Witch from the Sea

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IT IS THE CUSTOM for the women of our family to keep a journal. My grandmother did and my mother must have learned the habit from her. I remember my mother’s saying once that by doing so one lived one’s life more fully. So much is lost if one cannot remember it, and even memory is apt to distort so that what actually happened, when looked back on, often takes on an entirely different aspect from the truth. But if it is set down with the emotion of the moment—exactly as it appeared then—it can be recalled in detail. It can be assessed and perhaps better understood, so that not only does one preserve a clear picture of some event which is important to one, but with it acquire a greater understanding of oneself.

So I will begin my journal in the months which followed our glorious victory over the Spaniards, which seems appropriate because it was a turning point in my life. At this time we were all living in a state of what I suppose can only be called euphoria. We had discovered how close we had come to disaster. We had never believed that it was possible for us to be beaten, and perhaps this supreme and superb confidence was one of the factors which carried us through to victory—but at the same time we could soberly contemplate what defeat would have meant. We had heard stories of the terrible things which had happened in the Netherlands where men had stood out against the might of Spain. We knew that when the Armada sailed from its native land it came not only with the weapons of war but with instruments of torture. We knew that those who would not accept their doctrines of religion were tortured and burned alive; we had heard that men had been buried with only their heads protruding from the earth and there left to perish.

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