Quotes from Edith Wharton

More than half a lifetime divided them, and she had spent the long interval among people he did not know, in a society he but faintly guessed at, in conditions he would never wholly understand.

imagination WAS the eagle that devoured Prometheus!

put into words by this selfish, well-fed, and supremely indifferent old man it suddenly became the Pharisaic voice of a society wholly absorbed in barricading itself against the unpleasant.

There was no sense of guilt in her now, but only a desperate desire to defend her secret from irreverent eyes, and begin life again among people to whom the harsh code of the village was unknown.

She clung to him desperately, and as he drew her to his knees on the couch she felt as if they were being sucked down together into some bottomless abyss.

Isn't it natural that I should try to belittle all the things I can't offer you?

Here was no retrospective pretense of an opulent past, such as the other Invaders were given to parading before the bland but undeceived subject race. The Spraggs had been plain people and had not yet learned to be ashamed of it. The

Lily walked on unconscious of her surroundings. She was still treading the buoyant ether which emanates from the high moments of life.

She read it over and shivered. Not one word of their past-not one allusion to that mysterious interweaving of their lives which had enclosed them in the other like the flower in its sheath! What place had such memories in such a letter?

IT rose for them—their honey-moon—over the waters of a lake so famed as the scene of romantic raptures that they were rather proud of not having been afraid to choose it as the setting of their own.

He was not blind to her crudity and her limitations, but they were a part of her grace and her persuasion. Diverse et ondoyante—so he had seen her from the first.

the civilized instinct finds a subtler pleasure in making use of its antagonist than in confounding him.

His daughter, as part of himself, came within the normal range of his solicitude; but she was an outlying region, a subject province; and Mr. Orme's was a highly centralized polity.

The one woman knew but did not understand; the other, it seemed, understood without knowing.

I am horribly poor—and very expensive.

Women ought to be free—as free as we are

Algumas mulheres são fortes o bastante para acreditarem nelas mesmas, mas eu precisei da sua ajuda para acreditar em mim. Talvez eu tenha resistido a uma grande tentação, mas foram as pequenas que acabaram me derrubando.

If I were shabby no one would have me: a woman is asked out as much for her clothes as for herself. The clothes are the background, the frame, if you like; they don't make success, but they are a part of it. Who wants a dingy woman? We are expected to be pretty and well-dressed till we drop—and if we can't keep it up alone, we have to go into partnership.

Mas o silêncio terrível e o vazio pareciam simbolizar seu futuro – era como se a casa, a rua, o mundo estivessem todos vazios, e ela era a única pessoa consciente um universo sem vida.

His father's death, and the misfortunes following it, had put a premature end to Ethan's studies; but though they had not gone far enough to be of much practical use they had fed his fancy and made him aware of huge cloudy meanings behind the daily face of things.

Professor Joslin, who, as our readers are doubtless aware, is engaged in writing the life of Mrs. Aubyn, asks us to state that he will be greatly indebted to any of the famous novelist's friends who will furnish him with information concerning the period previous to her coming to England. Mrs. Aubyn had so few intimate friends, and consequently so few regular correspondents, that letters will be of special

She read, too, in his answering gaze the delicious confirmation of her triumph, and for the moment it seemed to her that it was for him only she cared to be beautiful.

if the woman, however injured, however irreproachable, has appearances in the least degree against her, has exposed herself by any unconventional action to—to offensive insinuations—'' She

The February day was closing, and a ray of sunshine, slanting through a slit in the chapel wall, brought out the vision of a pale haloed head floating against the dusky background of the chancel like a water-lily on its leaf.