‘When the sun grew too hot we went into the wood where waves of Bluebells dashed around the foot of the Oak in front of us... I never knew before, the delight of offering oneself up; I even longed for some self sacrifice, to have to give up something for her sake. It intoxicated me to think I was making another happy...

~W.N.P. Barbellion, Enjoying life~

'I must needs put myself into a state of unconsciousness while the earth itself is never asleep, but always spins along amid the stars with its precious human freightage.'

~W.N.P. Barbellion, Enjoying life~

'Neither the past nor the future existed for me any more, but only the glorious and all absorbing present. I put my whole being into the immediate ticking hour wit hits sixty minutes of precious life, and catching each pearl drop as it fell, said: ‘now my happiness is complete, and now and now’ I lay thus for I know not how long, centuries sperhaps, for down in the silent well of our existence time is not reckoned by the clock, nor our abiding joy in idle, obstinate words.'

~W.N.P. Barbellion, Enjoying life~

'When I awoke, a glace towards the window told me that outside it had already happened – the sun was up ! Humming along through a cloudless sky full of bees and skylarks. I shut my eyes and buried my nose in the pillow – awake sufficiently to realize that another great day had dawned for me while I slept. I lay still for a moment in luxurious anticipation and listened to a tiny joy, singing within like the voice of a girl in the distance, untill at last great waves of happiness roared through my heart like sea-horses.'

~W.N.P. Barbellion, Enjoying life~

'I have often wondered how a beautiful woman regards her body. The loveliness which I must seek outside myself sleeps on ‘the ivories of her pure members’. She carries the incommunicable secret in herself, in the texture of her own skin, and the contour of her own breasts. She is a guardian of the hidden treasure which fills the flowers and lives in the sunset. How must it be to possess so burning a secret hidden even to the possessor? What must she think on looking into the glass?'

~W.N.P. Barbellion, Enjoying life~

'The human body, what a wonderful mechanism it is! It never ceases to astonish me that anyone – on waking up in this world and finding himself in possession of a body – his only bit of real property – should be satisfied when he has clothed and fed it. '

~W.N.P. Barbellion, Enjoying life~

'Life pursues me like a fury. Everywhere at all times, I am feeling, thinking, hoping, hating, loving, cheering. It is impossible to escape.'

~W.N.P. Barbellion, Enjoying life~