Peter Pan
by J.M. Barrie
Introduction by Tony DiTerlizzi
(Puffin Classics, 2008)
All children, except one, grow up.
Page 1.
You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.
Page 1.
He often said stocks were up and shares were down in a way that would have made any woman respect him.
Page 2.
Wendy came first, then John, then Michael.
Page 2.
Mrs. Darling loved to have everything just so, and Mr. Darling had a passion for being exactly like his neighbour.
Page 4.
There never was a simpler, happier family until the coming of Peter Pan.
Page 6.
Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children’s mind.
Page 6.
When you wake in the morning, the naughtiness and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind; and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on.
Page 6.
On the whole the Netherlands have a family resemblance.
Page 8.
Children have the strangest adventures without being troubled by them.
Page 9.
“It is so naughty of him not to wipe,” Wendy said, sighing. She was a tidy child.
Page 10.
It all seemed so natural to Wendy that you could not dismiss it by saying she had been d reaming.
Page 10.
The dream by itself would have been a trifle, but while she was dreaming the window of the nursery blew open, and a boy did drop on the floor. He was accompanied by a strange light, no bigger than your fist, which darted about the room like a living thing; and I think it must have been this light that wakened Mrs. Darling.
Page 12.
He was a lovely boy, clad in skeleton leaves and the juices that ooze out of trees; but the most entrancing thing about him was that he had all his first teeth.
Page 12.
She retuned to the nursery, and found Nana with something in her mouth, which proved to be the boy’s shadow. As he leapt at the window Nana had closed it quickly, too late to catch him, but his shadow had not had time to get out; slam went the window and snapped it off.
Page 13.
She had found her two older children playing at being herself and father on the occasion of Wendy’s birth.
Page 16.
As soon as the door of 27 closed on Mr. and Mrs. Darling there was a commotion in the firmament, and the smallest of all the stars in the Milky Way screamed out:
“Now, Peter!”
Page 25.
A moment after the fairy’s entrance the window was blown open by the breathing of the little stars, and Peter dropped in. he had carried Tinker Bell part of the way, and his hand was still messy with the fairy dust.
Page 27.
The loveliest tinkle as of golden bells answered him. It is the fairly language. You ordinary children can never hear it, but if you were to hear it you would know that you had heard it once before.
Page 27.
A shudder passed through Peter, and he sat on the floor and cried.
Page 27.
She asked where he lived.
“Second to the right,” said Peter, “and then straight on till morning.”
Page 28.
Not only had he no mother, but he had not the slightest desire to have one. He thought them very over-rated persons.
Page 29.
But she was exulting in his ignorance. “I shall sew it on for you, my little man,” she said, though he was as tall as herself; and she got out her housewife, and sewed the shadow on to Peter’s foot.
Pages 29-30.
Peter, boylike, was indifferent to appearances.
Page 30.
It is humiliating to hr to confess that this conceit of Peter was one of his most fascinating qualities. To put it with brutal frankness, there never was a cockier boy.
Page 30.
“Wendy,” he continued in a voice that no woman has ever yet been able to resist, “Wendy, one girl is more use than twenty boys.”
Page 31.
She also said she would give him a kiss if he liked, but Peter did not know what she meant, and he held out his hand expectantly. … and not to hurt his feelings she gave him a thimble.
Page 31.
“I don’t want ever to be a man,” he said with passion. “I want always to be a little boy and to have fun. So I ran away to Kensington Garden and lived a long long time among the fairies.”
Page 32.
“When the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies.”
Page 33.
Children know such a lot now, they soon don’t believe in fairies, and every time a child says, “I don’t believe in fairies,” there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead.
Page 33.
No one could ever look quite so merry as Peter, and the loveliest of gurgles was his laugh. He had his first laugh still.
Page 34.
“She is quite a common fairy,” Peter explained apologetically; “she is called Tinker Bell because she mends the pots and kettles.”
Page 34.
“Girls, you know, are much too clever to fall out of their prams.”
Page 35.
