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I Took My Coffee Into The Dining Room And Settled Down With The Morning Paper. A Woman In New York Had Had Twins In A Taxi. A Woman In Ohio Had Just Had Her Seventeenth Child. A Twelve-year-old Girl In Mexico Had Given Birth To A Thirteen-pound Boy. The Lead Article On The Woman's Page Was About How To Adjust The Older Child To The New Baby. I Finally Found An Account Of An Axe Murder On Page Seventeen, And Held My Coffee Cup Up To My Face To See If The Steam Might Revive Me.

-Shirley Jackson

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I Took My Coffee

Shirley Jackson

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I Took My Coffee Into The Dining Room And Settled Down With The Morning Paper. A Woman In New York Had Had Twins In A Taxi. A Woman In Ohio Had Just Had Her Seventeenth Child. A Twelve-year-old Girl In Mexico Had Given Birth To A Thirteen-pound Boy. The Lead Article On The Woman's Page Was About How To Adjust The Older Child To The New Baby. I Finally Found An Account Of An Axe Murder On Page Seventeen, And Held My Coffee Cup Up To My Face To See If The Steam Might Revive Me.

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On The Moon We Wore Feathers In Our Hair, And Rubies On Our Hands. On The Moon We Had Gold Spoons.

Certainly There Are Spots Which Inevitably Attach To Themselves An Atmosphere Of Holiness And Goodness; It Might Not Then Be Too Fanciful To Say That Some Houses Are Born Bad.

Oh Constance, We Are So Happy.

I Very Much Dislike Writing About Myself Or My Work, And When Pressed For Autobiographical Material Can Only Give A Bare Chronological Outline Which Contains No Pertinent Facts.

No Live Organism Can Continue For Long To Exist Sanely Under Conditions Of Absolute Reality; Even Larks And Katydids Are Supposed, By Some, To Dream. Hill House, Not Sane, Stood By Itself Against Its Hills, Holding Darkness Within; It Had Stood So For Eighty Years And Might Stand For Eighty More. Within, Walls Continued Upright, Bricks Met Neatly, Floors Were Firm, And Doors Were Sensibly Shut; Silence Lay Steadily Against The Wood And Stone Of Hill House, And Whatever Walked There, Walked Alone.

The Sight Of One's Own Heart Is Degrading; People Are Not Meant To Look Inward - That's Why They've Been Given Bodies, To Hide Their Souls.

I Never Was A Person Who Wanted A Handout. I Was A Cafeteria Worker. I'm Not Too Proud To Ask The Best Western Manager To Give Me A Job. I Have Cleaned Homes.

I Was Thinking, I Could Turn Him Into A Fly And Drop Him Into A Spider's Web And Watch Him Tangled And Helpless And Struggling, Shut Into The Body Of A Dying Buzzing Fly; I Could Wish Him Dead Until He Died.i Could Fasten Him To A Tree And Keep Him There Until He Grew Into The Trunk And Bark Grew Over His Mouth. If He Was Under The Ground I Could Walk Over Him Stamping My Feet.

Now, I Have Nothing Against The Public School System As It Is Presently Organized, Once You Allow The Humor Of Its Basic Assumption About How It Is Possible To Teach Things To Children.

Life Among The Savages Is A Disrespectful Memoir Of My Children.

So Long As You Write It Away Regularly Nothing Can Really Hurt You.

It Is Only With The Eyes Open That A Corporeal Form Returns, And Assembles Itself Firmly Around The Hard Core Of Sight.

I Assume Then, That You Have No Real Faith In The Fondness Any Of The Rest Of Us May Feel For You?''none,' Said Mrs. Halloran.

Fate Intervened. Some Of Us, That Day, She Led Inexorably Through The Gates Of Death. Some Of Us, Innocent And Unsuspecting, Took, Unwillingly, That One Last Step To Oblivion. Some Of Us Took Very Little Sugar.

I Was Wondering About My Eyes; One Of My Eyes--the Left--saw Everything Golden And Yellow And Orange, And The Other Eye Saw Shades Of Blue And Grey And Green; Perhaps One Eye Was For Daylight And The Other Was For Night. If Everyone In The World Saw Different Colors From Different Eyes There Might Be A Great Many New Colors Still To Be Invented.

