I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.

Her vivid smile was like a light held up to dazzle me.

He had to deal all at once with the packed regrets and stifled memories of an inarticulate lifetime.

Misfortune had made Lily supple instead of hardening her, and a pliable substance is less easy to break than a stiff one.

Her failure was a useful preliminary to success.

Mrs. Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands, as though it were dangerous to meet it alone.

The true felicity of a lover of books is the luxurious turning of page by page, the surrender, not meanly abject, but deliberate and cautious, with your wits about you, as you deliver yourself into the keeping of the book. This I call reading.