Sister Carrie quotes

Of an intermediate balance, under the circumstances, there is no possibility. The city has its cunning wiles, no less than the infinitely smaller and more human tempter. There are large forces which allure with all the soulfulness of expression possible in the most cultured human.

The gleam of a thousand lights is often as effective as the persuasive light in a wooing and fascinating eye.

Half the undoing of the unsophisticated and natural mind is accomplished by forces wholly superhuman. A blare of sound, a roar of life, a vast array of human hives, appeal to the astonished senses in equivocal terms.

Pillows, books, a footstool, the shade lowered; all these figured in the things which he could do. If, when she reached her destination he did not alight and attend her baggage for her, it was because, in his own estimation, he had signally failed.

A woman should some day write the complete philosophy of clothes.

No matter how young, it is one of the things she wholly comprehends. There is an indescribably faint line in the matter of man’s apparel which somehow divides for her those who are worth glancing at and those who are not.

“I think so,” she answered.

How true it is that words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean.

Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes. Here were these two, bandying little phrases, drawing purses, looking at cards, and both unconscious of how inarticulate all their real feelings were.

How true it is that words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean.

Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.

Here were these two, bandying little phrases, drawing purses, looking at cards, and both unconscious of how inarticulate all their real feelings were. Neither was wise enough to be sure of the working of the mind of the other.

Particularly if it be evening—that mystic period between the glare and gloom of the world when life is changing from one sphere or condition to another.

Ah, the promise of the night. What does it not hold for the weary!

What old illusion of hope is not here forever repeated! Says the soul of the toiler to itself, “I shall soon be free. I shall be in the ways and the hosts of the merry.

Polished brass or nickel signs at the square stone entrances announced the firm and the nature of the business in rather neat and reserved terms.

The entire metropolitan centre possessed a high and mighty air calculated to overawe and abash the common applicant, and to make the gulf between poverty and success seem both wide and deep.

Into this important commercial region the timid Carrie went. She walked east along Van Buren Street through a region of lessening importance, until it deteriorated into a mass of shanties and coal-yards, and finally verged upon the river.

It seemed as if it was all closed to her, that the struggle was too fierce for her to hope to do anything at all. Men and women hurried by in long, shifting lines.

She felt the flow of the tide of effort and interest⁠—felt her own helplessness without quite realising the wisp on the tide that she was.

She cast about vainly for some possible place to apply, but found no door which she had the courage to enter. It would be the same thing all over. The old humiliation of her plea, rewarded by curt denial.

Her spirits were greatly subdued now when the fact of entering upon strange and untried duties confronted her.

Only the ashes of all her fine fancies were remaining⁠—ashes still concealing, nevertheless, a few red embers of hope.

So subdued was she by her weakening nerves, that she ate quite in silence, going over imaginary conceptions of the character of the shoe company, the nature of the work, her employer’s attitude.

… street, with labourers tramping by in either direction, the horsecars passing crowded to the rails with the small clerks and floor help in the great wholesale houses, and men and women generally coming out of doors and passing about the neighbourhood, Carrie felt slightly reassured.

In the sunshine of the morning, beneath the wide, blue heavens, with a fresh wind astir, what fears, except the most desperate, can find a harbourage?

In the night, or the gloomy chambers of the day, fears and misgivings wax strong, but out in the sunlight there is, for a time, cessation even of the terror of death.

Of course, she had no understanding of what put it into her head, but, nevertheless, it aroused in her the first shade of real antipathy to him. She knew now that she did not like him. He was suspicious.

A thought will colour a world for us.

The flow of Carrie’s meditations had been disturbed, and Hanson had not long gone upstairs before she followed.

One or two nights she found herself too tired to walk home, and expended car fare. She was not very strong, and sitting all day affected her back. She went to bed one night before Hanson.

Transplantation is not always successful in the matter of flowers or maidens.

It requires sometimes a richer soil, a better atmosphere to continue even a natural growth. It would have been better if her acclimatization had been more gradual—less rigid.