We Moved Together Very Slowly Toward The House, Trying To Understand Its Ugliness And Ruin And Shame.

For Plain And Fancy Worrying, Give Me A New Mother Every Time.

She Walked Quickly Around Her One-room Apartment. After More Than Four Years In This One Home She Knew All Its Possibilities, How It Could Put On A Sham Appearance Of Warmth And Welcome When She Needed A Place To Hide In, How It Stood Over Her In The Night When She Woke Suddenly, How It Could Relax Itself Into A Disagreeable Unmade, Badly-put-together State, Mornings Like This, Anxious To Drive Her Out And Go Back To Sleep.

Journeys End In Lovers Meeting; I Have Spent An All But Sleepless Night, I Have Told Lies And Made A Fool Of Myself, And The Very Air Tastes Like Wine. I Have Been Frightened Half Out Of My Foolish Wits, But I Have Somehow Earned This Joy; I Have Been Waiting For It For So Long.

All Cat Stories Start With This Statement: "my Mother, Who Was The First Cat, Told Me This...

Bridge Is A Game For The Undivided Intellect.

The Number Of People Who Expected Mrs. Hutchinson To Win A Bendix Washer Would Amaze You.

Today My Winged Horse Is Coming And I Am Carrying You Off To The Moon And On The Moon We Will Eat Rose Petals.

I Suppose, I Hoped, By Setting A Particularly Brutal Ancient Rite In The Present And In My Own Village To Shock The Story's Readers With A Graphic Dramatization Of The Pointless Violence And General Inhumanity In Their Own Lives.

It Might Be Suggested, And Not Easily Disproven That Anything, No Matter How Exotic, Can Be Believed By Someone. On The Other Hand, Abstract Belief Is Largely Impossible; It Is The Concrete, The Actuality Of The Cup, The Candle, The Sacrificial Stone, Which Hardens Belief; The Statue Is Nothing Until It Cries, The Philosophy Is Nothing Until The Philosopher Is Martyred.

Am I Walking Toward Something I Should Be Running Away From?

I Came To Believe That Being A Private Detective Was The Work I Was Meant To Do.

I Shall Weave A Suit Of Leaves. At Once. With Acorns For Buttons.

My Name Is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I Am Eighteen Years Old, And I Live With My Sister Constance. I Have Often Thought That With Any Luck At All, I Could Have Been Born A Werewolf, Because The Two Middle Fingers On Both My Hands Are The Same Length, But I Have Had To Be Content With What I Had. I Dislike Washing Myself, And Dogs, And Noise. I Like My Sister Constance, And Richard Plantagenet, And Amanita Phalloides, The Death-cup Mushroom. Everyone Else In Our Family Is Dead.

All I Could Think Of When I Got A Look At The Place From The Outside Was What Fun It Would Be To Stand Out There And Watch It Burn Down.

I'm Going To Put Death In All Their Food And Watch Them Die.

It Was One Of Those Winter Days That Suddenly Dream Of Spring, When The Sky Is Blue And Soft And Clear, And The Wind Has Dropped Its Voice And Whispers Instead Of Screaming, And The Sun Is Out And The Trees Look Surprised, And Over Everything There Is The Faintest, Palest Tint Of Green.

On The Moon We Have Everything. Lettuce, And Pumpkin Pie And Amanita Phalloides. We Have Cat-furred Plants And Horses Dancing With Their Wings. All The Locks Are Solid And Tight, And There Are No Ghosts.

Materializations Are Often Best Produced In Rooms Where There Are Books. I Cannot Think Of Any Time When Materialization Was In Any Way Hampered By The Presence Of Books.

I Have Always Loved To Use Fear, To Take It And Comprehend It And Make It Work And Consolidate A Situation Where I Was Afraid And Take It Whole And Work From There.

We Eat The Year Away. We Eat The Spring And The Summer And The Fall. We Wait For Something To Grow And Then We Eat It.

Hill House, She Thought, You're As Hard To Get Into As Heaven.

