Yesterday's darlings

So towards the end of last year I wrote a story for an antho that hasn't been announced yet, and we've just been doing edits so I had to read it through, and - yeah, talk about a darling d'hier. Every now and then a good editor highlights a line just to note how much they appreciated it; and then I glow all warmly and appreciate it too and perhaps feel a little smug; so I thought I'd share my smuggery. Utterly out of context, but never mind:

Here was the street called Strait, because it was like honesty: narrow and difficult and not for us.

[For those not familiar with the great texts d'antan, "the street called Straight" is a phrase that echoes down the centuries. The street itself is in Damascus; the line is in the Bible (Acts chapter 9, to do with the conversion of Paul: it may be the only street-name given in scripture); it recurs in the opening line of The Gabriel Hounds, "I met him in the street called Straight." Mary Stewart is one of my touchstones, where romantic thrillers are concerned: as witness, I have packed all her titles that I own. I never met her, but I was once in the room when my agent was speaking to her on the phone; does that count?]