One night she got thoroughly soaked, going to catch the car at Van Buren Street. All that evening she sat alone in the front room looking out upon the street, where the lights were reflected on the wet pavements, thinking.

She had imagination enough to be moody.

On Saturday she paid another four dollars and pocketed her fifty cents in despair.

It readily changed her thoughts, she who was so weary of them. It was here that she had intended to come and get her new things. Now for relief from distress; she thought she would go in and see. She would look at the jackets.

There is nothing in this world more delightful than that middle state in which we mentally balance at times, possessed of the means, lured by desire, and yet deterred by conscience or want of decision.

When Carrie began wandering around the store amid the fine displays she was in this mood. Her original experience in this same place had given her a high opinion of its merits.

Carrie looked out through the window into the busy street.

There it was, the admirable, great city, so fine when you are not poor.

An elegant coach, with a prancing pair of bays, passed by, carrying in its upholstered depths a young lady.

Among the forces which sweep and play throughout the universe, untutored man is but a wisp in the wind.

Our civilisation is still in a middle stage, scarcely beast, in that it is no longer wholly guided by instinct; scarcely human, in that it is not yet wholly guided by reason. On the tiger no responsibility rests.

He will not forever balance thus between good and evil. When this jangle of free-will and instinct shall have been adjusted, when perfect understanding has given the former the power to replace the latter entirely, man will no longer vary.

The needle of understanding will yet point steadfast and unwavering to the distant pole of truth.

In Carrie—as in how many of our worldlings do they not?—instinct and reason, desire and understanding, were at war for the mastery. She followed whither her craving led. She was as yet more drawn than she drew.

If any habits ever had time to fix upon her, they would have operated here. Habits are peculiar things. They will drive the really non-religious mind out of bed to say prayers that are only a custom and not a devotion.

The victim of habit, when he has neglected the thing which it was his custom to do, feels a little scratching in the brain, a little irritating something which comes of being out of the rut, and imagines it to be the prick of conscience, the still, small voice that is urging him ever to righteousness.

If the digression is unusual enough, the drag of habit will be heavy enough to cause the unreasoning victim to return and perform the perfunctory thing.

“All right,” was his only reply. He had long since wearied of discussing the rancorous subject.

A lovely home atmosphere is one of the flowers of the world, than which there is nothing more tender, nothing more delicate, nothing more calculated to make strong and just the natures cradled and nourished within it.

Those who have never experienced such a beneficent influence will not understand wherefore the tear springs glistening to the eyelids at some strange breath in lovely music. The mystic chords which bind and thrill the heart of the nation, they will never know.

… a pleasant fashion, free of certain difficulties which most ominously confronted her, laden with many new ones which were of a mental order, and altogether so turned about in all of her earthly relationships that she might well have been a new and different individual.

She looked into her glass and saw a prettier Carrie than she had seen before; she looked into her mind, a mirror prepared of her own and the world’s opinions, and saw a worse.

Between these two images she wavered, hesitating which to believe.

It was somewhat clear in utterance at first, but never wholly convincing. There was always an answer, always the December days threatened. She was alone; she was desireful; she was fearful of the whistling wind. The voice of want made answer for her.

Once the bright days of summer pass by, a city takes on that sombre garb of grey, wrapped in which it goes about its labours during the long winter.

Its endless buildings look grey, its sky and its streets assume a sombre hue; the scattered, leafless trees and windblown dust and paper but add to the general solemnity of colour.

how dispiriting are the days during which the sun withholds a portion of our allowance of light and warmth. We are more dependent upon these things than is often thought.

We are insects produced by heat, and pass without it.

In the drag of such a grey day the secret voice would reassert itself, feebly and more feebly.

Not poets alone, nor artists, nor that superior order of mind which arrogates to itself all refinement, feel this, but dogs and all men. These feel as much as the poet, though they have not the same power of expression.

The sparrow upon the wire, the cat in the doorway, the dray horse tugging his weary load, feel the long, keen breaths of winter.

