“Mentally, perhaps she was already three parts glass. So intense was her desire to set up a commemorative window to herself that, when it was erected, she believed she must leave behind in it, for ever, a little ghost. And should this be so, then what joy to be pierced each morning with light; her body flooded through and through by the sun, or in the evening to glow with a harvest of dark colours, deepening into untold sadness with the night....What ecstasy! It was the Egyptian sighing for his pyramid, of course.”

“Although there were moments even still in the grey glint of morning when the room had the agitated, stricken appearance of a person who had changed his creed a thousand times, sighed, stretched himself, turned a complete somersault, sat up, smiled, lay down, turned up his toes and died of doubts. But this aspect was reserved exclusively for the housemaids and the translucent threads of dawn.”

“Must colour change?”

“The world is disgracefully managed, one hardly knows to whom to complain.”

“I adore italics, don't you?”

“And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of theDark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful andterrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and theSnow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Strongerthan the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!”She lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a greatlight that illuminated her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodoseeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terribleand worshipful. Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly shelaughed again, and lo! she was shrunken; a slender Elf woman, clad in simplewhite, whose gentle voice was soft and sad.”

“It was dreadful, when she thought about it with the tiniest bit of hindsight, to admit this was the case. That a small part of herself was such a masochist, so enjoyed putting herself through all of this, that she liked hearing sad songs on the radio and staring gloomily out the window late at night. The tears in her eyes as she walked home of an evening, thinking about how much she loved him and how great they were together. It was so adolescent.”