I Remember That I Stood On The Library Steps Holding My Books And Looking For A Minute At The Soft Hinted Green In The Branches Against The Sky And Wishing, As I Always Did, That I Could Walk Home Across The Sky Instead Of Through The Village.

He Is Altogether Selfish, She Thought In Some Surprise, The Only Man I Have Ever Sat And Talked To Alone, And I Am Impatient; He Is Simply Not Very Interesting.

Don't Do It, Eleanor Told The Little Girl; Insist On Your Cup Of Stars; Once They Have Trapped You Into Being Like Everyone Else You Will Never See Your Cup Of Stars Again; Don't Do It; And The Little Girl Glanced At Her, And Smiled A Little Subtle, Dimpling, Wholly Comprehending Smile, And Shook Her Head Stubbornly At The Glass. Brave Girl, Eleanor Thought; Wise, Brave Girl.

It Watches," He Added Suddenly. "the House. It Watches Every Move You Make.

It Was A House Without Kindness, Never Meant To Be Lived In, Not A Fit Place For People Or For Love Or For Hope. Exorcism Cannot Alter The Countenance Of A House ; Hill House Would Stay As It Was Until It Was Destroyed.

I Wonder If I Could Eat A Child If I Had The Chance.' 'i Doubt If I Could Cook One,' Said Constance.

I Cannot Find Any Patience For Those People Who Believe That You Start Writing When You Sit Down At Your Desk And Pick Up Your Pen And Finish Writing When You Put Down Your Pen Again; A Writer Is Always Writing, Seeing Everything Through A Thin Mist Of Words, Fitting Swift Little Descriptions To Everything He Sees, Always Noticing. Just As I Believe That A Painter Cannot Sit Down To His Morning Coffee Without Noticing What Color It Is, So A Writer Cannot See An Odd Little Gesture Without Putting A Verbal Description To It, And Ought Never To Let A Moment Go By Undescribed.

It Has Long Been My Belief That In Times Of Great Stress, Such As A 4-day Vacation, The Thin Veneer Of Family Wears Off Almost At Once, And We Are Revealed In Our True Personalities.

Gossip Says She Hanged Herself From The Turret On The Tower, But When You Have A House Like Hill House With A Tower And A Turret, Gossip Would Hardly Allow You To Hang Yourself Anywhere Else.

Poor Strangers, They Have So Much To Be Afraid Of.

In Ten Years I Will Be A Beautiful Charming Lovely Lady Writer Without Any Husband Or Children But Lots Of Lovers And Everyone Will Read The Books I Write And Want To Marry Me But I Will Never Marry Any Of Them. I Will Have Lots Of Money And Jewels Too.

We Were Going To The Long Field Which Today Looked Like An Ocean, Although I Had Never Seen An Ocean; The Grass Was Moving In The Breeze And The Cloud Shadows Passed Back And Forth And The Trees In The Distance Moved.

Dad And I Did Not Care At All For Your Story In The New Yorker … [i]t Does Seem, Dear, That This Gloomy Kind Of Story Is What All You Young People Think About These Days. Why Don't You Write Something To Cheer People Up?

In All The World There Is Not Someone Who Does Not Believe Something.

She Had Taken To Wondering Lately, During These Swift-counted Years, What Had Been Done With All Those Wasted Summer Days; How Could She Have Spent Them So Wantonly? I Am Foolish, She Told Herself Early Every Summer, I Am Very Foolish; I Am Grown Up Now And Know The Values Of Things. Nothing Is Ever Really Wasted, She Believed Sensibly, Even One's Childhood, And Then Each Year, One Summer Morning, The Warm Wind Would Come Down The City Street Where She Walked And She Would Be Touched With The Little Cold Thought: I Have Let More Time Go By.

A Pretty Sight, A Lady With A Book.

No Live Organism Can Continue For Long To Exist Sanely Under Conditions Of Absolute Reality.

I Delight In What I Fear.

I Took My Coffee Into The Dining Room And Settled Down With The Morning Paper. A Woman In New York Had Had Twins In A Taxi. A Woman In Ohio Had Just Had Her Seventeenth Child. A Twelve-year-old Girl In Mexico Had Given Birth To A Thirteen-pound Boy. The Lead Article On The Woman's Page Was About How To Adjust The Older Child To The New Baby. I Finally Found An Account Of An Axe Murder On Page Seventeen, And Held My Coffee Cup Up To My Face To See If The Steam Might Revive Me.

