CHAPTER IV
She's left the school! She's living in the splendid house in
Pilchester Square looking for a post!
She's found a post! She's private secretary to Mr. Simcox!
She's left the splendid house in Pilchester Square! She's living an
independent life! She's going to Mr. Simcox's office, her office,
every day, just like a man! She's living on her own salary in a
boarding house in Bayswater!
What jumps! One clutches, as at flying papers in a whirlwind, at
a stable moment in which to pin her down and describe her as she
jumps. One can't. The thing's too breathless. It's a maelstrom.
It's an earthquake. It's a deluge. It's a boiling pot. It's youth.
What it must be to live it! One thing pouring on to another so that
it's impossible anywhere to pick hold of a bit that isn't changing
into something else even as it is examined. That's youth all over.
Always and all the time all change. What it must be to live it!
What it must be! Why, when youth comes bursting out of tutelage
there's not a stable thing beneath its feet nor above its head
a sky that stays the same for two hours together! Every stride's
a stepping-stone that tilts and throws you; every dawn a sudden
midnight even while it breaks, and every night a blinding brilliance
when it's darkest. New faces, new places, new dresses, new dishes;
new foes, new friends; new tasks, new triumphs; never a pause,
never a platform; every day a year and every year a day--not life
on a firm round world but life in the heart of a whirling avalanche.
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