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Hazard of New Fortunes, a — Volume 1 by William Dean Howells
page 29 of 115 (25%)
keep you from accepting that offer. I know it is! I could go West with
you, or into a new country--anywhere; but New York terrifies me. I don't
like New York, I never did; it disheartens and distracts me; I can't find
myself in it; I shouldn't know how to shop. I know I'm foolish and narrow
and provincial," she went on, "but I could never have any inner quiet in
New York; I couldn't live in the spirit there. I suppose people do. It
can't be that all these millions--'

"Oh, not so bad as that!" March interposed, laughing. "There aren't quite
two."

"I thought there were four or five. Well, no matter. You see what I am,
Basil. I'm terribly limited. I couldn't make my sympathies go round two
million people; I should be wretched. I suppose I'm standing in the way
of your highest interest, but I can't help it. We took each other for
better or worse, and you must try to bear with me--" She broke off and
began to cry.

"Stop it!" shouted March. "I tell you I never cared anything for
Fulkerson's scheme or entertained it seriously, and I shouldn't if he'd
proposed to carry it out in Boston." This was not quite true, but in the
retrospect it seemed sufficiently so for the purposes of argument. "Don't
say another word about it. The thing's over now, and I don't want to
think of it any more. We couldn't change its nature if we talked all
night. But I want you to understand that it isn't your limitations that
are in the way. It's mine. I shouldn't have the courage to take such a
place; I don't think I'm fit for it, and that's the long and short of
it."

"Oh, you don't know how it hurts me to have you say that, Basil."
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