that old Mrs. Bishop was lacking in the qualities that make a good mother. And saying it that way makes her sound a good deal better than she really was.

Beautiful hours move so quickly.

I was especially perceptive to all things beautiful that morning—raspberries in blue china bowls were enough to make the heart sing.

I found lines that mirrored an ache and longing I had so often felt when the beauty around my woods cathedral was too intense, when the need to grasp and keep loveliness left me with...

…I wondered why so much had been written about love’s pain and so little about the glorious relief of being delivered from love’s pain.

From my window I watched the full moon—a moon that reminded me of Brett—become shadowed, little by little until there was only a deep blackness in the woods at night. I would sit there wakeful,...

We mustn’t give trouble a shape before it throws its shadow.

On such a night,’ I thought, ‘were ill and good,Bright and unlovely; precious, tawdry, All mingled into oneAnd pressed against my heart.

One never stops climbing, Julie, unless he wants to stop and vegetate. There’s always something just ahead.