The House of Mirth

• 明朗

  2021-01-24
  the only way not to think about money is to have a great deal of it.
• Lycidas

  2019-06-27
  The feeling he had nourished and given prominence to was one of thankfulness for his escape: he was like a traveller so grateful for rescue from a dangerous accident that at first he is hardly conscious of his bruises. Now he suddenly felt the latent ache, and realized that after all he had not come off unhurt.
• Lycidas

  2019-06-26
  She rose with a sigh, tossing her cigarette into the grate.“Ah, there’s the difference — a girl must, a man may if he chooses.” She surveyed him critically. “Your coat’s a little shabby — but who cares? It doesn’t keep people from asking you to dine. 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.”Selden glanced at her with amusement: it was impossible, even with her lovely eyes imploring him, to take a sentimental view of her case.
• Lycidas

  2019-06-26
  The impulse to show herself in a splendid setting — she had thought for a moment of representing Tiepolo’s Cleopatra — had yielded to the truer instinct of trusting to her unassisted beauty, and she had purposely chosen a picture without distracting accessories of dress or surroundings. Her pale draperies, and the background of foliage against which she stood, served only to relieve the long dryad-like curves that swept upward from her poised foot to her lifted arm. The noble buoyancy of her attitude, its suggestion of soaring grace, revealed the touch of poetry in her beauty that Selden always felt in her presence, yet lost the sense of when he was not with her. Its expression was now so vivid that for the first time he seemed to see before him the real Lily Bart, divested of the triviali...
• 辉夜姬

  2017-12-07
  ……她从小被小心调教，为的就是长大后过那种生活，她所有的兴趣和爱好都是围绕那种生活培养和建立起来的。她就像一棵奇花，生长的全部意义就是为了展览，所有多余的蓓蕾都被剔除，只留下最中间那朵绝美的花冠。……然而，最让她害怕的不再是物质上的贫穷。她倍感凄凉 ——一种发自内心深处的空虚感，比较而言，表面的贫困处境已显得微不足道。贫穷固然悲惨——她预见自己到了焦虑不堪的中年，生活拮据，自我否定，最终逐渐适应破败不堪的寄宿公寓生活。但是，还有比贫穷更为悲惨的——内心的极度孤独，就像被连根拔起的植物，很轻易就会被时代的浪潮冲走。这就是她现在的感受——就像某种没有根基、朝生暮死的生物，漩涡表层的某种漂浮物，在可怕的洪流将其淹没之前，没有任何东西可供它那些微小可怜的触须攀附。她回头看自己走过的路，发现自己从来就没有和生活有过实实在在的关系。她的父母也没有根基，被上流社会的季风忽而吹向这边，忽而吹向那边，没有可供他们立足的住所来抵御这飘忽不定的阵风。她长大后，没有觉得哪个地方比另一个地方更值得留恋：既没有虔诚的宗教信仰，也没有固守的传统观念可供她的心寄托，或从中为自己汲取力量、并给予他人以温情。过去的生活无论以何种形式在她的血液里慢慢累积起来——无论以切合实际的具体形式，还是以不切实际的设想形式——都能同样扩展和加深个体存在的意义，通过亲属关系的神秘链接将个体存在与人类奋斗的聚合力连在一起。丽莉从未想到过人与人之间存在着如此休戚与共的关系。出于想找个丈夫的本能，她曾盲目行动，期间也有过这种预感；但是她的这些行动为周围生活环境所不容。她认识的所有男人女人，都像一个个原子一样，在离心力的作用下互相排斥：那天晚上在内蒂·斯特瑟家的厨房，她第一次瞥见了生命的延续。那个贫穷的小女工，已经鼓足勇气收拾起她生活的碎片，用这些碎片为自己建造了一个港湾，对丽莉来说，对方已经领会了生命的真谛。那是一种处于贫...
• 梅文女王殿下

  2013-06-03
  His words recalled the vision of that other afternoon when they had sat together over his tea-table and talked jestingly of her future. There were moments when that day seemed more remote than any other event in her life; and yet she could always relive it in its minutest detail.
• 梅文女王殿下

  2013-05-29
  She must trust him to the height of her own passion
• 梅文女王殿下

  2013-05-29
  At first she poured herself out unstintingly, happy in this perfect communion of their sympathies. His understanding of Lily helped to confirm her own belief in her friend. They dwelt together on the fact that Lily had had no chance. Gerty instanced her generous impulses—her restlessness and discontent. The fact that her life had never satisfied her proved that she was made for better things. She might have married more than once—the conventional rich marriage which she had been taught to consider the sole end of existence—but when the opportunity came she had always shrunk from it. Percy Gryce, for instance, had been in love with her—every one at Bellomont had supposed them to be engaged, and her dismissal of him was thought inexplicable. This view of the Gryce incident chimed too well wi...
• 梅文女王殿下

  2013-05-20
  But dinginess is a quality which assumes all manner of disguises.
• Shelby

  2011-11-09
  His words recalled the vision of that other afternoon when they had sat together over his tea-table and talked jestingly of her future. There were moments when that day seemed more remote than other event in her life; and yet she could always re-live it in its minutest.detail.