Status Updates From Candida

« [gathering a whimsically affectionate courage from the scolding] If I am to be scolded like a boy, I must make a boy’s excuse. He began it. And he’s bigger than I am. »

« [quaintly, without fear or resistance] Catch me by the shirt collar, Morell: she will arrange it for me afterwards as she did this morning. »

« Yes, to be idle, selfish, and useless: that is, to be beautiful and free and happy: hasn’t every man desired that with all his soul for the woman he loves? That’s my ideal: what yours, and that of all the dreadful people who live in these hideous rows of houses? Sermons and scrubbing brushes! With you to preach the sermon and your wife to scrub. »

2 « -unless it is first spoken to. All the love in the world is longing to speak; only it dare not, because it is shy! shy! shy! That is the world’s tragedy. »

1 « I go about in search of love; and I find it in unmeasured stores in the bosoms of others. But when I try to ask for it, this horrible shyness nearly strangles me; and I stand dumb, or worse than dumb, saying meaningless things: foolish lies. And I see the affection I am longing for given to dogs and cats and pet birds, because they come and ask for it. It must be asked for: it is like a ghost: it cannot speak-

« Do you think that the things people make fools of themselves about are any less real and true than the things they behave sensibly about? »