To have a life of one’s own, not an existence doled out to you by others

I really can't say why this bit from Lolly Willowes appeals to me so, but it does. The book, by Sylvia Townsend Warner, recently reissued by NYRB, is an odd thing. It's a pretty standard Viragoesque novel for the first 150 pages or so, and then the protaganist realizes that the inhabitants of the village she has moved to attend regular Satanic Sabbaths (which seem to consist primarily of dancing). It's the sort of odd development that might annoy me, but in this case it's a bit like the prim English version of the final bit of The Master and Margarita. And it allows the title character to deliver this bit of social commentary:

It’s like this. When I think of witches, I seem to see all over England, all over Europe, women living and growing old, as common as blackberries, and as unregarded. I see them, wives and sisters of respectable men, chapel members, and blacksmiths, and small farmers, and Puritans. In places seen from the train. You know. Well, there they were, there they are, child-rearing, house-keeping, hanging washed dishcloths on currant bushes; and for diversion each other’s silly conversation, and listening to men talking together in the way that men talk and women listen. Quite different to the way women talk, and men listen, if they listen at all. And all the time being thrust further down into dullness when the one thing all women hate is to be thought dull. And on Sunday they put on plain stuff gowns and starched white coverings on their heads and necks—the Puritan ones did—and walked across the fields to chapel, and listened to the sermon. Sin and Grace, and God and the –” (she stopped herself just in time), “and St. Paul. All men’s things, like politics, or mathematics. And on the way back they listened to more talk. Talk about the sermon, or war, or cock-fighting, and when they got back, there were the potatoes to be cooked for dinner. I t sounds very petty to complain about, but I tell you, that sort of thing settles down on one like a fine dust, and by and by the dust is age, settling down. Settling down! You never die, do you? No doubt that’s far worse, but there is a dreadful kind of dreary immortality about being settled down on by one day after another. And they think about how they were young once, and they see new young women, just like what they were, and yet as surprising as if it had never happened before, like trees in spring. But they are like trees towards the end of summer, heavy and dusty, and no one finds their leaves surprising, or notices them till they fall off. If they could be passive and unnoticed, it wouldn’t matter. But they must be active, and still not be noticed. Doing, doing, doing, till mere habit scolds at them like a housewife, and rouses them up—when they might sit in their doorways and think—to be doing still!”
. . .
“Respectable women keep their grave-clothes in a corner of the chest of drawers, hidden away, and when they want a little comfort they go and look at them, and think that once more, at any rate, they will be worth dressing with care. But the witch keeps her cloak of darkness, her dress embroidered with signs and planets; that’s better worth looking at. And think, Satan, what a compliment you pay her, pursuing her soul, lying in wait for it, following it through all its windings, crafty and patient and secret like a gentleman out killing tigers. Her soul—when no one else would give a look at her body even! And they are all so accustomed, so sure of her! They say: ‘Dear Lolly! What shall we give her for her birthday this year? Perhaps a hot-water bottle. Or what about a nice black lace scarf? Or a new workbox? Her old one is nearly worn out.’ But you say: ‘Come here, my bird! I will give you the dangerous black night to stretch out your wings in, and poisonous berries to feed on, and a nest of bones and thorns, perched high up in danger where no one can climb to it.’ That’s why we become witches: to show our scorn of pretending life’s a safe business, to satisfy our passion for adventure. It’s not malice, or wickedness—well, perhaps it is wickedness, for most women love that—but certainly not malice, not wanting to plague cattle and make horrid children spout up pins and –what is it?—‘blight the genial bed.’ Of course, given the power, one may go in for that sort of thing, either in self-defense, or just out of playfulness. But it’s a poor twopenny house-wifely kind of witchcraft, black magic is, and white magic is no better. One doesn’t become a witch to run around being harmful, or to run around being helpful either, a district visitor on a broomstick. It’s to escape all that—to have a life of one’s own, not an existence doled out to you by others, charitable refuse of their thoughts, so many ounces of stale bread of life a day, the workhouse dietary is scientifically calculated to support life. As for the witches who can only express themselves by pins and bed-blighting, they have been warped into that shape by the dismal lives they’ve led.”

-Lolly Willowes’ describes a woman’s lot to Satan Pages 211 – 215 of Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner