Then the knitting of a moment, an every day scenic effect -- the morning air, the smell of bacon, the street-chatter beyond the twisting trees -- forms an acute manifestation that allows her to become balanced in a poetic approach. With effort she remembers that she dined recently with a good many in view of picturesque landscapes, but she cannot recall if they were real ones. She recollects that, as a result of something someone said, she'd felt a need to freshen herself with a bit of looking-straight-at-things. "Had there been a quarrel?" she asks the birdie. "For one does get bored by such business. But how had I come to be taken with so much compressed meaning, vivacities, ignorant old women, clear phrases, and a burning need for one windy night of respite? Surely it was something more than a series of fluttering sensations over a dinner-party of veal?" As if in answer, the bird gathers wing to breast and trembles at the great desperate beginnings of it all.
{Danielle Dutton, Mary Charmichael, from Attempts at a Life}
