Status Updates From A Wreath of Roses (Virago M...

Duty is very simple and obvious. It is nearly always what you don't want to do.

When Camilla opened the door, birds burst up out of bushes, flurrying the leaves, plunged into the dense creeper over the walls.The garden was still, soaked with dew, veiled with a pearly light as if sponged with milk. A little tree of morello cherries seemed painted upon the sky, its fruit luminously red like cherries on a hat.

The one she painted last summer was the best she ever did. The one of the room with the lace curtains. A very tender light flowing through them.'

'Yes, that was what I call a picture. Perhaps we always want paintings to be like novels.'

rereading this and immediately realised it was what I was looking for right now.