The Enchanted April
Elizabeth von Arnim, 1922
Four Englishwomen answer an advertisement for a castle in Italy and swap grey London for a month of wistaria, freesias and unaccountable happiness.
Elizabeth von Arnim
1866–1941
Born in Sydney and raised in England, von Arnim married a Prussian count and turned her German garden into a bestselling book; she later rented the castle where this novel is set.
Feels like freedom, hope and joy.
Why we wrap ourselves in small things when the night gets too large.
She pulled her wrap closer round her with a gesture of defence, of keeping out and off. She didn’t want to grow sentimental. Difficult not to, here; the marvellous night stole in through all one’s chinks, and brought in with it, whether one wanted them or not, enormous feelings—feelings one couldn’t manage, great things about death and time and waste; glorious and devastating things, magnificent and bleak, at once rapture and terror and immense, heart-cleaving longing. She felt small and dreadfully alone. She felt uncovered and defenceless. Instinctively she pulled her wrap closer. With this thing of chiffon she tried to protect herself from the eternities. Books by Elizabeth von Arnim
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