Enlightenment

by Sarah Perry

He wanted nothing more than to write, he would rather do anything but; it was the purpose of his life, it was the bane of it.

clever women are always unhappy.

Suddenly he was struck by the obliterating knowledge of his smallness: but none of it matters one bit, he thought, leaning dazed against the back of his pew—how hard we try, and

what are we but ants on a stone in a river going to the sea?

“Let me first do some great thing before I die, that shall be told among men hereafter”—and

How unfair it was that everything became ugly toward the end of life:

That he was a man of seventy surprised him every morning in the mirror, and he’d removed the clock from his bedside table, disliking the slicing tick that pared down the time remaining to a little stub.

only imagine it: knowing what is good, and simply choosing not to do it!