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“Both the children were looking up into the Lion’s face as he spoke these words.  And all at once (they never knew exactly how it happened) the face seemed to be a sea of tossing gold in which they were floating, and such a sweetness and power rolled about them and over them and entered into them that they felt they had never really been happy or wise or good, or even alive or awake, before.

And the memory of that moment stayed with them always, so that as long as they both lived, if ever they were sad or afraid or angry, the thought of all that golden goodness, and the feeling that it was still there, quite close, just round some corner or just behind some door, would come back and make them sure, deep down inside that all was well.”  (The Magician’s Nephew by C. S. Lewis, p. 160)

“I was just being nice,” said Emmy, stung.

“You’re too nice,” said the Rat sharply.  “A little meanness is good for the soul.  I highly recommend it.”

Emmy lifted her chin.  “Being mean doesn’t get you anywhere.  Nobody pets you.  Nobody plays with you.”

“I get what I want,” said the Rat, showing his long yellow teeth.  “I get respect, which is more than I can say for you.”

Emmy glared at him.  “You get respect?  You live in a cage.”

The Rat looked stunned.

“Well, it’s true,” Emmy said crossly.  “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.  You know, the bars, the lock on the door…”

The Rat’s whiskers trembled.  “You’re not being very nice.”

“Nice?  I thought a little meanness was good for the–”

“Most people don’t mention it.  Most people know better than to taunt a rodent about his…unfortunate situation.”

“Look, you were the one who said–”

“It’s not my fault I’m locked up!”  The Rat’s voice quavered pathetically.  “I committed no crime!  Have I survived kidnapping from the nest, unjust imprisonment, and absolutely appalling food”–he gave his dish of pellets a contemptuous kick–“only to be mocked by a little child?”

“I’m bigger than you,” Emmy began hotly, “and you were the one who said I shouldn’t be so nice–”

“But not to me!  It’s different when you’re mean to me!”

“Oh, right,” said Emmy.

from one of my favorite books, Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat, by Lynn Jonell, pages 6-7

 

“In speaking of this desire for our own far-off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness….  (It is) a secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both.

We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience.  We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name….

(It is) the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.  Do you think I am trying to weave a spell?  Perhaps I am; but remember your fairy tales.

Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them.  And you and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us for nearly a hundred years.”     (The Quotable Lewis, pages 353-4)