I Capture the Castle

by Dodie Smith

Topaz said she had never been on the streets and rather regretted it, “because one must sink to the depths in order to rise to the heights,” which is the kind of Topazism it requires much affection to tolerate.

I finish this entry sitting on the stairs. I think it worthy of note that I never felt happier in my life—despite sorrow for father, pity for Rose, embarrassment about Stephen’s poetry and no justification for hope as regards our family’s general outlook. Perhaps it is because I have satisfied my creative urge; or it may be due to the thought of eggs for tea.

When I read a book, I put in all the imagination I can, so that it is almost like writing the book as well as reading it—or rather, it is like living it. It makes reading so much more exciting, but I don’t suppose many people try to do it.

While I listened to Miss Marcy’s children singing I seemed to capture everything together—mediæval England, myself at ten, the summers of the past and the summer really coming. I can’t imagine ever feeling happier than I did for those moments—and while I was telling myself so, Simon said: “Did anything as beautiful as this ever happen before?”

This is the first time I have used the beautiful manuscript book Simon gave me—and the fountain pen which came from him yesterday. A scarlet pen and a blue and gold leather-bound book—what could be more inspiring? But I seemed to get on better with a stump of pencil and Stephen’s fat, shilling exercise book.… I keep closing my eyes and basking—that is, my body basks; my mind is restless. I go backwards and forwards, recapturing the past, wondering about the future—and, most unreasonably, I find myself longing for the past more than for the future.

What a difference there is between wearing even the skimpiest bathing-suit and wearing nothing! After a few minutes I seemed to live in every inch of my body as fully as I usually do in my head and my hands and my heart.