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susceptibility: it is felt at the price of feeling all human dangers and pains. The love becomes the sentient figurehead of the whole human ship, thrust forward by the weight of the race behind him through pitiless elements. Pity the selfishness of lovers: it is brief, a forlorn hope; it is impossible. p181

...very young people are true but not resounding instruments. Their senses are turned to the earth, like the senses of animals; they feel, but without conflict or pain. p130

The most unlikely things one does, the most utterly out of character, arouse no curiosity, even in one's friends. One can suffer a convulsion of one's entire nature, and unless it makes some noise, no one notices. It is not just that we are incurious; we completely lack any sense of each

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existences... p269

One's sentiments - call them that - one's fidelities are so instinctive that one hardly knows they exist: only when they are betrayed or, worse still, when one betrays them does one realize their power. That betrayal is the end of an inner life, without which the everyday becomes threatening or meaningless. At the back of the spirit a mysterious landscape, whose perspective used to be infinite, suddenly perishes: this is like being cut off from the country for ever, not even meeting its breath down the city street... p 320

The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen 1938

Vintage paper

8.1.79

The repetition of kisses will never mean more than the repetition of stripes on the wall.

Vallotton Graphics - St. James p31