I Wasn't Convinced A Shop Girl Would

A Poet Or Novelist Will Invent Interruptions To Avoid Long Consecutive Days At The Ordained Page; And Of These The Most Pernicious Are Other Kinds Of Writing -- Articles, Lectures, Reviews, A Wide Correspondence.

In England, Life Is A Long Process Of Composing Oneself.

That Was The Trouble With Experience; It Taught You That Most People Were Capable Of Anything, So That Loyalty Was Never Quite On Firm Ground -- Or, Rather, Became A Matter Of Pardoning Offenses Instead Of Denying Their Existence.

Did You Ever Notice How Easy It Is To Forgive A Person Any Number Of Faults For One Endearing Characteristic, For A Certain Style, Or Some Commitment To Life - While Someone With Many Good Qualities Is Insupportable For A Single Defect If It Happens To Be A Boring One?

Going To Europe, Someone Had Written, Was About As Final As Going To Heaven. A Mystical Passage To Another Life, From Which No-one Returned The Same. Those Returning In Such Ships Were Invincible, For They Had Managed It And Could Reflect Ever After On Anne Hathaway's Cottage Or The Tower Of London With A Confidence That Did Generate At Sydney. There Was Nothing Mythic At Sydney; Momentous Objects, Beings And Events All Occurred Abroad Or In The Elsewhere Of Books.