This House Sheltered Us, We Spoke, We

I Have No Talent For Making New Friends, But Oh Such Genius For Fidelity To Old Ones.

They Are Not Brave, The Days When We Are Twenty-one. They Are Full Of Little Cowardices, Little Fears Without Foundation, And One Is So Easily Bruised, So Swiftly Wounded, One Falls To The First Barbed Word. To-day, Wrapped In The Complacent Armour Of Approaching Middle Age, The Infinitesimal Pricks Of Day By Day Brush One But Lightly And Are Soon Forgotten, But Then—how A Careless Word Would Linger, Becoming A Fiery Stigma, And How A Look, A Glance Over A Shoulder, Branded Themselves As Things Eternal.

When She Smiled It Was As Though She Embraced The World.

Last Night I Dreamt I Went To Manderley Again.

When The Leaves Rustle, They Sound Very Much Like The Stealthy Movement Of A Woman In Evening Dress, And When They Shiver Suddenly, And Fall, And Scatter Away Along The Ground, They Might Be The Patter Of A Woman’s Hurrying Footsteps, And The Mark In The Gravel The Imprint Of A High-heeled Shoe.