Quotes by Sara Jeannette Duncan

“He had come, besides, to the point in life when the eager heart has learned how much it must do without; when it knows acquiescence and shrewdly guesses the certainty of denial by the depth of desire. It would go cowled like a monk among the ways of the world if it could, the heart of middle age; so wise it has grown, and so humble. Or perhaps it is like a dog that has been beaten often but still would serve its master, trying to learn indifference to every other foolish wish. Yes, it is most like that; since the poor dog pants and bounds in its allegiance much longer, sometimes, than we have any need of him.”

“The individual human lot, how practically it disengages itself from the mass! We talk of campaigns and revolutions, and it is all paper theory, less important to our instincts than the single case, anywhere on the round world, that has managed to become detached, to rise, like a microcosm of misery, out of the depths. There is the picture and the drama; and we stare fascinated at the bubble we see, while the fate of anonymous thousands sleeps in the next paragraph.”