Penelope Farmer Quote

But when she put her fingers into the water and pulled a marble out, it was small by comparison with those still in the glass, and unimportant, too. It was like the difference between what you long for and what you find--the difference, for instance, between Arthur's image of war and his experience of it. It was like other times, her own and Miss Agnes' proper childhood times that seemed so near to her memory and yet so far away. It was like everything that made you ache because in on sense it was so close and in another unobtainable.