Hope costs nothing.

A pretty little collection of weaknesses and a terror of spiders are our indispensable stock-in-trade with the men...

On the first of May, with my comrades of the catechism class, I laid lilac, chamomile and rose before the altar of the Virgin, and returned full of pride to show my blessed posy. My mother laughed her irreverent laugh and, looking at my bunch of flowers, which was bringing the may-bug into the sitting-room right under the lamp, she said: Do you suppose it wasn't already blessed before?

It's so curious: one can resist tears and 'behave' very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses.

In the matter of furnishing, I find a certain absence of ugliness far worse than ugliness.

So now, whenever I despair, I no longer expect my end, but some bit of luck, some commonplace little miracle which, like a glittering link, will mend again the necklace of my days.

By means of an image we are often able to hold on to our lost belongings. But it is the desperateness of losing which picks the flowers of memory, binds the bouquet.