It strikes to the heart of all life, animate and inanimate. If it were not for the artificial fires of merriment, the rush of profit-seeking trade, and pleasure-selling amusements; if the various merchants failed to make the customary display within and without their establishments;

and, on the contrary, the lowest order of mind is not so disturbed. Fine clothes to her were a vast persuasion; they spoke tenderly and Jesuitically for themselves. When she came within earshot of their pleading, desire in her bent a willing ear.

The voice of the so-called inanimate! Who shall translate for us the language of the stones?

“My dear,” said the lace collar she secured from Partridge’s, “I fit you beautifully; don’t give me up.”

Carrie took the instructions affably. She saw what Drouet liked; in a vague way she saw where he was weak.

It lessens a woman’s opinion of a man when she learns that his admiration is so pointedly and generously distributed.

She sees but one object of supreme compliment in this world, and that is herself. If a man is to succeed with many women, he must be all in all to each.

in a vague way she saw where he was weak. It lessens a woman’s opinion of a man when she learns that his admiration is so pointedly and generously distributed. She sees but one object of supreme compliment in this world, and that is herself.

If a man is to succeed with many women, he must be all in all to each.

In her own apartments Carrie saw things which were lessons in the same school.

Carrie heard it through the open door from the parlour below. It was at that hour between afternoon and night when, for the idle, the wanderer, things are apt to take on a wistful aspect.

The mind wanders forth on far journeys and returns with sheaves of withered and departed joys.

Carrie sat at her window looking out. Drouet had been away since ten in the morning. She had amused herself with a walk, a book by Bertha M.

She had heard so much of the canting philosophy of the grapeless fox.

“I notice,” said Mrs. Hale, “that they all try mighty hard, though, to take their misery in a mansion.”

When she came to her own rooms, Carrie saw their comparative insignificance. She was not so dull but that she could perceive they were but three small rooms in a moderately well-furnished boardinghouse.

Now she was persuaded by secret current feelings which Drouet had never understood. Hurstwood’s glance was as effective as the spoken words of a lover, and more. They called for no immediate decision, and could not be answered.

People in general attach too much importance to words. They are under the illusion that talking effects great results.

As a matter of fact, words are, as a rule, the shallowest portion of all the argument. They but dimly represent the great surging feelings and desires which lie behind. When the distraction of the tongue is removed, the heart listens.

They are under the illusion that talking effects great results. As a matter of fact, words are, as a rule, the shallowest portion of all the argument. They but dimly represent the great surging feelings and desires which lie behind.

When the distraction of the tongue is removed, the heart listens.

In this conversation she heard, instead of his words, the voices of the things which he represented. How suave was the counsel of his appearance! How feelingly did his superior state speak for itself!

She came fresh from the air of the village, the light of the country still in her eye. Here was neither guile nor rapacity. There were slight inherited traits of both in her, but they were rudimentary.

She was too full of wonder and desire to be greedy.

She still looked about her upon the great maze of the city without understanding. Hurstwood felt the bloom and the youth. He picked her as he would the fresh fruit of a tree.

Here was neither guile nor rapacity. There were slight inherited traits of both in her, but they were rudimentary. She was too full of wonder and desire to be greedy.

She still looked about her upon the great maze of the city without understanding.

Hurstwood felt the bloom and the youth. He picked her as he would the fresh fruit of a tree. He felt as fresh in her presence as one who is taken out of the flash of summer to the first cool breath of spring.

Carrie looked at him with the tenderness which virtue ever feels in its hope of reclaiming vice. How could such a man need reclaiming? His errors, what were they, that she could correct? Small they must be, where all was so fine.

At worst, they were gilded affairs, and with what leniency are gilded errors viewed.

He put himself in such a lonely light that she was deeply moved.

He watched her walk from him with tender solicitation.

Such youth and prettiness reacted upon him more subtly than wine.

