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d452e20
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In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs;
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Edith Wharton |
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9b15804
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There were certain things that had to be done, and if done at all, done handsomely and thoroughly; and one of these, in the old New York code, was the tribal rally around a kinswoman about to be eliminated from the tribe.
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social-commentary
society
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Edith Wharton |
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0a303d6
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when "such things happened" it was undoubtedly foolish of the man, but somehow always criminal of the woman. All the elderly ladies whom Archer knew regarded any woman who loved imprudently as necessarily unscrupulous and designing, and mere simple-minded man as powerless in her clutches. The only thing to do was to persuade him, as early as possible, to marry a nice girl, and then trust her to look after him."
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designing
nice-girl
unscrupulous
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Edith Wharton |
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d6408fc
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Among all these stupid pretty women she had such a sense of power, of knowing almost everything better than they did.
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Edith Wharton |
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f514a6d
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Conservatives cherished it for being small and inconvenient, and thus keeping out the "new people" whom New York was beginning to dread and yet be drawn to"
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learning
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Edith Wharton |
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e4961a1
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how much did pride count in the ebullition of passions in his breast?
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Edith Wharton |
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6bd9480
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But it was one of those moments when neither seemed to speak deliberately, when an indwelling voice in each called to the other across unsounded depths of feeling.
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Edith Wharton |
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7b9e523
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Ethan looked at her with loathing. She was no longer the listless creature who had lived at his side in a state of sullen self-absorption, but a mysterious alien presence, an evil energy secreted from the long years of silent brooding.
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Edith Wharton |
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a0b5672
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Apart from the pleasure of looking at her and listening to her--of enjoying in her what others less discriminatingly but as liberally appreciated--he had the sense, between himself and her, of a kind of free-masonry of precocious tolerance and irony. They had both, in early youth, taken the measure of the world they happened to live in: they knew just what it was worth to them and for what reasons, and the community of these reasons lent to..
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Edith Wharton |
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d34697f
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Perhaps, after all, Susy reflected, it was the world she was meant for, since the other, the brief Paradise of her dreams, had already shut its golden doors upon her.
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Edith Wharton |
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d668bcf
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Was it love, she wondered, or a mere fortuitous combination of happy thoughts and sensations?
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Edith Wharton |
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8530773
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Her soul opened slowly and timidly to her kind, but her imagination rushed out to the beauties of the visible world; and the decaying majesty of Allfriars moved her strangely.
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Edith Wharton |
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96c800c
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She lay for a long time listening to the mysterious sounds given forth by old houses at night, the undefinable creakings, rustlings, and sighings, which would have frightened Virginia had she remained awake, but which sounded to Nan like the long murmur of the past breaking on the shores of a sleeping world.
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Edith Wharton |
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8bad670
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Because you're such a wonderful spectacle: I always like to see what you are doing.
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Edith Wharton |
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e52a40e
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they who exchange their independence for the sweet name of Wife must be prepared to find all is not gold that glitters... ...Es gibi tatli bir kelime karsiliginda ozgurluklerinden vazgecenler, parlayan her seyin altin olmadigini gormeye hazirlikli olmalidirlar...
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bunner
evelina
exchange
glitters
gold
independence
letter
marriage
ramy
sisters
wife
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Edith Wharton |
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97ce713
|
You see, Monsieur, it's worth everything, isn't it, to keep one's intellectual liberty, not to enslave one's powers of appreciation, one's critical independence? It was because of that that I abandoned journalism, and took to so much duller work: tutoring and private secretaryship. There is a good deal of drudgery, of course; but one preserves one's moral freedom, what we call in French one's quant a soi. And when one hears good talk one ca..
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journalism
liberty
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Edith Wharton |
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eadf2a8
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women never learn to dispense with the sentimental motive in their judgments of men.
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Edith Wharton |
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a5dfb02
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Overhead hung a summer sky furrowed with the rush of rockets; and from the east a late moon, pushing up beyond the lofty bend of the coast, sent across the bay a shaft of brightness which paled to ashes in the red glitter of the illuminated boats.
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nature
summer
summer-nights
the-house-of-mirth
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Edith Wharton |
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46a5456
|
Archer had reverted to all his old inherited ideas about marriage. It was less trouble to conform with the tradition and treat May exactly as all his friends treated their wives than to try to put into practice the theories with which his untrammelled bachelorhood had dallied.
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marriage
tradition
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Edith Wharton |
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bff31fd
|
his marriage becoming what most of the other marriages about him were: a dull association of material and social interests held together by ignorance on the one side and hypocrisy on the other.
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Edith Wharton |
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467d345
|
Some men," Flamel irresistibly added, "think of books merely as tools, others as tooling. I'm between the two; there are days when I use them as scenery, other days when I want them as society; so that, as you see, my library represents a makeshift compromise between looks and brains, and the collectors look down on me almost as much as the students."
