Aleksandra

“She had changed into another mourning gown, cut somewhat fuller than the other, and instead of a hat she had wound her black lace shawl about her hair for covering. She was talking to Wellington, her profile turned to me, and got some reason or other I remembered what she had said the night before about Ambrose teasing her, how he had told her once that she reeked of old Rome. I think I knew now what he meant. Her features were like those stamped on a Roman coin, definite, yet small; and now with that lace shawl wound about her hair I was reminded of the women I had seen kneeling in that cathedral in Florence, or lurking in the doorways of the silent houses.”
― Daphne du Maurier, My Cousin Rachel

“I must go through life a jack of all trades, and wanting. Am I to be cursed with dilettantism till I die? [...] Am I, the most inveterate and consistent worshipper of the shrine of Beauty in all my life never to accomplish something beautiful?”
― Violet Trefusis, Violet to Vita: The Letters of Violet Trefusis to Vita Sackville-West, 1910-1921

“Am certainly attentive to her but cautiously, without any impropriety that could be laid hold of. Yet my manners are certainly peculiar, not all masculine but rather softly gentleman-like. I know how to please girls.”
― Anne Lister, I Know My Own Heart: The Diaries, 1791-1840

“O God, make me good, but not yet.”
― Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited