Picnic at Hanging Rock

by Joan Lindsay

So they walk silently towards the lower slopes, in single file, each locked in the private world of her own perceptions, unconscious of the strains and tensions of the molten mass that hold it anchored to the groaning earth:

As always, in matters of surpassing human interest, those who knew nothing whatever either at first or even second hand were the most emphatic in expressing their opinions; which are well known to have a way of turning into established facts overnight.

The brief interview had been a fairly close imitation of a dentist’s drill boring into a sensitive cavity.

Strong-minded persons in authority can ordinarily grapple with practical problems of facts. Facts, no matter how outrageous, can be dealt with by other facts. The problems of mood and atmosphere known to the Press as ‘Situations’ are infinitely more sinister.

The shadow of the Rock lay with an almost physical weight upon their hearts.

Ever since the scene in the gymnasium Dianne had been conscious of a strange new strength. She was no longer afraid of Mrs Appleyard’s individual wrath, now rendered impotent by the impersonal wrath of Heaven.

Reg Lumley’s final exit, although perfectly respectable, was accompanied by such lurid flames of publicity that in death the young man took on an almost phoenix-like quality of colourful resurrection from the burning hotel.