The Well of Loneliness

Poison kills the body, but moral poison kills the soul.’

and retained its status as the ‘Lesbian bible’

Audre Lorde’s Zami: A New Spelling of My Name

However, the editor of the the Sunday Express, James Douglas, savagely attacked The Well: ‘I would rather give a healthy boy or girl a vial of prussic acid than this novel. Poison kills the body, but moral poison kills the soul.’

And she answered: ‘I’m dreadfully happy, Father. I’m so dreadfully happy that it makes me feel frightened, ’cause I mayn’t always last happy – not this way.’

She never got used to her mother’s beauty, it always surprised her each time she saw it; it was one of those queerly unbearable things, like the fragrance of meadow-sweet under the hedges.

as though she were conscious that one did not cough in front of a goddess like Anna.

Stephen would stand just a little behind her, thinking how gracious and lovely she was;

one time she had very much liked being read to, especially from books that were all about heroes; but now such stories so stirred her ambition, that she longed intensely to live them.

Up and down went the days; they resembled a swing that soared high above the tree-tops, then dropped to the depths, but seldom if ever hung midway.