emilys-quest-books library

Emily’s Quest

1 Marie Bashkirtseff’s Journal Some days…she would feel like imitating Marie Bashkirtseff and hurling the taunting, ticking, remorseless sitting-room clock out of the window
  The Poet …days when the echo of that “random word” of the gods, for which she so avidly listened, would only seem to taunt her with its suggestions of unattainable perfection and loveliness beyond the reach of mortal ear or pen.
  Heroism
 You must not be afraid. Father said I wasn’t to be afraid of anything in that talk I had with him the night he died. And isn’t it Emerson who said, ‘Always do what you are afraid to do?’
3 The Chambered Nautilus All her life she had grown, as it seemed, by these fits and starts. Going on quietly and changelessly for months and years; then all at once suddenly realizing that she had left some “low-vaulted past” and emerged into some “new temple” of the soul more spacious than all that had gone before.
6 Proverbs 27:6 “‘Faithful are the wounds of a friend.’ I should be less than your friend if I told you falsehoods about this, Emily.
  Leviticus 18:21 What did the mothers of old feel when their children had passed through the fire to Moloch–when the sacrificial impulse and excitement had gone? Emily thought she knew.
7 Revelations 22:5 Oh, those bitter nights! Once Emily had not thought that the Bible verse declaring that there would be no night in heaven contained an attractive promise. No night? No soft twilight enkindled with stars?….
  Ecclesiastes 11:7
 She felt again her old joy in mere existence. “Truly the light is sweet and a pleasant thing it is for the eye to behold the sun,” she quoted dreamily.
8 Unknown Since ever the world was spinning
And till the world shall end
You’ve your man in the beginning
Or you have him in the end,
But to have him from start to finish
And neither to borrow nor lend
Is what all of the girls are wanting
And none of the gods can send.
9 The Winter’s Tale
 “Sweeter than lids of Emily’s eyes
Or Emily’s breath.”
Emily’s a nicer name than Cytherea or Juno, I think.
  Lady GiovannaMona Lisa They hung their pictures one day. Emily brought her favourites up, including the Lady Giovanna and Mona Lisa… “And Mona Lisa will whisper to you the ageless secret of her smile and you shall put it in a story.”
  Elizabeth Bas
 “I’m going to hang old Elizabeth Bas by the fireplace,” said Dean. “‘Engraving from a portrait by Rembrandt.’ Isn’t she a delightful old woman, Star, in her white cap and tremendous white ruff collar? And did you ever see such a shrewd, humorous, complacent, slightly contemptuous old face?”
  Who is this Fair one in Distress? “One catches a glimpse of all kinds of secrets now,” said Dean. “On a night like this I always think of the ‘hills where spices grow.’ That line of the old hymn Mother used to sing has always intrigued me–though I can’t ‘fly like a youthful hart or roe.’”
10 Grey Rocks and Greyer Sea
 Externals always had a great influence upon her… An old verse from one of Roberts’ poems came into her head:
Grey rocks and greyer sea.
And surf along the shore,
And in my heart a name
My lips shall speak no more.
12 Aurora Leigh “Get leave to work–
In this world ’tis the best you get at all,
For God in cursing gives us better gifts
Than men in benediction.
  The Conundrum of the Workshops
 Not all the dreams of Eden ‘whence the four great rivers flow’ could have been as sweet as those I am dreaming to-night, because the power to work has come back to me.
13 Letter from a Girl to her Own Old Age Emily was reading by the window of her room when she heard it– reading Alice Meynell’s strange poem, “Letter From A Girl To Her Own Old Age,” and thrilling mystically to its strange prophecies.
  Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
 “If I had a tail I’d lash it,” groaned Ilse, casting herself on Emily’s bed and hurling one of Emily’s treasured volumes–a little old copy of the Rubaiyat Teddy had given her in high school days– across the room. The back came off and the leaves flew every which way for a Sunday.”
  Lucrezia Borgia “Perry has changed his politics just for the sake of getting into partnership with Leonard Abel. ..This is one of the times I feel it would be handy to have been a bosom friend of Lucrezia Borgia.”
  William Tell
 “Oh, I know the modern whitewashers are determined to rob history of anything that is picturesque. No matter, I shall cling to my faith in Lucrezia and William Tell.”
14 Dawn
 Oh, if this exquisite stolen moment could last! A line from some poem of Marjorie Pickthall quivered in her thought like a bar of music– “Oh, keep the world forever at the dawn.” She said it like a prayer under her breath.
18 Mona Lisa
 But one said, ‘The smile on the girl’s face will become as famous as Mona Lisa’s.’ I’ve seen that very smile on your face a hundred times, Emily– especially when you were seeing that unseeable thing you used to call your flash. Teddy has caught the very soul of it–not a mocking, challenging smile like Mona Lisa’s–but a smile that seems to hint at some exquisitely wonderful secret you could tell if you liked–some whisper eternal–a secret that would make every one happy if they could only get you to tell it.
  Oliver Twist
 Well, about this story, regarding which Aunt Elizabeth had such an Oliver Twist complex.
  A Song before Sailing Too sick at heart to war
With failure any more.
19 The Lady of the Lake The whole landscape seemed “As those who wait\ Till judgment speak the doom of fate.” It made me feel horribly alone.
  The Death of the Old Year
 But underneath it all is the haunting sense of emptiness. This is all because ‘full knee-deep lies the winter snow’ and I can’t go a-prowling
  Dawn “You went out to escape. I know,” he whispered.
“My soul has pastured with the stars
Upon the meadowlands of space.”
I whispered in return.
  Lines Composed a Few Miles above the Tintern Abbey “Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.” She has always a gift of healing for us if we come humbly to her.
21 Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad Let him call as he might. “Whistle and I’ll come to you, my lad,” indeed!
  Kim
 “Exactly one thousand times have I planned to write to you,” wrote Ilse, “but when one is revolving rapidly on the wheel of things there doesn’t seem to be an opportunity for anything one really wants to do.”
  England: 1802 “You always remind me– always did remind me, even in our old chummy days–of somebody’s line–’her soul was like a star and dwelt apart.’”
  The Soldier’s Dream
 “In life’s morning march when my bosom was young I could have fried in boiling oil anyone–except you–at whom Perry Miller cast a sheep’s eye.”
  Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam “Well,” she said aloud to Emily-in-the-glass. “I’ve spilled my cup of life’s wine on the ground–somehow. And she will give me no more. So I must go thirsty.”
23 Vallambroso
 “Teddy and I are going to spend our honeymoon in old inns in out- of-the-way European corners–places where nobody else wants to go– Vallambroso and so on. That line of Milton’s always intrigued me– ‘thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks in Vallambroso.’
24 To My Saxon Blonde
 If the bards of old the truth have told
The sirens have raven hair.
But over the earth since art had birth,
They paint the angels fair.
  The Story of an African Farm
 The book Emily was returning was an old copy of The South African Farm. Emily had expressed a wish to read it and Mrs. Kent had gone upstairs and presently came down with it–her white face a little whiter and the scar burning redly across it as always when she was deeply moved.
26 Mark Twain
 My one thought was to see Perry once before he died. I HAD to. And I found when I got there that, as Mark Twain said, the report of his death was greatly exaggerated.
26 Thrown on the World/The Discard Wife
 “And then”–Teddy laughed at himself– “when she ‘left me at the altar’ according to the very formula of Bertha M. Clay I was furious.”