At the theatre things passed as they had in Hurstwood’s favour. If he had been pleasing to Carrie before, how much more so was he now. His grace was more permeating because it found a readier medium. Carrie watched his every movement with pleasure.

He sat at breakfast with his wife and children, absorbed in his own fancies, which reached far without the realm of their interests. He read his paper, which was heightened in interest by the shallowness of the themes discussed by his son and daughter.

Between himself and his wife ran a river of indifference.

Now that Carrie had come, he was in a fair way to be blissful again. There was delight in going downtown evenings. When he walked forth in the short days, the street lamps had a merry twinkle.

There was delight in going downtown evenings. When he walked forth in the short days, the street lamps had a merry twinkle. He began to experience the almost forgotten feeling which hastens the lover’s feet.

When he looked at his fine clothes, he saw them with her eyes⁠—and her eyes were young.

When in the flush of such feelings he heard his wife’s voice, when the insistent demands of matrimony recalled him from dreams to a stale practice, how it grated. He then knew that this was a chain which bound his feet.

Carrie was indeed worth loving if ever youth and grace are to command that token of acknowledgment from life in their bloom.

Experience had not yet taken away that freshness of the spirit which is the charm of the body.

Her soft eyes contained in their liquid lustre no suggestion of the knowledge of disappointment.

Her longing for consideration was not sufficiently powerful to move her to demand it. Even now she lacked self-assurance, but there was that in what she had already experienced which left her a little less than timid.

She wanted pleasure, she wanted position, and yet she was confused as to what these things might be.

Every hour the kaleidoscope of human affairs threw a new lustre upon something, and therewith it became for her the desired—the all. Another shift of the box, and some other had become the beautiful, the perfect.

Even now she lacked self-assurance, but there was that in what she had already experienced which left her a little less than timid. She wanted pleasure, she wanted position, and yet she was confused as to what these things might be.

Every hour the kaleidoscope of human affairs threw a new lustre upon something, and therewith it became for her the desired⁠—the all.

Another shift of the box, and some other had become the beautiful, the perfect.

On the street sometimes she would see men working—Irishmen with picks, coal-heavers with great loads to shovel, Americans busy about some work which was a mere matter of strength—and they touched her fancy.

Toil, now that she was free of it, seemed even a more desolate thing than when she was part of it.

She saw it through a mist of fancy—a pale, sombre half-light, which was the essence of poetic feeling. Her old father, in his flour-dusted miller’s suit, sometimes returned to her in memory, revived by a face in a window.

these took her back in fancy to the details of the mill. She felt, though she seldom expressed them, sad thoughts upon this score.

Her sympathies were ever with that underworld of toil from which she had so recently sprung, and which she best understood.

Though Hurstwood did not know it, he was dealing with one whose feelings were as tender and as delicate as this. He did not know, but it was this in her, after all, which attracted him.

When he looked at her now, he thought her beautiful. What a thing it was to have her love him, even if it be entangling! She increased in value in his eyes because of her objection.

She was something to struggle for, and that was everything.

How different from the women who yielded willingly! He swept the thought of them from his mind.

Carrie was possessed of that sympathetic, impressionable nature which, ever in the most developed form, has been the glory of the drama.

She was created with that passivity of soul which is always the mirror of the active world.

She possessed an innate taste for imitation and no small ability. Even without practice, she could sometimes restore dramatic situations she had witnessed by recreating, before her mirror, the expressions of the various faces taking part in the scene.

When Drouet was gone, she sat down in her rocking-chair by the window to think about it. As usual, imagination exaggerated the possibilities for her.

It was as if he had put fifty cents in her hand and she had exercised the thoughts of a thousand dollars.

She saw herself in a score of pathetic situations in which she assumed a tremulous voice and suffering manner. Her mind delighted itself with scenes of luxury and refinement, situations in which she was the cynosure of all eyes, the arbiter of all fates.

Thoughts of all the charming women she had seen in plays—every fancy, every illusion which she had concerning the stage—now came back as a returning tide after the ebb.

