Alice Duer Miller

“ But Casley had not been joking. One of his crosses in life—or perhaps one of his sources of secret satisfaction, for people gain comfort from strange causes—was that no one ever could tell whether he was in fun or not. His play bored him; worse than that, he hated it—hated it as a man hates a woman to whom he remains bound in some horrible drudgery of daily life long after he has ceased to love her. Like most creative minds, his interest was only in creation, and to be kept working at his play in a manner wholly routine, technical and uncreative filled him with a sort of mental nausea. ”

“ After all, Albee has great abilities. You don't care a bit for those, because he turns out not to be perfect. And who are you, my dear, to demand perfection?"
"I don't! I don't," cried Lydia eagerly. "Oh, Eleanor, men are fortunate! Apparently they can fall in love without a bit respecting you—all the more if they don't—but a woman must believe a man has something superior about him, if it is only his wickedness. I don't demand perfection—not a bit—but I do ask that a man's faults should not be contemptible faults; that he should have some force and snap; that he should be at least a man." ”

“ It was a long time since Lydia had heard any music, and the music of the second act of Samson and Delilah, the long sweeping chords on the harp, began to trouble her, as the coming thunderstorm seemed to be troubling Delilah.
Her long abstraction from any artistic impression made her as susceptible as a child. The moonlight flooded her with a primitive glamour, her nerves crept to the music of the incredibly sweet duet; and when at last Samson followed Delilah into her house Lydia felt as if the soprano's triumph were her own. ”

“ He had not loved her. No one had ever loved her. She knew what people meant when they said their hearts broke—her heart broke then. How different from any sorrow about which she could talk or cry! She felt as if all joy and calm and happiness had been drawn out of her veins forever and in their place she was filled with a cold solid despair.
There was just one more fact that she felt she must know. She said—and her voice sounded not like Jacqueline McMannis' but like the voice of a normal cheerful girl—“It must have been in the summer that Miss Salisbury wrote.” ”

“ There never was an hour in O'Bannon's life that he set beside that hour. He sat like a man in a trance, and yet acutely aware of everything about him; of the logs in the fire that, burning through, fell apart like a blazing drawbridge across the andirons; of an occasional footstep in the street; and finally of the inevitable approach of the rattling milk wagon, of its stopping at the door, of the wire trays, of the raising of the Thorne basement window and the slow thump of the delivery of the allotted number of bottles.
After a long time a little frightened face stared at him round the door. ”

“ But to be married to a woman whom you love, without a shred of belief either in her principles or her affection, seemed to Riatt about as terrible a prospect as could be offered to a human being.
There was just one chance for him—that Christine might be willing to release him. If she really loved Linburne, if there had been some sort of understanding between them in the past, if his coming had only precipitated a lovers’ quarrel, then certainly Christine had too much intelligence to let such a chance slip through her fingers just on the eve of Linburne’s divorce. ”

“ If he entertained the doubts of her innocence which he continually told himself no sane man could help entertaining, he found himself strangely nervous. He felt as if he were waiting outside an operating room. He thought of her as he had seen her asleep, of the curve of her eye-lashes on her cheek, of her raising those lashes, awaking to be met with McVay’s revelations. Even if she were guilty, Geoffrey found it in his heart to pity her waking to learn that her brother was a prisoner. ”

“ Never in all his life had he seen such mental agony depicted on any face as on hers—and the horror of that terrible counting—nine—ten—eleven—and then the whispered word “death.”
From all the whispered talk that he had heard, not only at the castle but in the world, he had expected to see in Bethson a criminal, a monster, a Nero. Instead he found himself facing a slim pale man, not much older than himself, with a delicate long profile and eyes too wide opened, that stared beyond the visitor at empty space. ”

“ To have seen Gertrude in anything like the colors in which Simmons saw her would have been to a man like Mark the complete wreck of his happiness. On the other hand, how could he go on being blind and retain his own integrity of judgment? For Mark had the wisdom that comes not so much from intellect as from perception. He had had the courage ever since he was a boy to take without the alleviations of self-deception whatever suffering his own actions had brought him. Simmons had spoken of the egotist's instinct for self-protection. Mark was entirely without this instinct. ”

