Book//mark – The Well of Loneliness | Radclyffe Hall, 1928
.
“The world hid its head in the sands of convention, so that by seeing nothing it might avoid Truth. ”
“What a terrible thing could be freedom. Trees were free when they were uprooted by the wind;
ships were free when they were torn from their moorings; men were free when they were cast
out of their homes—free to starve, free to perish of cold and hunger.”
“If our love is a sin, then heaven must be full of such tender and selfless sinning as ours.”
“You’re neither unnatural, nor abominable, nor mad; you’re as much a part of what people call
nature as anyone else; only you’re unexplained as yet–you’ve not got your niche in creation.
But some day that will come, and meanwhile don’t shrink from yourself, but face yourself
calmly and bravely. Have courage; do the best you can with your burden. But above all be
honourable. Cling to your honour for the sake of those others who share the same burden.
For their sakes show the world that people like you and they can be quite as selfless and fine
as the rest of mankind. Let your life go to prove this–it would be a really great life-work,
Stephen.”
“For the sake of all the others who are like you, but less strong and less gifted perhaps,
many of them, it’s up to you to have the courage to make good.”
“I want you to be wise for your own sake, Stephen, because at the best life requires great
wisdom. I want you to learn to make friends of your books; someday you may need them,
because – ’ He hesitated, ‘because you mayn’t find life at all easy, we none of us do,
and books are good friends.”
“And her eyes filled with heavy, regretful tears, yet she did not quite know for what she was
weeping. She only knew that some great sense of loss, some great sense of incompleteness
possessed her, and she let the tears trickle down her face, wiping them off one
by one with her finger.”
“Writing, it was like a heavenly balm, it was like the flowing out of deep waters, it was like
the lifting of a load from the spirit; it brought with it a sense of relief, of assuagement.
One could say things in writing without feeling self-conscious, without feeling shy
and ashamed and foolish…”
“The eye of youth is very observant. Youth has its moments of keen intuition, even normal
youth — but the intuition of those who stand mi-way between the sexes is so ruthless,
so poignant, so deadly, as to be in the nature of an added scourge…”
“Too late, too late, your love gave me life. Here am I the creature you made through
your loving; by your passion you created the thing that I am. Who are you to deny me
the right to love? But for you I need never have known existence.”
“No birds were singing in the trees by the roadside, but a silence prevailed, more lovely
than bird song; the thoughtful and holy silence of winter, the silence of trustfully waiting
furrows. For the soil is the greatest saint of all ages, knowing neither impatience, nor fear,
nor doubting; knowing only faith, from which spring all blessings that are needful
to nurture man.”
Radclyffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness, 1928
