Nostalgia

Nostalgia is intellectualisation of an earlier self within the setting of an alien self that one has since become. -- DF Lewis (today)

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Two quotes from Elizabeth Bowen:

Yet as Mrs Bowles’ story continued, gathering years of such talk on its vigorous dullness as on a running-thread, Laurel’s nostalgia for girlhood became acute. Her ‘teens – their exposure to stingless boredom, their extravagant reverie; a home that gave her life colour, taking none of her life’s; the cool ball-dress slipping over her arms; her impatient stitching of summer dresses, their lyric wearing. Janet and Mother tacking roses on her bodice (it would be a wonder if someone did not popose tonight), Mrs Bowles’ voice ran on. So the trees drowsed (a dull London sycamore cossed the window now) while Mrs Bowles talked and Laurel’s reel of pink cotton rolled away underneath the piano; Laurel had to go flat on her stomach: Mrs Bowles, on a visit, talked on: Laurel getting up bumped her head on the underneath of the keyboard and thought suddenly of Edward: Mrs Bowles’ words like rather old dulled fish gently tipped from a barrow went on slipping and slipping.

from Part III (1) of ‘Friends & Relations’ 1931

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