Theodore Winthrop

“ Its low southern breezes whispered the dying refrain of the times of roses and passionate sunshine.
Edwin Brothertoft sat by his wife’s window one twilight of that pensive season.
A new phase in his life had begun from the night of the rescue. By that one bold act of heroism he had leaped out of the old feebleness. He felt forgotten forces stir in him. His long sorrow became to him as a sickness from which a man rises fresh and purified. ”

“ That he had escaped it, and knew himself to be a man wholly true, was victory. The world might repeat its old refrain of disappointment in his career; it might say, “He promised to be our brilliant leader, — he is nobody.” ”

“ The tendency of such a character as hers, so trained as hers, to some great rebellion against the eternal laws, some great trial of its strength with God, and to some great and final lesson of defeat, became plain to him. The law of truth in love and faith in marriage is the law a woman is likely to break if she is a law-breaker. ”