"We read of it. The world of the romance writer!"
"No: the living world. I am sure it is our duty to love it. I am sure we weaken ourselves if we do not. If I did not, I should be looking on mist, hearing a perpetual boom instead of music. I remember hearing Mr. Whitford say that cynicism is intellectual dandyism without the coxcomb's feathers; and it seems to me that cynics are only happy in making the world as barren to others as they have made it for themselves."
"Old Vernon!" ejaculated Sir Willoughby, with a countenance rather uneasy, as if it had been flicked with a glove. "He strings his phrases by the dozen."
"Papa contradicts that, and says he is very clever and very simple."
"As to cynics, my dear Clara, oh, certainly, certainly: you are right. They are laughable, contemptible. But understand me. I mean, we cannot feel, or if we feel we cannot so intensely feel, our oneness, except by dividing ourselves from the world."
"Is it an art?"
"If you like. It is our poetry! But does not love shun the world? Two that love must have their sustenance in isolation."
"No: they will be eating themselves up."
"The purer the beauty, the more it will be out of the world."
"But not opposed."