Bethany

“A person may encircle the globe with mind open only to bodily comfort. Another may live his life on a sixty-foot lot and listen to the voices of the universe.”
― Bess Streeter Aldrich

“Not that she objected to solitude. Quite the contrary. She had books, thank Heaven, quantities of books. All sorts of books.”
― Jean Rhys, Quartet

“Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart... filled it, too, with a melody that would last forever. Even though you grew up and found you could never quite bring back the magic feeling of this night, the melody would stay in your heart always - a song for all the years.”
― Bess Streeter Aldrich, Song of Years

“Candleford Green was but a small village and there were fields and meadows and woods all around it. As soon as Laura crossed the doorstep, she could see some of these. But mere seeing from a distance did not satisfy her; she longed to go alone far into the fields and hear the birds singing, the brooks tinkling, and the wind rustling through the corn, as she had when a child. To smell things and touch things, warm earth and flowers and grasses, and to stand and gaze where no one could see her, drinking it all in.”
― Flora Thompson, Lark Rise to Candleford