Something he knew he had missed: the flower of life. But he thought of it now as a thing so unattainable and improbable that to have repined would have been like despairing because one had not drawn the first prize in a lottery.
Edith WhartonAh, good conversation - there's nothing like it, is there? The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing.
Edith WhartonFor what endless years this life will have to go on! He felt, with a kind of horror, his own strong youth and the bounding blood in his veins.
Edith WhartonMisfortune had made Lily supple instead of hardening her, and a pliable substance is less easy to break than a stiff one.
Edith WhartonShe felt a stealing sense of fatigue as she walked; the sparkle had died out of her, and the taste of life was stale on her lips. She hardly knew what she had been seeking, or why the failure to find it had so blotted the light from her sky: she was only aware of a vague sense of failure, of an inner isolation deeper than the loneliness about her.
Edith Wharton