This was a delightful read. As a granddaughter who will soon lose her grandparents, I thoroughly enjoyed the long-suffering, yet bickering, grandparents as they tolerated each other's foibles and strengths.

Reading this so soon after Sister to the Angels did not enhance my enjoyment as it reminded me how Goudge's plots work and, thus, made this one rather predictable---though, to be honest, I don't think Goudge wants to keep it that much of a secret. Goudge's strength is not in the plot so much as the understanding of the little miracles of the ins and outs of ordinary life. Making and earning one's bread is exhausting and amazing at the same time, and she gets that. That is her brilliance. ( )

Another charming, quiet story from Elizabeth Goudge. Set in the early years of the 20th century it tells the story of Jocelyn, newly invalided out of the army and how he rediscovers a love of life, and the love of his life, in the city of Torminster through the love of his grandfather, his grandfathers' wards, and through the search for the elusive poet Ferranti. Goudge's works always have a sunny surface but if you dig deeper she acknowledges the difficulties and darkness of life. ( )

Quite high on the sugar level even for a writer who does tend to the sweetness and light; this one almost so much so that I feel EG may qualify as a guilty pleasure. But I still enjoyed Henrietta and Hugh Anthony's antics, and the grown-ups' problems they help to solve. Love her descriptions and her cathedral cities and varied clergymen, from the saintly (think The Warden of Barchester), to the very worldly. And how nice that the publishers, Duckworth, were in Henrietta Street.
And a fitting quote: "We're all greedy for life, you know, and our short span of existence can't give us all that we hunger for, the time is too short and our capacity not large enough. But in books we experience all life vicariously".

Jocelyn, suffering and weary, arrives in Torminster to live with his grandparents. The book explores his growing relationships with his family and new friends.

A delightful story, albeit a little slow-moving at times. It introduces the young Hugh Anthony, Jocelyn's practical, questioning and scientifically minded cousin. It also introduces, in strong contrast, the dreamy, imaginative Henrietta who has been adopted by the elderly grandparents.

Recommended. ( )

This is a wonderful book. I had to learn that with Elizabeth Goudge, it is very much about the journey and the descriptions. There is a plot and action, but it is slow-paced and we get to enjoy the scenery and rest and relax.

This book is set after the Boer War. It is about a Cathedral town, Torminster, and the people who live there. We meet a young man recovering from his time in the war (mentally and physically) arriving in Torminster to spend time with his grandfather. He is looking for peace and quiet and time to just relax and figure out what he can and wants to do now. And that is just what he gets in Torminster. Of course, it isn't entirely quiet because we have two adorable children living with the grandparents who are always looking for answers and things to do.

There is also a mysterious Pied Piper figure, a lovely little house, eccentric old ladies, and a beautiful actress. The grandfather is a saint and a Canon at the church. He has a soothing and encouraging influence through the story, but we see the struggles of the young as they look at what they believe and what their beliefs mean to the life they live.

A few quotes that captured my attention:
“But mind you do think. Don’t just take out your feelings and look at them, which is what passes for thought with most of us pitiful, self-centered creatures. Look at the question from every one’s point of view…”

“…nothing whatsoever, not even the existence of God to His lovers, can be proved, but that every man, if he is to live at all finely, must deliberately adopt certain assertions as true, and those assertions should, for the sake of the enrichment of the human race, always be creative ones. He may, as life goes on, modify his beliefs, but he must never modify them on the side of destruction. It may be difficult, in the face of the problem of human suffering, to believe in God, he said, but if you destroy God you do not solve your problem but merely leave yourself alone with it….A ghastly loneliness….The same, he said, with belief in your own soul. To deny it is to degrade yourself to the level of an animal and to lose your reverence for the human race; for if man’s existence is to be measured by the span of this life only then he is a paltry, inconsiderable thing.” ( )