“ But he hated to be sober. It made him conscious of the people around him, of that air of struggle, of greedy ambition, of hope more sordid than despair, of incessant passage up or down, which in every metropolis is most in evidence through the unstable middle class. ”
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned (1922). copy citation
| Author | F. Scott Fitzgerald |
|---|---|
| Source | The Beautiful and Damned |
| Topic | drinking despair consciousness |
| Date | 1922 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | https://www.gutenberg.org/files/9830/9830-h/9830-h.htm |
Context
“When he was sober he was polite to her, on occasions even tender; he seemed to show for short hours a trace of that old quality of understanding too well to blame—that quality which was the best of him and had worked swiftly and ceaselessly toward his ruin.
But he hated to be sober. It made him conscious of the people around him, of that air of struggle, of greedy ambition, of hope more sordid than despair, of incessant passage up or down, which in every metropolis is most in evidence through the unstable middle class. Unable to live with the rich he thought that his next choice would have been to live with the very poor. Anything was better than this cup of perspiration and tears.
The sense of the enormous panorama of life, never strong in Anthony, had become dim almost to extinction.” source
But he hated to be sober. It made him conscious of the people around him, of that air of struggle, of greedy ambition, of hope more sordid than despair, of incessant passage up or down, which in every metropolis is most in evidence through the unstable middle class. Unable to live with the rich he thought that his next choice would have been to live with the very poor. Anything was better than this cup of perspiration and tears.
The sense of the enormous panorama of life, never strong in Anthony, had become dim almost to extinction.” source
