She did not know
that this gesture of hers was years older than history, that, for a
hundred generations of men, intolerable and persistent grief has offered
that gesture, of denial, of protest, of bewilderment, to something more
profound, more powerful than the God made in the image of man, and
before which that God, did he exist, would be equally impotent. It is a
truth set at the heart of tragedy that this force never explains, never
answers--this force intangible as air, more definite than death.
RICHARD CARAMEL
Early in the summer Anthony resigned from his last club, the Amsterdam.
He had come to visit it hardly twice a year, and the dues were a
recurrent burden. He had joined it on his return from Italy because it
had been his grandfather's club and his father's, and because it was a
club that, given the opportunity, one indisputably joined--but as a
matter of fact he had preferred the Harvard Club, largely because of
Dick and Maury. However, with the decline of his fortunes, it had seemed
an increasingly desirable bauble to cling to.... It was relinquished at
the last, with some regret....
His companions numbered now a curious dozen.
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