“. . . clumsiness is often mated with a love of solitude.”

“He was careful to avoid meeting anyone. There was Stubbs, the gardener, coming along the path. He hid behind a tree till he had passed. He let himself out at a little gate in the garden wall. he skirted all stables, kennels, breweries, carpenters’ shops, wash-houses, places where they make tallow candles, kill oxen, forge horse-shoes, stitch jerkins – for the house was a town ringing with men at work at their various crafts – and gained the ferny path leading uphill through the park unseen. There is perhaps a kinship among qualities; one draws another along with it; and the biographer should here call attention to the fact that this clumsiness is often mated with a love of solitude. Having stumbled over a chest, Orlando naturally loved solitary places, vast views, and to feel himself for ever and ever and ever alone.”

“But I pine in Solitude. Solitude is my undoing.”

“I want to give, to be given, and solitude in which to unfold my possessions.”

“I do not want to be admired. I want to give, to be given, and solitude in which to unfold my possessions.”

“Every season is likeable, and wet days and fine, red wine and white, company and solitude. Even sleep, that deplorable curtailment of the joy of life, can be full of dreams; and the most common actions ― a walk, a talk, solitude in one’s own orchard ― can be enhanced and lit up by the association of the mind. Beauty is everywhere, and beauty is only two finger’s-breadth from goodness.”

“Yet it is true that there was an absent mindedness about her which sometimes made her clumsy; she was apt to think of poetry when she should have been thinking of taffeta; her walk was a little too much of a stride for a woman, perhaps, and her gestures, being abrupt, might endanger a cup of tea on occasion.”