Year of Wonders

by Geraldine Brooks

pagans, too, are children of God and their stories part of His creation.

For the hour in which I am able to lose myself in someone else’s thoughts is the greatest relief I can find from the burden of my own memories.

golden green, the color of sunlight-dappled leaves,

“Forgive me, but I thought of you directly I sighted that cloth, for the green is exactly the color of your eyes.”

“Mistress, I would make you a dozen such gowns to display your beauty!”

“Why did you not call on my aunt and me, instead of Mompellion? A good infusion would have served George better than the empty mutterings of a priest.”

purr

did SHE SPREAD THE PLAGUE???

“I pity those who live in towns and do not learn to love all this—the sweet scent of wet weeds and the ordinary, daily miracles of creation.

i’d love to live a simple life like this

And so, as generally happens, those who have most give least, and those with less somehow make shrift to share.

“He brought the brightness back into my dim world.

“At first, I borrowed his brightness and used it to see my way, and then gradually, from the habit of looking at the world as he illuminated it, the light in my own mind rekindled itself.”