Perhaps it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions all one's life.

She was becoming too familiar for her own comfort and peace of mind. It was not despair; but it seemed to her like life was passing her by, leaving its promise broken and unfulfilled.

He greatly valued his possessions, chiefly because they were his, and derived genuine pleasure from contemplating a painting, a statuette, a rare lace curtain -- no matter what -- after he had bought it and placed it among his household gods.

The peace and beauty of a spring day had descended upon the earth like a benediction.

It was like a shadow, like a mist passing across her soul's summer day. It was strange and unfamiliar; it was a mood.

But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. How few of us ever emerge from such beginning! How many souls perish in its tumult!

Beside being a respectable woman she was a very sensible one; and she knew there are some battles in life which a human being must fight alone.

An indescribable oppression, which seemed to generate in some unfamiliar part of her consciousness, filled her whole being with a vague anguish. It was like a shadow, like a mist passing across her soul's summer day.

There are periods of despondency and suffering which take possession of me. But I don't want anything but my own way. That is wanting a good deal, of course, when you have to trample upon the lives, the hearts, the prejudices of others.

The past was nothing to her; offered no lesson which she was willing to heed. The future was a mystery which she never attempted to penetrate. The present alone was significant.

She was moved by a kind of commiseration... a pity for that colorless existence which never uplifted its possessor beyond the region of blind contentment, in which no moment of anguish ever visited her soul, in which she would never have the taste of life's delirium.

I leave such ventures to you younger men with the fever of life still in your blood.

It seemed to be a law of society that hair must be parted and brushed.

There are some people who leave impressions not so lasting as the imprint of an oar upon the water.

I should never deem a man of ordinary caliber worthy of my devotion.

She turned her face seaward to gather in an impression of space and solitude, which the vast expanse of water, meeting and melting with the moonlit sky, conveyed to her excited fancy. As she swam she seemed to be reaching out for the unlimited in which to lose herself.

I'm tired, she uttered complainingly. I know you are. You don't know anything about it. Why should you know? I never was so exhausted in my life. But it isn't unpleasant. A thousand emotions have swept through me to-night. I don't comprehend half on them. Don't mind what I'm saying; I am just thinking aloud.

She perceived that her will had blazed up, stubborn and resistant. She could not at that moment have done other than denied and resisted. She wondered if her husband had ever spoken to her like that before. and if she had submitted to his command. Of course she had; she remembered that she had. But she could not realise why or how she should have yielded, feeling as she then did.

The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude.

So the storm passed and every one was happy.