“There would be a perilous moment, perhaps: but could she not trust to her beauty to bridge it over, to land her safe in the shelter of his devotion?”
― The House of Mirth
― The House of Mirth
“Mrs. Bry's admiration was a mirror in which Lily's self-complacency recovered its lost outline. No insect hangs its nest on threads as frail as those which will sustain the weight of human vanity, and the sense of being of importance among the insignificant was enough to restore to Miss Bart the gratifying consciousness of power.”
― The House of Mirth
― The House of Mirth
“No insect hangs its nest on threads as frail as those which will sustain the weight of human vanity, and the sense of being of importance among the insignificant was enough to restore to Miss Bart the gratifying consciousness of power.”
― The House of Mirth
― The House of Mirth
“Mrs. Peniston had kept her imagination shrouded like the drawing room furniture.”
― The House of Mirth
― The House of Mirth
“. That’s Lily all over, you know: she works like a slave preparing the ground and sowing her seeds, but the day she ought to be reaping the harvest, she oversleeps herself or goes off on a picnic.” Mrs. Fisher paused and looked reflectively at the deep shimmer of sea between the cactus-flowers. “Sometimes,” she added, “I think it’s just flightiness, and sometimes I think it’s because, at heart, she despises the things she’s trying for. And it’s the difficulty of deciding that makes her such an interesting study.”
― The House of Mirth
― The House of Mirth
Laura’s 2025 Year in Books
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