I was in a queer mood, thinking myself very old: but now I am a woman again - as I always am when I write.

I enjoy almost everything. Yet I have some restless searcher in me. Why is there not a discovery in life? Something one can lay hands on and say “This is it”? My depression is a harassed feeling. I’m looking: but that’s not it — that’s not it. What is it? And shall I die before I find it?

The most important thing is not to think very much about oneself. To investigate candidly the charge; but not fussily, not very anxiously. On no account to retaliate by going to the other extreme -- thinking too much.

Dance music ... stirs some barbaric instinct - lulled asleep in our sober lives - you forget centuries of civilization in a second, & yield to that strange passion which sends you madly whirling round the room.

I am not so gifted as at one time seemed likely.

Love and religion! thought Clarissa, going back into the drawing room, tingling all over. How detestable, how detestable they are!

You have a touch in letter writing that is beyond me. Something unexpected, like coming round a corner in a rose garden and finding it still daylight.