Theodore Winthrop

“ The wrongs of man against his brother man.
The wrongs between man and woman.
This is one of the old young stories of the wrong between man and woman.
It might be made a very long and very painful story. Chapter after chapter might describe the gradual vanishing of illusions, the slight divergence, the widening of estrangement, the death of trust, the deceit on one side, the wearing misery of doubt on the other, the dragging march step by step, day by day, to the final wrong, the halt on the hither edge, and the careless, the desperate, the irremediable plunge at last. ”

“ The mere facts of guilt are of little value except to the gossip and the tipstaff; but how the wounded and the wounding soul bear themselves after the crime, that is one of the needful lessons of life. ”

“ Ah, yes! there are so many of them. And yet all human tragedies belong to one Trilogy. There are but three kinds of wrongs in our lives.
The wrongs a man does to his own soul or body, or suffers in either. ”

“ Her unsensitive nature trampled roughly on his scruples.
“My dear Jane,” he said to her at Brothertoft, “could you not instruct Mr. Skaats to be a little more indulgent with the Manor tenants?”
“Mr. Skaats’s business is to get the rents, for us to spend.” ”

“ Again, when they were re-established in New York, other causes of dispute came up.
“I wish, my dear Jane,” he said, “that you would be a little more civil with my patriot friends from Boston.”
“I don’t like people who talk through their noses.” ”