Jane

“The clouds had gathered, within the last half-hour. The light was dull; the distance was dim. The lovely face of Nature met us, soft and still and colourless – met us without a smile.”
― Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone

“It is a wary business, walking about a strange house you know you are to know well. Only cats and dogs with their more expressive bodies enact the tension we share with them at such times. The you inside gathers up defensively; something is stealing upon you every moment; you will never be the same again.”
― Elizabeth Bowen, The House in Paris

“I'm glad you like adverbs — I adore them; they are the only qualifications I really much respect.”
― Henry James

“Don’t you think the stairs are a good place for reading letters? I do. One is somehow suspended. One is on neutral ground - not in one’s own world nor in a strange one. They are an almost perfect meeting place. Oh Heavens! How stairs do fascinate me when I think of it. Waiting for people - sitting on strange stairs - hearing steps far above, watching the light playing by itself - hearing - far below a door, looking down into a kind of dim brightness, watching someone come up. But I could go on forever. Must put them in a story though! People come out of themselves on stairs - they issue forth, unprotected.”
― Katherine Mansfield, Letters and Journals