Status Updates From The Rosemary Tree

Wow these characters are developed so well.

“People who have lost the power of love don’t grieve over its apparent loss. They don’t grieve over anything. If you’ve lost the power of love you’ve lost the power of grief. Hold on and the tide will turn.” John said.
“Hold on to what?” asked Miss Giles.
“To grief,” said John.
-283

Margary’s habit, like the Brer Rabbit, was to lie low and say nothing. She had found that amidst the many complications of life silence was best...Pat had nothing in common with the Brer Rabbit. Her method of amidst the complications of life was that of direct challenge.
-226, 227

“I think we had better have tea without waiting for Pat,” said John. He was a great believer in tea as a solvent for intellectual problems. It soothed the nerves and cleared the mind and was often of assistance to a lapsed memory.
-227

“Daphne’s point of view was a straight line and John’s was a corkscrew.” -152

This whole paragraph is great.

Chapter Five is Elizabeth Goudge at what she does best: describing gardens (especially herb gardens and orchards), the intense beauty of nature, the dignity and beneficence of an old house, the eccentricity of the human soul in all its beauty and brokenness, the wisdom of the elderly, and the tentative connections between characters who will become agents of God’s grace to each other.