"One by one the bulbs burned out, like long lives come to their expected ends. Then there was a dark house once made of time, made now of weather, and harder to find; impossible to find and not even as easy to dream of as when it was alight. Stories last longer: but only by becoming stories. It was anyway all a long time ago; the world, we know now, is as it is and not different; if there was ever a time when there were passages, doors, the borders open and many crossing, that time is now now. The world is older than it was. Even the weather isn't as we remember it clearly once being; never lately does there come a summery day such as we remember, never clouds as white as that, never grass as odorous or shade as deep and full of promise as we remember they can be, as once upon a time they were." from Little, Big by John Crowley