There was the union of his soul with Gloria’s, whose radiant fire and freshness was the living material of which the dead beauty of books was made.
This general eclipse of ambition and determination and fortitude, all of the very qualities on which I have prided myself, is ridiculous, and, I must admit, somewhat obscene.
He felt persistently that the girl was beautiful – then of a sudden he understood: it was her distance, not a rare and precious distance of soul but still distance, if only in terrestrial yards. The autumn air was between them, and the roofs and the blurred voices. Yet for a not altogether explained second, posing perversely in time, his emotion had been nearer to adoration than in the deepest kiss he had ever known.
Every man is born a success, he makes himself a failure.
You’ve been drinking,” she said shortly, and then added qualitatively, “a little. You know I loathe the smell of it.
My head aches so, so excuse this walking there like an ordinary with a white cat will explain, I think. I can speak three languages, four with English, and am sure I could be useful interpreting if you arrange such thing in France I’m sure I could control everything with the belts all bound around everybody like it was Wednesday. It.
They are glad to see each other now – their eyes are full of kindness as each feels the full effect of novelty after a short separation. They are drawing a relaxation from each other’s presence, a new serenity.
Uncle had only paid hundred a month for whole great big house in Minneapolis.
His day, usually a jellylike creature, a shapeless, spineless thing, had attained Mesozoic structure. It was marching along surely, even jauntily, towards a climax, as a play should, as a day should.
He raised his right hand and with a papal cross he blessed the beach from the high terrace.
It seemed a tragedy to want nothing – and yet he wanted something, something. He knew in flashed what is was – some path of hope to lead him towards what he thought was an imminent and ominous old age.
One doctor in Chicago said I was bluffing, but what he really meant was that I was a twin six and he had never seen one before.
Tell me. I’ll believe it. I always believe anything anyone tells about myself – don’t you?
Oh, the enormous conceit of the man!
New York, he supposed, was home – the city of luxury and mystery, of preposterous hopes and exotic dreams.
After all what is brilliance? Merely the tact to sow when no one is looking and reap when every one is.
He fought with a desire to kiss her again, even tenderly, and began to tell her that she was being unwise, but before he got really started at this handsome project, she was in his arms again, and whispering something that he had to accept, since it was wrapped up in a kiss.
There was suddenly no question on his mind, no eternal problem for a solution and resolution. He had experienced an emotion that was neither mental nor physical, nor merely a mixture of the two, and the love of life absorbed him for the present to the exclusion of all else. He was content to let the experiment remain isolated and unique.
It’s a bad town unless you’re on top of it.
Then for a moment they faded into the sweet darkness so deep that they were darker than the darkness, so that for awhile they were darker than the black trees- then so dark that when she tried to look up at him she could but look at the wild waves of the universe over his shoulder and say, ‘Yes, I guess I love you too.