Theodore Winthrop

“ I had no counter-charm of the fancy to oppose to your actual charm.”
“Your other choice among mentors, Mr. Densdeth, — has he offered you any light upon my qualifications?”
“Not a word! But he is not my choice. He has chosen me, if our companionship is choice, not chance.”
“You accept him?”
“I have not thought of rejecting a man of such peculiar power.”
“Has he mastered you, too?”
“Mastered? I am my own master. He attracts my curiosity greatly. I cannot resist the desire to know him by heart.”
“To know him by heart!” she repeated, with almost a shudder. “To know Densdeth by heart! ”

“ It was not the power of beauty, alone. Physical beauty she had, but something higher also. Nor spiritual beauty alone, but something other. The mere flesh-and-blood charms, lilies and roses, the commonplace traits of commonplace women, whose inventory describes the woman, she could afford to disdain. ”

“ Densdeth. He is our friend, our best friend; but sometimes I suddenly have superstitious panics when I think of him and my sister’s death.”
She seemed to struggle now against a flood of sorrowful recollections. The force of the struggle carried her over to the side of gayety.
Smiles create smiles more surely than yawns yawns. ”

“ Emma Denman Densdeth rang. We were admitted at once. The footman introduced us into a parlor fronting on the avenue. The interior of the house was worthy of its stately architecture. I do not describe. People, not things, passions, not objects, are my topics.
Presently, in a mirror at the end of the long suite of rooms, I was aware of the imaged figure of a young lady approaching. ”

“ An over-busy man, — a man over-weighted with social responsibilities. Too many banks choose him director. Too many companies want his administrative power. Too many charities must have him as trustee. ”