Dangerous Ages by Rose Macaulay

Off went Nan on the bus at the corner, whistling softly into the night. Like a bird her heart rose up and sang, at the lit pageant of London swinging by. Queer, fantastic, most lovely life! Sordid, squalid, grotesque life, bitter as black tea, sour as stale wine! Gloriously funny, brilliant as a flowerbed, bright as a Sitwell street in hell --

"(Down in Hell's gilded street Snow dances fleet and sweet, Bright as a parakeet.)" unsteady as a swing-boat, silly as a drunkard's dream, tragic as a poem by Massfield. To have one's corner in it, to run here and there about the city, grinning like a dog -- what more did one want? Human adventures, intellectual adventures, success, even a little fame, men and women, jokes, laughter and love, dancing and a little drink, and the fields and mountains and seas beyond -- what more did one want?