“ After an appreciable silence, she said with a gasp:
"Really, Exeter, I don't believe I do."
"Nor I," he returned. "And do you know what I have come to think?—that no preparation is possible; that the only way to get ready to marry a person is just to marry them. That is my opinion, and I don't know whose would be more valuable."
"Oh, it can't be true, Exeter!" cried Bettina, seeing the principles of her life crumbling. "There must be some preparation. If you are right, we've just wasted two years of our lives." ”

“ Conway's shoulder Pearl could catch a glimpse of the piazza, and beyond that the faultless blue rim of the horizon; and as she talked she could hear close by the thud and hiss as a wave went up the beach. She longed to be in the water.
"Oh, yes, go if you want to," said Mrs. Conway. She was not exactly cordial. Gentle, friendly people like Edna Conway always go too far when they try to be cold; they have no experience in the rôle. "But try not to keep them waiting too long. My children hate to be kept waiting." ”

“ Your father, Jacqueline, loves you dearly. He knows nothing about your character.”
“You don't need to tell me that,” said Jacqueline. She was absorbed by the bare stern reality of her stepmother's words.
“But I do. And I know something of the world, You are a person absolutely certain to make a mess of any marriage which for the next few years you would make for yourself. You are intelligent—far more intelligent than the people set over you—so you have this enormous belief in your own judgments; you are lonely, emotional, starved for affection.” ”

“ Every detail in the pattern of life delighted him, from the smell of coffee floating up from the kitchen on the still cold of the November morning to the sight from his window of the village children in knit caps and sweaters hurrying to school—tall, lanky, competent girls bustling their little brothers along, and inattentive boys hoisting small sisters up the school steps by their arms. Life was certainly great fun, not because there were lovely women to be held in your arms, but because when young and vigorous you can bully life into being what you want it to be. ”

“ There’s outside work to do, my dears, there’s outside work to do,
It’s patriotic angels when there’s outside work to do.
We are not really senseless, and we are not angels, too,
But very human beings, human just as much as you.
It’s hard upon occasions to be forceful and sublime
When you’re treated as incompetents three-quarters of the time.
But it’s women this and women that, and woman’s like a hen,
But it’s do the country’s work alone, when war takes off the men,
And it’s women this and women that and everything you please,
But woman is observant, and be sure that woman sees. ”

“ Lewis sighed.
"Ah, yes, now, poor child—of course. Don't betray me, Nan. Don't let those two downstairs know that I have a doubt. She's a sweet creature—the plumber's widow—though to me irritating; and she wouldn't doubt anyone in the world, let alone her darling son; and, of course, Letitia does not think it possible that her husband can have killed a man, especially for the sake of another woman." ”

“ She had come in contact with something stronger than herself, of which the impersonal power of the law was only a visible symbol. She was not sure whether it had broken her or remade her, but it had given her peace—happiness she had never had—a peace which she believed she could preserve even when she went out of the sheltering routine of prison. The only feature of life which terrified and revolted her was the persisting individuality of Lydia Thorne. If there were only a charm other than death to free you from yourself! ”

“ Mercutio, under his wit and gayety, possessed an excellent understanding of the human heart. Though it was a bitter shock to him to learn that Juliet had gone through a wedding ceremony with a man of whom she knew so little, he was able to understand and forgive. He assured her that the marriage could be readily annulled, if she wished it.
“Oh, can you doubt I wish it,” Juliet replied, not observing that Romeo had stolen to her side, until, overhearing these cruel words, he burst into a torrent of tears, flung himself upon the floor, and began to tear his hair. ”

“ This desire was plainly present in Marie Louise.
Yet, to be just, she cared as little for men as she did for society. The thing she enjoyed was her idea of herself. Her greatest pleasure was in looking at herself from an outsider’s point of view, and admiring, almost envying. She liked, now and then, to imagine herself a spoiled beauty, going from partner to partner, surrounded by men, tossing a word here, a smile there; bestowing life or death by a glance given or withheld. ”