Once, when I was a young lady and on a night express... I was awakened by a man coming in from the corridor and taking hold of my leg... Quite as much to my own astonishment as his, I uttered the most appalling growl that ever came out of a tigress. He fled, poor man, without a word: and I lay there, trembling slightly, not at my escape but at my potentialities.

Letters: Sylvia Townsend Warner (1982)