A selection of first and last sentences of Elizabeth Goudge novels

Linnets and Valerians

First: Robert gave the storeroom door a resounding kick, merely for his own satisfaction for he knew that only the kick of a giant would have made any impression on its strong oak panels, and sat down cross-legged on the floor to consider the situation.

Last: Uncle Ambrose also visited him and the greatest pride and joy of his old age was to walk down the Oxford High Street arm in arm with his brilliant nephew, with Hector, who appeared to be gifted with eternal life, sitting proud and erect upon his shoulder.

The Dean’s Watch

First: The candle flame burned behind the glass globe of water, its light flooding over Isaac Peabody’s hands as he sat at work on a high stool before his littered worktable.

Last: Isaac walked out into the sunshine and said to himself, “I shall make the celestial clock again. I shall make it for Mrs. Ayscough.”

The Rosemary Tree

First: Harriet at her window watched the gulls with delight.

Last: “Then it’s an odd thing you thought yourself alone,” said Harriet.

Green Dolphin Country

First: Sophie Le Patourel was reading aloud to her two daughters from the Book of Ruth, as they lay upon their backboards digesting their dinners and improving their deportment.

Last: “Oh, my!” ejaculated Old Nick in mocking tones. And then, very doubtfully indeed, “Oh, my?”

The Bird in the Tree (The Eliots of Damerosehay, no. 1)

First: Visitors to Damerosehay, had they but known it, could have told just how much the children liked them by the particular spot at which they were met upon arrival.

Last: “It’s true,” he thought. “The spirit of man has wings.”

The Herb of Grace (The Eliots of Damerosehay, no. 2)

First: The sun shining through the uncurtained east window woke Sally to a new day.

Last: But the sap rose from inexhaustible depths, and the spring would come again.

The Heart of the Family (The Eliots of Damerosehay, no. 3)

First: Meg, wearing mackintosh boots and a red mackintosh, and with a red sou’wester tied beneath her chin, splashed down the drive, and under the dripping oak-trees, in a state of happiness deeper and more perfect than any other she was likely to know while she lived in this world.

Last: The old house seemed to hold them both, and to hold, too, a welling up of freshness, as though it renewed its youth in the youth of this marvelous child.

Gentian Hill

First: On a clear August evening, borne upon the light breath of a fair wind, the fleet was entering Torbay.

Last: It was eight o’clock, and in a world at peace, they had come home.

Towers in the Mist

First: The first gray of dawn stole mysteriously into a dark world, so gradually that it did not seem as though day banished night, it seemed rather that night itself was slowly transfigured into something fresh and new.

Last: “God bless you and increase your sons in number, holiness and virtue. Farewell, Oxford, Farewell. Farewell.”

The Little White Horse

First: The carriage gave another lurch, and Maria Merryweather, Miss Heliotrope, and Wiggins once more fell into each other’s arms, sighed, gasped, righted themselves, and fixed their attention upon those objects which were for each of them at this trying moment the source of courage and strength.

Last: He would come towards her and she would run towards him, and he would carry her upon his back away and away, she did not quite know where, but to a good place, a place where she wanted to be.

A City of Bells (Torminster, no. 1)

First: Jocelyn Irvin, sitting in a corner seat in a third-class railway-carriage and watching the green and gold of England in the spring slip past the windows, meditated gloomily upon Life with a capital L.

Last: He was a magic man, a fairy-tale man, and it seemed to her quite natural that he should have got lost, for fairy-tale people are always easily mislaid, but warm inside her was the certainty that now at last he was found for good.

Henrietta’s House (Torminster, no. 2)

First: Once upon a time there was a railway station waiting for a train.

Last: So this is the end of the story of Henrietta’s house, and even though it is not strictly speaking a fairy tale – because except for the possible exception of the disappearance of the motor car nothing out of the ordinary happened on Hugh Anthony’s birthday – it can be turned into one by saying that everybody lived happily ever after.

Sister of the Angels (Torminster, no. 3)

First: The moment she woke up Henrietta was conscious that she was happy, unusually, deliciously happy.

Last: Nine o’clock struck and, as always at the conclusion of the carol service, the Christmas bells began to ring.