(no subject)
"Mrs. Oke was a silent person, more silent even than her husband, for she
did not feel bound, as he did, to attempt to entertain a guest or to show
any interest in him. She seemed to spend her life--a curious, inactive,
half-invalidish life, broken by sudden fits of childish cheerfulness--in an
eternal daydream, strolling about the house and grounds, arranging the
quantities of flowers that always filled all the rooms, beginning to read
and then throwing aside novels and books of poetry, of which she always had
a large number; and, I believe, lying for hours, doing nothing, on a couch
in that yellow drawing-room, which, with her sole exception, no member of
the Oke family had ever been known to stay in alone. Little by little I
began to suspect and to verify another eccentricity of this eccentric
being, and to understand why there were stringent orders never to disturb
her in that yellow room."
Vernon Lee, A Phantom Lover
did not feel bound, as he did, to attempt to entertain a guest or to show
any interest in him. She seemed to spend her life--a curious, inactive,
half-invalidish life, broken by sudden fits of childish cheerfulness--in an
eternal daydream, strolling about the house and grounds, arranging the
quantities of flowers that always filled all the rooms, beginning to read
and then throwing aside novels and books of poetry, of which she always had
a large number; and, I believe, lying for hours, doing nothing, on a couch
in that yellow drawing-room, which, with her sole exception, no member of
the Oke family had ever been known to stay in alone. Little by little I
began to suspect and to verify another eccentricity of this eccentric
being, and to understand why there were stringent orders never to disturb
her in that yellow room."
Vernon Lee, A Phantom Lover