Since the Americans have ceased to have dyspepsia, they have lost the only thing that gave them any expression.
Edith WhartonBut after a moment a sense of waste and ruin overcame him. There they were, close together and safe and shut in; yet so chained to their separate destinies that they might as well been half the world apart.
Edith WhartonThrough this atmosphere of torrid splendor moved wan beings as richly upholstered as the furniture, beings without definite pursuits or permanent relations, who drifted on a languid tide of curiosity... Somewhere behind them, in the background of their lives there was doubtless a real past, yet they had no more real existence than the poet's shades in limbo.
Edith Wharton