Not Quite Birds, As They

There Was A Good Deal To Be Said, Hilary Decided, For Middle Age And Infirmity. The Years In Which One Demanded Much Of Life Were Left Behind, Together With The Bitterness Of Not Getting What One Wanted. One's Values, Too, Were Altered. Gifts That Once One Took For Granted, Sunshine And Birdsong, Freedom From Pain, Sleep And One's Daily Bread, Seemed Now So Extraordinarily Precious.

Cowardice More Than Any Other Failing Demands A Ruthless Paying Of The Price From Those Who Give It Hospitality.

I Have Known Him Nearly All My Life, And I Am Going To Marry Him, So That There Won't Ever Be A Time When I Shan't Know Him.

One Is Seldom Unchanged By The Death Of Those One Loves. It Gives Me A Deeper Knowledge Of Them, And So Of Oneself In Regard To Them.

For She Had Discovered That As Well As The Evil Web There Was Another. This Too Bound Spirits Together, But Not In A Tangle, It Was A Patterned Web And One Could See The Silver Pattern When The Sun Shone Upon It. It Seemed Much Frailer Than The Dark Tangle, That Had A Hideous Strength, But It Might Not Be So Always, Not In The Final Reckoning. (the Child From The Sea)