It's as if she said to herself:


      Well, life is not just a business of standing on dry land
      and occasionally getting your feet wet.


           It is merely an illusion that some of us stand on one
           bank and some on the opposite.


               So long as we stand like that we are not living at
               all, but dreaming.


                  So jump, jump in, and let the shock wake us up.


                      Even if we drown, at least for a moment or two
                      before we die we shall be awake and alive.

from The Jewel in the Crown by Paul Scott