Best Of Dawn Powell's "The Bride's House"
Here is a selection of memorable quotes from The Bride's House by Dawn Powell.
Picture above: The Bride by George Hitchcock c. 1900
And the old Sophie and the young Sophie sat before the fire envying each other for knowing and for not knowing. And sixty-four years were strung on a thread between old Sophie’s knowing eyes and young Sophie’s wondering eyes.
p.18
Sophie had only to go to town on a market day to know that she was beautiful.
p.34
There would be no darkness, no frenzied wondering as to what was one’s desire, what did one seek, for here was the answer in Lynn’s deep, shining love. This was what she had been questing for all her life.
p.52
He would keep their love high above this beast that hung over tombstones. He would keep their love a shining, starry thing, a rare and special charm against evil.
p.53
Powell's wry commentary on the importance of women talking to each other:
“It should make a woman happy,” she evaded. It was not right for women to ask other women questions. It was not right for women to wonder. It was right that women should suffer for themselves. It was right that women should bear their own secrets.
p.54
Sophie sat for a long time trying to dismiss the sense of foreboding unaccountably stealing over her. She had never been afraid of any living thing. Her father had said she was the most fearless woman he had ever known. He could not know that a woman could handle a gun as well as a man and yet be afraid of her own thoughts.
