Excerpt from World Without End AN old-fashioned attic on a rainy night is the most delightful place in the world. Comfortable, with the sense of security and shelter. Exciting, with the sense of old, far-off, unhappy things - and happy things, too to look back on and live over again. Candlelight is best, because it throws the deepest shadows. There must be cobwebs under the rafters and little draughts to make the candle gutter. And you must not be alone. Even the loveliest memories have the quality of sadness. Not grief. I don't mean that. I mean the feeling you have when you open a rose-jar and find the petals all brown and sere but exhaling as great a fragrance as if they were still pink and dark red and gold, veined and velvety, curved with tender life. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.