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Edith Wharton |
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d474dd0
|
she always paid for her rare indiscretions by a violent reaction of prudence.
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Edith Wharton |
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46d8867
|
I had written short stories that were thought worthy of preservation! Was it the same insignificant I that I had always known? Any one walking along the streets might go into any bookshop, and say: 'Please give me Edith Wharton's book'; and the clerk, without bursting into incredulous laughter, would produce it, and be paid for it, and the purchaser would walk home with it and read it, and talk of it, and pass it on to other people to read!
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Edith Wharton |
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ab86851
|
There were in her at the moment two beings, one drawing deep breaths of freedom and exhilaration, the other gasping for air in a little black prison-house of fears.
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Edith Wharton |
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c369477
|
From whatever angle he viewed their dawning intimacy, he could not see it as part of her scheme of life; and to be the unforeseen element in a career so accurately planned was stimulating even to a man who had renounced sentimental experiments.
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Edith Wharton |
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4563c61
|
She had several times been in love with fortunes or careers, but only once with a man.
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Edith Wharton |
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49cd379
|
You asked me just now for the truth---well, the truth about any girl is that once she's talk about she's done for; and the more she explains her case the worse it looks.
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lily-bart
reputation
the-house-of-mirth
truth
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Edith Wharton |
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4ac2e6b
|
But you'll get it back-you'll get it all back, with your face...
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Edith Wharton |
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ee2e48a
|
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.
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Edith Wharton |
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f87d52b
|
she must follow up her success, must submit to more boredom, must be ready with fresh compliances and adaptabilities, and all on the bare chance that he might ultimately decide to do her the honour of boring her for life.
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Edith Wharton |
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7203f01
|
Well--watching the contortions of the damned is supposed to be a favorite sport of the angels, but I believe even they don't think people happier in hell.
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Edith Wharton |
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d8d92a2
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For hours she had lain in a kind of gentle torpor, not unlike that sweet lassitude which masters one in the hush of a midsummer noon, when the heat seems to have silenced the very birds and insects, and, lying sunk in the tasselled meadow grasses, one looks up through a level roofing of maple-leaves at the vast, shadowless, and unsuggestive blue.
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Edith Wharton |
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b46eb0e
|
Oh, I am--it's much safer to be fond of dangerous people.
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Edith Wharton |
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396476b
|
Lost causes had a romantic charm for her,
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Edith Wharton |
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cf9f432
|
The people who take society as an escape from work are putting it to its proper use; but when it becomes the thing worked for it distorts all the relations of life.
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social-ladder
society
work
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Edith Wharton |
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2f593d7
|
A man doesn't know till he tries it how killing uncongenial work is, and how it destroys the power of doing what one's fit for, even if there's time for both.
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grindstone
motivation
servitude
work
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Edith Wharton |
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5e0f24e
|
She seemed always to have seen him through a blur - first of sleepiness, then of distance and indifference - and now the fog had thickened till he was almost indistinguishable.
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indifference
perspective
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Edith Wharton |
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5c44f12
|
She was the subject creature, and versed in the arts of the enslaved.
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Edith Wharton |
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cdec662
|
For she was really too lovely--too formidably lovely. I was used by now to mere unadjectived loveliness, the kind that youth and spirits hang like a rosy veil over commonplace features, an average outline and a pointless merriment. But this was something calculated, accomplished, finished--and just a little worn. It frightened me with my first glimpse of the infinity of beauty and the multiplicity of her pit-falls. What! There were women wh..
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Edith Wharton |
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fd448de
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But you knew; you understood; you had felt the world outside tugging at one with all its golden hands--and yet you hated the things it asks of one; you hated happiness bought by disloyalty and cruelty and indifference. That was what I'd never known before--and it's better than anything I've known.
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Edith Wharton |
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98872a0
|
The turnings of life seldon show a sign-post; or rather, though the sign is always there, it is usually placed some distance back, like the notices that give warning of a bad hill or a level railway-crossing.
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Edith Wharton |
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63e956a
|
he could do charming things, if only he had known how to finish them!
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Edith Wharton |
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a9074d1
|
The sudden heat of his tone made her colour mount again, not with a rush, but gradually, delicately, like the reflection of a thought stealing slowly across her heart.
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Edith Wharton |
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adf0748
|
It was a long time since any one had spoken to him as kindly as Mrs Hale. Most people were either indifferent to his troubles, or disposed to think it natural that a young fellow of his age should have carried without repining the burden of three crippled lives. But Mrs Hale had said 'You've had an awful mean time, Ethan Frome,' and he felt less alone with his misery.
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Edith Wharton |