She Had Certain Thoughts Which

Life Began For Me, When I Ceased To Admire And Began To Remember.

It Has Long Been A Tradition Among Novel Writers That A Book Must End By Everybody Getting Just What They Wanted, Or If The Conventional Happy Ending Was Impossible, Then It Must Be A Tragedy In Which One Or Both Should Die. In Real Life Very Few Of Us Get What We Want, Our Tragedies Don't Kill Us, But We Go On Living Them Year After Year, Carrying Them With Us Like A Scar On An Old Wound.

It Is Scarcely Exaggeration To Say That If One Is Not A Little Mad About Balzac At Twenty, One Will Never Live; And If At Forty One Can Still Take Rastignac And Lucien De Rubempre At Balzac's Own Estimate, One Has Lived In Vain.

If You Don't Keep And Guard And Mature Your Force, And Above All, Have Time And Quiet To Perfect Your Work, You Will Be Writing Things Not Much Better Than You Did Five Years Ago.

The Great Fact Was The Land Itself, Which Seemed To Overwhelm The Little Beginnings Of Human Society That Struggled In Its Sombre Wastes.