The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 4

by Beth Brower

We’re both far too committed to hearing our own opinions.”

in this thing. However,

if the right man should

come along, and money looks more like love than one would initially suppose, don’t turn your back on a chance for happiness merely b...

There are some things best left in the annals of one’s own fading memory.

The woman had been silent for ten years, but less than three minutes in my presence and she’d crumbled. I was afraid that one more sentence could derail her life of silence altogether.

Felicity is the gift of a book.

Is it immoral to marry a man solely to gain a library?

And if that man happens to be tremendously good looking, is it more or less of a sin?

All of these dynamics created a sense, of what I cannot say. But there was a prick on the back of my neck, like a whisper of some golden age. It seems foolish to write now. But there was one moment when the food had been cleared away and we fell silent, all of us glancing about the table. I think more than just myself could sense something was in the making. We just couldn’t understand what.

“Of course I’m coming with you. Don’t be daft. My friends do not go to war alone.”

His defiance has always been his protection.

Bless a man who knows how to keep his own counsel when you can’t bear to speak.

I suppose one does not take a guard dog if he is never to bite.

They might not be of the Old Testament variety—Pierce, Islington, and Hawkes—but whatever strange confluence of events led to them holding me up was the gentlest hand of fate I’ve ever encountered. It might even be Divine.

Well, let us hold the pass. No traitors among us. WE WILL FIGHT IN THE SHADE.