The opening lines of a less well known novel, Mary Webb’s engaging Precious Bane. Â She opens her foreword with a defence of the mute and invisible past before telling the story as a recollection by the protagonist.Â
The past is only the present become invisible and mute; and because it is invisible and mute, its memoried glances and its murmurs are infinitely precious. We are to-morrow’s past.
Yes, we are tomorrow’s past. Let’s live well in the present.Â
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Source: Mary Webb, Foreword, Precious Bane (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981), p. 7
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