Annotate a Text (Page 93-94, Home – Marilynne Robinson )

Glory went up to the attic, the limbo (waiting without purpose) of things that had been displaced from current use but were not in the strict sense useless. If civilization were to collapse, (hyperbole) for example, there might be every reason to be glad for this hoard (suggests selfishness) of old shoes and bent umbrellas, all of which would be better than nothing, however badly they might fare in any other comparison. Other pious families gave away things they did not need. (judgmental tone?) Boughtons put them in the attic, as if to make an experiment of doing without them before they undertook some irreparable act of generosity.

Then, when the business of life and the passage of time, what with the pungency of mothballs and the inevitable creep of dowdiness through any stash of old clothes, however smart they might have been when new, it became impossible to give the things away. From time to time their mother would come down from the attic empty-handed, brushing dust off herself, and write a check to the orphans’ home. (Missing explanation – need to infer that Mother found nothing still useable in the attic.) (Several indications of time passing)