When she considered the multitudinous objects which belonged to her, or, better still when, choosing out of some section of them as the fancy took her, she actually savored the vivid richness of their individual qualities, she saw herself deliciously reflected from a million facets, felt herself magnified miraculously over a boundless area, and was well pleased. That was just as it should be; but then came the dismaying thought—everything slips away, crumbles, vanishes; Sèvres dinner-services get broken; even golden basins go unaccountably astray; even one’s self, with all the recollections and experiences that make up one’s being, fluctuates, perishes, dissolves… But not! It could not, should not be so! There should be no changes and no losses! Nothing should ever move—neither the past nor the present—and she herself least of all!
Lytton Strachey, “The Old Age of Queen Victoria,” published in The New Republic in 1921.

Notes

  1. thebloomsburygroup posted this