She had spent all her life in feeling miserable; this misery was her native element; its fluctuations, its varying depths, alone save her the impress… - Vladimir Nabokov

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She had spent all her life in feeling miserable; this misery was her native element; its fluctuations, its varying depths, alone save her the impression of moving and living. What bothers me is that a sense of misery, and nothing else, is not enough to make a permanent soul. My enormous and morose Mademoiselle is all right on earth but impossible in eternity.