He admitted that he came to the nursery window not to see her but to listen to stories.
Page 36.
“None of the lost boys know any stories.”
Page 37.
There can be no denying that it was she who first tempted him.
He came back, and there was a greedy look in his eyes now which ought to have alarmed her, but did not.
Page 37.
“You just think lovely wonderful thoughts,” Peter explained, “and they lift you up in the air.”
Page 41.
Peter had been trifling with them, for no one can fly unless the fairy dust has been blown on him.
Page 42.
Peter … just said anything that came into his head.
Page 45.
He was fond of variety, and the sport that engrossed him one moment would suddenly cease to engage him.
Page 46.
Wendy and John and Michael stood on tiptoe in the air to get their first sight of the island. Strange to say, they all recognized it at once, and until fear fell upon them they hailed it, not as something long dreamt of and seen at last, but as a familiar friend to whom they were returning home for the holidays.
Page 50.
His courage was almost appalling.
Page 52.
“There is one thing,” Peter continued, “that every boy who serves under me has to promise, and so must you.”
John paled.
“It is this, if we meet Hook in open fight, you must leave him to me.”
Page 54.
Tinker Bell hated to be under an obligation to Wendy.
Page 55.
Feeling that Peter was on his way back, the Neverland had again woke into life. … In his absence things are usually quiet on the island.
Page 58.
If you put your ear to the ground now, you would hear the whole island seething with life.
Page 58.
They are forbidden by Peter to look in the least like him, and they wear the skins of bears slain by themselves.
Page 59.
He was never more sinister than when he was most polite.
Page 62.
A man of indomitable courage, it was said of him that the only thing he shied at was the sight of his own blood, which was thick and of an unusual colour.
Page 62.
In his mouth he had a holder of his own contrivance which enabled him to smoke two cigars at once.
Page 63.
Every kind of beast, and, more particularly, all the man-eaters, live cheek by jowl on the favoured island.
Page 64.
It was only in Peter’s absence that they could speak of mothers, the subject being forbidden by him as silly.
Page 65.
Look closely, however, and you may note that there are here seven large trees, each having in its hollow trunk a hole as large as a boy. These are the seven entrances to the home under the ground, for which Hook has been searching in vain these many moons.
Page 66.
Smee had pleasant names for everything, and his cutlass was Johnny Corkscrew, because he wriggled it in the wound.
Page 67.
“That crocodile would have had me before this, but by a lucky change it swallowed a clock which goes tick tick inside it, and so before I can reach me I hear the tick and bolt.”
Page 68.
It was not in their nature to question when Peter ordered.
Page 72.
Fairies indeed are strange, and Peter, who understood them best, often cuffed them.
Page 77.
The difference between him and the other boys at such a time was that they knew it was make-believe, while to him make-believe and true were exactly the same thin. This sometimes troubled them, as when they had to make-believe that they had had their dinners.
Page 79.
The little house looked so cosy and safe in the darkness with a bright light showing through its blinds, and the chimney smoking beautifully, and Peter standing on guard.
Page 84.
One of the first things Peter did next day was to measure Wendy and John and Michael for hollow trees. Hook, you remember, has sneered at the boys for thinking they needed a tree apiece, but his was ignorance, for unless your tree fitted you it was difficult to go up and down, and no two of the boys were quite the same size. Once you fritted, you drew in your breath at the top, and down you went at exactly the right speed, while to ascend you drew in and let out alternately, and so wriggled up. Of course, when you have mastered the action you are able to do these things without thinking of them, and then nothing can be more graceful.
Page 85.
There was one recess int eh wall, no larger than a bird-cage, which was the private apartment of Tinker Bell. It could be shut off from the rest of the home by a tiny curtain.
Page 87.
Tink was very contemptuous of the rest of the house, as indeed was perhaps inevitable; and her chamber, though beautiful, looked rather conceited, having the appearance of a nose permanently turned up.