The Idea Of A Series Of Items, Following One Another Docilely, Forms The Only Possible Reasonable Approach To Life If You Have To Live It With A Home And A Husband And Children, None Of Whom Would Dream Of Following One Another Docilely.

I Can't Help It When People Are Frightened," Says Merricat. "i Always Want To Frighten Them More.

God! Whose Hand Was I Holding?

Let Him Be Wise, Or Let Me Be Blind; Don't Let Me, She Hoped Concretely, Don't Let Me Know Too Surely What He Thinks Of Me.

[l]et My Reader Who Is Puzzled By My Awkward Explanations Close His Eyes For No More Than Two Minutes, And See If He Does Not Find Himself Suddenly Not A Compact Human Being At All, But Only A Consciousness On A Sea Of Sound And Touch . . .

I Really Think I Shall Commence Chapter Forty-four," He Said, Patting His Hands Together. "i Shall Commence, I Think, With A Slight Exaggeration And Go On From There Into An Outright Lie. Constance, My Dear?" "yes, Uncle Julian?" "i Am Going To Say That My Wife Was A Beautiful Woman.

I Was Already Doing A Lot Of Splendid Research Reading All The Books About Ghosts I Could Get Hold Of, And Particularly True Ghost Stories - So Much So That It Became Necessary For Me To Read A Chapter Of _little Women_ Every Night Before I Turned Out The Light - And At The Same Time I Was Collecting Pictures Of Houses, Particularly Odd Houses, To See What I Could Find To Make Into A Suitable Haunted House.

Wear Your Boots If You Wander Today

I Was Pretending That I Did Not Speak Their Language; On The Moon We Spoke A Soft, Liquid Tongue, And Sang In The Starlight, Looking Down On The Dead Dried World.

Within, Walls Continued Upright, Bricks Met Neatly, Floors Were Firm, And Doors Were Sensibly Shut; Silence Lay Steadily Against The Wood And Stone Of Hill House, And Whatever Walked There, Walked Alone.

I Am Like A Small Creature Swallowed Whole By A Monster, She Thought, And The Monster Feels My Tiny Little Movements Inside.

I Have Often Thought That With Any Luck At All I Could Have Been Born A Werewolf, Because The Two Middle Fingers On Both My Hands Are The Same Length, But I Have Had To Be Content With What I Had.

You Will Be Wondering About That Sugar Bowl, I Imagine, Is It Still In Use? You Are Wondering, Has It Been Cleaned? You May Very Well Ask, Was It Thoroughly Washed?

Can't You Make Them Stop?' I Asked Her That Day, Wondering If There Was Anything In This Woman I Could Speak To, If She Had Ever Run Joyfully Over Grass, Or Had Watched Flowers, Or Known Delight Or Love.

I Would Have To Find Something Else To Bury Here And I Wished It Could Be Charles.

In The Country Of The Story The Writer Is King.

There Had Not Been This Many Words Sounded In Our House For A Long Time, And It Was Going To Take A While To Clean Them Out.

All Our Land Was Enriched With My Treasures Buried In It, Thickly Inhabited Just Below The Surface With My Marbles And My Teeth And My Colored Stones, All Perhaps Turned To Jewels By Now, Held Together Under The Ground In A Powerful Taut Web Which Never Loosened, But Held Fast To Guard Us.

No, The Menace Of The Supernatural Is That It Attacks Where Modern Minds Are Weakest, Where We Have Abandoned Our Protective Armor Of Superstition And Have No Substitute Defense.

February, When The Days Of Winter Seem Endless And No Amount Of Wistful Recollecting Can Bring Back Any Air Of Summer.

The First Book Is The Book You Have To Write To Get Back At Your Parents; The Book You Always Had In You. Once You Get That Out Of Your Way, You Can Start Writing Books.

Fear," The Doctor Said, "is The Relinquishment Of Logic, The Willing Relinquishing Of Reasonable Patterns. We Yield To It Or We Fight It, But We Cannot Meet It Halfway.

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