Commonplace Book

'A woman spending thirty, forty, wasted years in a forgotten corner of the Downs. What of it?

Her memory would not cling about the place after she should be dead, any more than the memory of victims clung about the sacrificial stones. "Here blood was shed," but that was a collective phrase; all individuality had long since, - almost immediately, - been telescoped into the clemency of perspective. So it would be with her, and she saw herself already as part of that anonymous crowd, whether of the victims of a savage creed, or of the women with the wasted lives, - no sublime and legendary sorrow, except in so far that all sorrow shared in the same great dignity, - women who had lost children or lovers, women who had trailed ill-health about their daily business, women who had borne the long, mute burden of uncertainty, all the grey, silent, muffled women that whispered round her, and that had taken to their graves unchronicled the blunt or poignant sorrow of their hearts.'

from Grey Wethers by V. Sackville-West (Part Two)