“I am an improvised bridge, and when Someone passes over me, I crumble away behind Him.”
The Saviors of God (1923)
Context: I am not alone in my fear, nor alone in my hope, nor alone in my shouting. A tremendous host, an onrush of the Universe fears, hopes, and shouts with me.
I am an improvised bridge, and when Someone passes over me, I crumble away behind Him.
“But to appear happy when I am so miserable — Oh! who can require it?”
Source: Sense and Sensibility
“More of me comes out when I improvise.”
Catherine Earnshaw (Ch. XII).
Variant: I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free; and laughing at injuries, not maddening under them! Why am I so changed? why does my blood rush into a hell of tumult at a few words?
Source: Wuthering Heights (1847)
From A Balance Beam
Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground (2002)
“Oh, I am not quite sleeping.
Oh, I am fast in bed.”
Lyrics, Illinois (2005)