Wendy did not really worry about her father and mother; she was absolutely confident that they would always keep the window open for her to fly back by, and this gave her complete ease of min. what did disturb her at times was that John remembered his parents vaguely only, as people he had once known, while Michael was quite willing to believe that she was really his mother.
Page 89.
He was the only boy on the island who could neither write nor spell; not the smallest world. He was above all that sort of thing.
Page 90.
One of Peter’s peculiarities, which was that in the middle of a fight he would suddenly change sides.
Page 92.
Peter had seen many tragedies, but he had forgotten them all.
Page 99.
He was never one to choose the easy way.
Page 99.
Peter could never resist a game.
Page 104.
No one ever gets over the first unfairness no one except Peter. He often met it, but he always forgot it. I suppose that was the real difference between him and all the rest.
Page 107.
One important result of the brush on the lagoon was that it made the redskins their friends. Peter had saved Tiger Lily from a dreadful fate, and now there was nothing she and her braves would not do for him.
Page 116.
The way you got the time on the island was to find the crocodile, and then stay near him till the clock struck.
Page 117.
They had long lost count of the days; but always if they wanted to do anything special they said this was Saturday night, and then they did it.
Page 121.
“If you knew how great is a mother’s love … you would have no fear.”
Page 128.
The most heartless things in the world, which is what children are.
Page 129.
“Long ago,” he said “I thought like you that my mother would always keep the window open for me; so I stayed away for moons and moons and moons, and then flew back; but the window was barred, for mother had forgotten all about me, and there was another little boy sleeping in my bed.”
Page 130.
There is a saying in the Neverland that every time you breathe, a grown-up dies; and Peter was killing them off vindictively as fast as possible.
Page 131.
Children are ever ready, when novelty knocks, to desert their dearest ones.
Page 134.
If Peter had ever quite had a mother, he no longer missed her. He could do very well without one. He had thought them out, and remembered only their bad points.
Page 135.
Peter … was not the kind that breaks down before people.
Page 136.
The pirate attack had been a complete surprise; a sure proof that the unscrupulous Hook had conducted it improperly, for to surprise redskins fairly is beyond the wit of the white man.
By all the unwritten laws of savage warfare it is always the redskin who attacks, and with the wiliness of his race he does it just before the dawn, at which time he knows the courage of the whites to be at its lowest ebb.
Page 137.
It is written that the noble savage must never express surprise int eh presence of the white.
Page 140.
Peter was such a small boy that one tends to wonder at the man’s hatred of him. True, he had flung Hook’s arm to the crocodile; but even this and the increased insecurity of life to which it led, owing to the crocodile’s pertinacity, hardly account for a vindictiveness so relentless and malignant. The truth is that there was a something about Peter which goaded the pirate captain to frenzy. It was not his courage, it was not his engaging appearance, it was not - . there is no beating about the bush, for we know quite well what it was, and have got to tell. It was Peter’s cockiness.
Page 141.
Lest he should be taken alive, Hook always carried about his person a dreadful drug, blended by himself of all the death-dealing rings that had come into his possession. These he had boiled down into a yellow liquid quite unknown to science, which was probably the most virulent poison in existence.
Page 150.
No time for words now; time for deeds; and with one of her lightning movements Tink got between his lips and the draught, and drained it to the dregs.
Page 152.
She was saying that she thought she could get well again if children believed in fairies.
Page 153.
“I feel that I have a message to you from your real mothers, and it is this: ‘We hope our sons will die like English gentlemen.’”
Page 163.
Odd things happen to all of us on our way through life without our noticing for a time that they have happened.
Page 166.
All pirates are superstitious.
Page 172.
“Cleave him to the brisket.”
Page 174.
Had the pirates kept together it is certain that they would have won; but the onset came when they were all unstrung, and they ran hither and thither, striking wildly, each thinking himself the last survivor of the crew. Man to man they were the stronger; but they fought on the defensive only, which enabled the boys to hunt in pairs and choose their quarry.
Page 174.
“Proud and insolent youth,” said Hook, “prepare to meet they doom.”
“Dark and sinister man,” Peter answered, “have at thee.”
Page 175.
