2006-08-28 - 9:32 a.m.

Gilded Age Pathos

She looked at him gently. "Do you remember what you said to me once? That you could help me only by loving me? Well--you did love me for a moment; and it helped me. It has always helped me. But the moment is gone--it was I who let it go. And one must go on living. Goodbye."

She laid her other hand on his, and they looked at each other with a kind of solemnity, as though they stood in the presence of death. Something in truth lay dead between them--the love she had killed in him and could no longer call to life. But something lived between them also, and leaped up in her like an imperishable flame: it was the love his love had kindled, the passion of her soul for his.

~ Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth

The end of this book could be described as somewhat melodramatic, yet I found myself very moved and saddened by it.

The line below isn't on its surface particularly original or profound, but I found it very significant:
"...the love she had killed in him and could no longer call to life."

I picked up a paperback copy of Ethan Frome a couple of weeks ago. I remember hardly anything from my tenth-grade reading of it, so it goes back on the list, somewhere after Londonstani and Mrs. Dalloway.