P. G. Wodehouse

“ For the last five years my imagination had been playing round her memory, until I suppose I had built up in my mind some almost superhuman image, some goddess. What I was passing through now, of course, though I was unaware of it, was the natural reaction from that state of mind. Instead of the goddess, I had found a companionable human being, and I imagined that I had effected the change myself, and by sheer force of will brought Audrey into a reasonable relation to the scheme of things. ”

“ There was a noble fire burning in the grate, and the darkness lit by the glow of the coals, the dripping of the rain, the good behaviour of my pipe, and the reflection that, as I sat there, Glossop was engaged downstairs in wrestling with my class, combined to steep me in a meditative peace. Audrey was playing the piano in the drawing-room. ”

“ She shivered.
'I wish you would tell me about those years, Audrey,' I said. 'What were some of the things you did?'
She leaned back in her chair and shaded her face from the fire with a newspaper. Her eyes were in the shadow.
'Well, let me see. I was a nurse for some time at the Lafayette Hospital in New York.'
'That's hard work?'
'Horribly hard. I had to give it up after a while. But—it teaches you.... You learn.... You learn—all sorts of things. Realities. How much of your own trouble is imagination. You get real trouble in a hospital. ”