I know that as you gentlemen view such things, such conduct has no excuse for being. One may be the victim of an internal conflict between two illici… - Theodore Dreiser

The growth of a passion is a very peculiar thing. In highly
organized intellectual and artistic types it is so often apt to
begin with keen appreciation of certain qualities, modified by
many, many mental reservations. The egoist, the intellectual,
gives but little of himself and asks much. Nevertheless, the
lover of life, male or female, finding himself or herself in
sympathetic accord with such a nature, is apt to gain much.

What a wretched thing it was to be born poor and not to have any one to do anything for you and not to be able to do so very much for yourself!

"So they decided against me. Now I will have to go through that door after all, — like all those others. They'll draw the curtains for me, too. Into that other room — then back across the passage — saying good-bye as I go, like those others. I will not be here any more." He seemed to be going over each step in his mind — each step with which he was so familiar, only now, for the first time, he was living it for himself.