Alice Duer Miller

“ He smiled. "Death is nothing but enforced idleness on rather a large scale," he answered. "And, upon my word, I think I'd about as lief be dead. I was not born to be an idler, and, even if I were, my training has made it impossible. I've worked all my life for one object, and now, just as I was reaching it, my doctor blandly tells me to take a holiday and think of something else. Of what, in Heaven's name?"
"How about Helena?"
"Of course it was for Helena I wanted success."
"Business isn't everything, Rodney," said Miss Wooster. ”

“ My only ability is in action—to pit my brain against the other fellow's in the actual every-day contest. That's all I know how to do and about all I want to do. They talk of peace and leisure and art—well, I'm afraid we've just got to face the fact that I'm a commonplace American business man and my only reason for existence has just been taken from me."
There was something so hard and final in his tone that even Mildred could think of nothing consolatory to say, and as she watched him she saw the same haunted look come into his face that had so lately disappeared from Helena's. ”

“ But I'm only sentencing Traver to a perpetual holiday."
"Oh, come," said Miss Wooster, "you would not like such a sentence yourself."
"Ah, it's different in my case," said the doctor. "A wretched bachelor—what has he but his work? At my time of life a man begins to realize fully what a mistake it is to suppose that any one can make work his whole existence. We need something more than a career, Miss Wooster, and yet one is hardly fit—hardly dares to offer oneself as a companion. I own I dread idleness, but I should feel very differently if I had a wife to share my leisure. ”

“ When we're young it all goes of itself. Yes, every one who's worth anything begins life again somewhere between thirty-five and fifty—begins it destitute in some important respect. I look back and see that my parents did it, though I did not know it at the time; they lost their belief in each other; and yours, too, Rodney, though their fresh start was only a financial one. ”

“ Miss Wooster had set up a great friendship with Rodney's doctor, who used to stop in her sitting-room both before and after his visit to his patient,
"Yes," he said on one of these occasions, "I feel thoroughly satisfied. With proper care he'll live for years, though—this between ourselves—he must never go to work again."
"What! Rodney not go back to business!"
"No, it will be safer not. He's one of the fortunate ones, however, with enough money to live on and a wife he adores. When I have to say this to some beggar who knows he must either work or starve, it's a very different matter. ”

“ Helena was running her husband's business. A few days after his illness he had had an appointment in which he had hoped to secure an important contract. He had fretted so much over the danger of losing it that the doctors had finally allowed the interview to take place at his bedside. Helena had been present. She had subsequently become Rodney's messenger and then his representative. He had, of course, coached her for her part.
"It's such fun, Mildred. Business is more of a game than I ever imagined. ”

“ Everything I did was different because of it. You don't understand. No one could, I suppose, who had not had it. Why, the way I came into a room was different because I was beautiful; and don't imagine that the room was not different, too. ”

“ In the first place, he has no one to think of but himself; he's unmarried; and in the second, he's a professional man; I suppose he could sit placidly at home all day and study. But it's very different in business. ”