I Capture the Castle

by Dodie Smith

And I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring

I have just remarked to Rose that our situation is really rather romantic—two girls in this strange and lonely house.

I thank heaven there is no cheaper form of bread than bread.

Anyway, the mound is a very good place to worship both sun and stars from. I do a little worshipping there myself when I get time.

Oh, me!

and then the strange light, grey but exciting,

I shouldn’t think even millionaires could eat anything nicer than new bread and real butter and honey for tea.

I know all about the facts of life. And I don’t think much of them.

“I could marry the Devil himself if he had some money,”

Oh, I have just had an idea—after tea I shall attack myself with sandpaper.

I keep telling myself it is real, it really has happened—we know two men.

I regret to say that she is now whistling.

And I regret to say that there were moments when my deep and loving pity for her merged into a desire to kick her fairly hard.

Had we but known it, our fortunes were already slightly on the mend, for that was the very day father’s Aunt Millicent died. How dreadfully callous I sound! But if I could bring her back to life, truly I would; and as I can’t, there seems no harm in thanking God for His wondrous ways.

and it probably hurt her to die, poor old lady.

time takes the ugliness and horror out of death and turns it into beauty.

“I’d die rather than explain.”

I keep resting and thinking.

All day I have been two people

Rose running away will have undone the damage she did by being too forthcoming. If only she doesn’t forth-come again!

I have been resting, just staring down at the castle. I wish I could find words—serious, beautiful words—to describe it in the afternoon sunlight; the more I strive for them, the more they utterly elude me.

The subdivision :')

The way one’s mind can dash about just while one opens a window!

tall and pale, like a slightly dead goddess,

I should rather like to tear these last pages out of the book. Shall I? No—a journal ought not to cheat.

I leaned against the carved banisters and listened to the music and felt quite different from

any way I have ever felt before—softer, very beautiful and as if a great many men were in love with me and I might very easily be in love with them. I had the most curious feeling in my solar plexus—a vulnerable feeling is the nearest I can get to it; I was investigating it in a pleasant, hazy sort of way,

“And no bathroom on earth will make up for marrying a bearded man you hate.”

“Well, I shall pray you really fall

in love with him—and he with you, of course. And I’ll do out-of-bed prayers.” “So will I,” she said, hopping out again. We both prayed hard, Rose much the longest—she was still on her knees when I had settled down ready to sleep. “That’ll do, Rose,” I told her at last. “It’s enough just to mention things, you know. Long prayers are like nagging.”

Of course Neil never will propose to me now that I have let myself imagine it.

Perhaps he finds beauty saddening—I do myself sometimes.

Then he said I was probably too young to understand him; but I understood perfectly.

The sweet, fresh smell which isn’t quite flowers or grass or scent of any kind, but just clean country air—one forgets to notice this unless one reminds oneself.

she was bloated with sausage.

I could hit him!

and then I count the blessings that have descended on us; but I still seem to fancy the past most. This is ridiculous.

“My dear, I always longed for a daughter to dress—let me have my share of your happiness.”

I’ve got my cross-roads feeling—I’ve only had it three or four times in my life.

Deserts do not seem to be deserted in America.

I miss you at least a hundred times a day.

I regret to say that he is re-reading Miss Marcy’s entire stock of detective novels.

he has been most civil about my cooking—which is certainly a sign of control.

I will pause and search my innermost soul.….. I have searched it for a solid five minutes.

Surely I have a right to my joy?

(I remember my astonishment at being called a Christian)

Don’t you go feeling rich, it isn’t safe.”

Topaz has always had a monopoly of nudity in our household—

My kind of nature-worship has always had to do with magic and folklore, though sometimes it turned a bit holy.

imagination itself can be a kind of willingness—a pretence that things are real, due to one’s longing for them.

religion really can cure you of sorrow; somehow make use of it, turn it to beauty, just as art can make sad things beautiful.