A Severe Mercy

So many of the books, the best-loved ones, had been about England, and of course the poems were England itself.

— A Severe Mercy

That nameless something that had stopped his heart was Beauty.

— A Severe Mercy

He was suddenly overwhelmed with the revelation that what makes life worth living is, precisely, the emotions. But, then — this was awful! — maybe girls with their tears and laughter were getting more out of life. Shattering!

— A Severe Mercy

We met angrily in the dead of winter.

— A Severe Mercy

[Her death] saved our love from perishing in one of the other ways that love could perish. Would I not rather our love go through death than hate?

— A Severe Mercy

When she was launched, Davy christened her, breaking a bottle of wine against the lovely-curving bow, and crying as the schooner slipped into the water: "Keep us out of the set ways of life!"

— A Severe Mercy

Christianity has the ring, the feel of unique truth. Of essential truth. By it, life is made full instead of empty, meaningful instead of meaningless.

— A Severe Mercy

A choice was necessary: and there is no certainty. One can only choose a side. So I — I now choose my side: I choose beauty; I choose what I love. But choosing to believe is believing.

— A Severe Mercy

But I — I a Christian! I, who had been wont to regard Christians with pitying dislike, must now confess myself to be one.

— A Severe Mercy

But, though I wouldn't have admitted it, even to myself, I didn't want God aboard. He was too heavy. I wanted Him approving from a considerable distance.

— A Severe Mercy

It was a whip-poor-will whistling his liquid song, another one answering in the distance. We sat there a long time, holding hands, as the stars came out. This was the Virginia we loved.

— A Severe Mercy

Davy, too, was saying farewell to the wind, farewell to the wind and sky, watching it all go, fade away, die — and thanking God. And yet she was human, heart-breakingly human, and she did not want to die.

— A Severe Mercy

We had had what we had chosen, not business success or scholarly acclaim but a great love.

— A Severe Mercy

All I could think of was: Of her bones are coral made.

— A Severe Mercy

As nearly as a lover can do, I was seeing the whole of her — a wholeness I would never lose — and knowing her soul.

— A Severe Mercy

The future dream charms us because of its timelessness; and I think most of the charm we see in the "good old days" is no less an illusion of timelessness.

— A Severe Mercy

Sometimes — more precisely, some-not-times — we find "the still point of the turning world". All our most lovely moments perhaps are timeless.

— A Severe Mercy

We live in time as we live in the air we breathe. And we love the air — who has not taken deep breaths of pure, fresh country air, just for the pleasure of it? How strange that we cannot love time.

— A Severe Mercy

Instantly I was overwhelmed — by Oxford. The air itself — the familiar mixture of coal smoke and mist.

— A Severe Mercy

If, indeed, grief is a response to the presence — seeming or real — of the dead, then the end of grief might correspond to some necessary turning away on their part.

— A Severe Mercy