He sought to close and give the quietus with his iron hook, which all this time had been pawing the air; but Peter doubled under it and, lunging fiercely pierced him in the ribs. At sight of his own blood, whose peculiar colour, you remember, was offensive to him.
Page 176.
Hitherto he had thought it was some fiend fighting him, but darker suspicions assailed him now.
“Pan, who and what art thou?” he cried huskily.
“I’m youth, I’m joy,” Peter answered at a venture, “I’m a little bird that has broken out of the egg.”
Page 176.
Peter did not know in the least who or what he was.
Page 177.
Seeing Peter slowly advancing upon him through the air with dagger poised, he sprang upon the bulwarks to cast himself into the sea. He did not know that the crocodile was waiting for him.
Page 178.
Fifteen paid the penalty for their crimes that night; but two reached the shore: Starkey to be captured by the redskins, who made him nurse for all their papooses, a melancholy come-down for a pirate; and Smee, who henceforth wandered about the world in his spectacles, making a precarious living by saying he was the only man that James |Hook had feared.
Pages 178-179.
That is all we are, lookers-on.
Page 183.
In the bitterness of his remorse he swore that he would never leave the kennel until the children came back. Of course this was a pity; but whatever Mr. Darling did he had to do in excess; otherwise he soon gave up doing it.
Page 184.
He knew nothing whatever about his mother; but he sometimes bragged about her.
Page 188.
Wendy and John and Michael found the window open for them after all, which of course was more than they deserved. They alighted on the floor, quite unashamed of themselves; and the youngest one had already forgotten his home.
Page 189.
“George, George,” she cried when she could speak; and Mr. Darling woke to share her bliss, and Nana came rushing in. There could not have been a lovelier sight; but there was none to see it except a strange boy who was staring in at the window. He had ecstasies innumerable that other children can never know; but he was looking through the window at the one joy from which he must be for ever barred.
Page 191.
When a new baby laughs for the first time a new fairy is born, and as there are always new babies there are always new fairies. They live in nests on the tops of trees; and the mauve ones are boys and the white ones are girls, and the blue ones are just little sillies who are not sure what they are.
Page 195.
She made this handsome offer: to let Wendy go to him for a week every year to do his spring cleaning. … This promise sent Peter away quiet gay again. He had no sense of time, and was so full of adventures that all I have told you about him is only a halfpenny-worth of them.
Page 196.
It is sad to have to say that the power to fly gradually left them. At first Nana tied their feet to the bedposts so that they should not fly away in the night; and one of their diversions by day was to pretend to fall off buses; but by and by they ceased to tug at their bonds in bed, and found that they hurt themselves when they let go of the bus. In time they could not even fly after their hats. Want of practice, they called it; but what it really meant was that they no longer believed.
Page 197.
“I forget them after I kill them,” he replied carelessly.
When she expressed a doubtful hope that Tinker Bell would be glad to see her he said, “Who is Tinker Bell?”
“O Peter,” she said, shocked; but even when he explained he could not remember.“There are such a lot of them,” he said. “I expect she is no more."
”I expect he was right, for fairies don’t live long, but they are so little that a short time seems a good while to them.
Page 198.
Wendy was pained too to find that the past year was but as yesterday to Peter; it had seemed such a long year of waiting to her.
Page 198.
Next year he did not come to her. … Peter came next spring cleaning; and the strange thing was that he never knew he had missed a year.
Page 198.
The years came and went without bringing the careless boy; and when they met again Wendy was a married woman.
Page 199.
“When people grow up they forget the way. … Because they are no longer gay and innocent and heartless it is only the gay and innocent and heartless who can fly.”
Page 201.
‘The last thing he ever said to me was, “Just always be waiting for me, and then some night you will hear me crowing.”’
Page 202.
For almost the only time in his life that I know of, Peter was afraid. “Don’t turn up the light,” he cried.
Page 204.
When Margaret grows up she will have a daughter, who is to be Peter’s mother in turn; and thus it will go on, so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless.
Page 207.