it very loud,

In honour of an animal of whom you’re justly proud,

For it’s Toad’s—great—day! (p. 162)