Quote in context:
In immortalizing his grandfather Wells, Donald Hall the young elegist is also immortalizing a part of his own life which he now considers to be finished. That life, if it is to have a present life, must have the immortal life of art. Maybe you are outside your life when you think your past has ended. Maybe you are outside your life when you think you are outside it. I don’t know what Donald Hall in later life would say. I know only what I in later life would say, partly from knowing the story I am talking about, that though you may get a new life, you can’t get a new past. You don’t get to leave your story. If you leave your story, then how you left your story is your story, and you had better not forget it.
