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The Alhambra

In Chapter 15 of Emily of New Moon:

I am reading The Alhambra. It belongs to our book case. Aunt Elizabeth does not like to say it isnt fit for me to read because it was one of her fathers books, but I dont believe she aproves because she knits very furiously and looks black at me over her glasses.

In Chapter 2 of Emily Climbs, Emily and Dean read The Alhambra:

This evening after school Dean and I began to read The Alhambra over again, sitting on the stone bench in the garden. That book always makes me feel as if I had opened a little door and stepped straight into fairyland.

In Chapter 1 of Magic for Marigold, Klondike Lesley’s travels are enumerated:

When Klondike had been a boy at school he had a habit of looking at certain places on the map and saying, “I’ll go there.” Go he did. He had stood on the southernmost boulder of Ceylon and sat on Buddhist cairns at the edge of Thibet. The Southern Cross was a pal and he had heard the songs of nightingales in the gardens of the Alhambra. India and the China seas were to him as a tale that is told, and he had walked alone in great Arctic spaces under northern lights. He had lived in many places but he had never thought of any of them as home. That name had all unconsciously been kept sacred to the long, green, seaward-looking glen where he had been born.

In the chapter 43 of The Blue Castle, Barney’s wealth is revealed, and Barney tries to convince Valancy to join him in a new life:

“Can’t come down to that after your Blue Castle,” grinned Barney. “Don’t worry, sweet. I couldn’t live in that house myself. It has a white marble stairway with gilt bannisters and looks like a furniture shop with the labels off. Likewise it’s the pride of Dad’s heart. We’ll get a little house somewhere outside of Montreal–in the real country–near enough to see Dad often. I think we’ll build one for ourselves. A house you build for yourself is so much nicer than a hand-me-down. But we’ll spend our summers in Mistawis. And our autumns travelling. I want you to see the Alhambra–it’s the nearest thing to the Blue Castle of your dreams I can think of. And there’s an old-world garden in Italy where I want to show you the moon rising over Rome through the dark cypress-trees.”

“Will that be any lovelier than the moon rising over Mistawis?”

“Not lovelier. But a different kind of loveliness. There are so many kinds of loveliness.

The Alhambra
By Washington Irving

The Alhambra is an ancient Mosque is southern Spain. The beauty of its surrounding is recorded in Washington Irving’s travelogue of the same title, which can be read online here.

Last modified: January 10, 2009