She built up feelings and a determination which the occasion did not warrant.

Drouet dropped in at the lodge when he went downtown, and swashed around with a great air, as Quincel met him.

Hurstwood was charmed by the development of the fact that the girl had capabilities.

There is nothing so inspiring in life as the sight of a legitimate ambition, no matter how incipient.

It gives colour, force, and beauty to the possessor.

The whole earth was brimming sunshine that morning. She tripped along, the clear sky pouring liquid blue into her soul.

Oh, blessed are the children of endeavour in this, that they try and are hopeful. And blessed also are they who, knowing, smile and approve.

Here was no illusion. Here was an open door to see all of that.

She had come upon it as one who stumbles upon a secret passage, and, behold, she was in the chamber of diamonds and delight!

As she dressed with a flutter, in her little stage room, hearing the voices outside, seeing Mr. Quincel hurrying here and there, noting Mrs. Morgan and Mrs.

Hurstwood blinked his eyes and caught the infection. The radiating waves of feeling and sincerity were already breaking against the farthest walls of the chamber.

The magic of passion, which will yet dissolve the world, was here at work.

There was a drawing, too, of attention, a riveting of feeling, heretofore wandering.

He could almost feel that she was talking to him. He was, by a combination of feelings and entanglements, almost deluded by that quality of voice and manner which, like a pathetic strain of music, seems ever a personal and intimate thing.

Pathos has this quality, that it seems ever addressed to one alone.

“And yet, she can be very happy with him,” went on the little actress. “Her sunny temper, her joyous face will brighten any home.”

“To be my wife, yes,” went on the actor in a manner which was weak by comparison, but which could not now spoil the tender atmosphere which Carrie had created and maintained. She did not seem to feel that he was wretched.

She would have done nearly as well with a block of wood.

The accessories she needed were within her own imagination. The acting of others could not affect them.

The little actress was in fine feather. She was realising now what it was to be petted. For once she was the admired, the sought-for.

The independence of success now made its first faint showing.

With the tables turned, she was looking down, rather than up, to her lover. She did not fully realise that this was so, but there was something in condescension coming from her which was infinitely sweet.

She kept him at such lengths as she could, because her thoughts were with her own triumph. She felt Hurstwood’s passion as a delightful background to her own achievement, and she wondered what he would have to say.

She was sorry for him, too, with that peculiar sorrow which finds something complimentary to itself in the misery of another.

She was now experiencing the first shades of feeling of that subtle change which removes one out of the ranks of the suppliants into the lines of the dispensers of charity. She was, all in all, exceedingly happy.

With his regard died his power to be attentive to her, and this, to a woman, is much greater than outright crime toward another.

Our self-love dictates our appreciation of the good or evil in another.

In Mrs. Hurstwood it discoloured the very hue of her husband’s indifferent nature. She saw design in deeds and phrases which sprung only from a faded appreciation of her presence.

Every motion, every glance had something in it of the pleasure he felt in Carrie, of the zest this new pursuit of pleasure lent to his days.

Mrs. Hurstwood felt something, sniffing change, as animals do danger, afar off.

This feeling was strengthened by actions of a direct and more potent nature on the part of Hurstwood.

She wanted to know what this peculiar action of his imported. She was certain there was more behind it all than what she had heard, and evil curiosity mingled well with distrust and the remnants of her wrath of the morning.

She, impending disaster itself, walked about with gathered shadow at the eyes and the rudimentary muscles of savagery fixing the hard lines of her mouth.

On the other hand, as we may well believe, the manager came home in the sunniest mood. His conversation and agreement with Carrie had raised his spirits until he was in the frame of mind of one who sings joyously.

He could not attack her, he could not ask her for proofs. Somehow he felt evidence, law, the remembrance of all his property which she held in her name, to be shining in her glance.

He was like a vessel, powerful and dangerous, but rolling and floundering without sail.

“And I’m telling you,” he said in the end, slightly recovering himself, “what you’ll not get.”

Carrie listened at her window view, more astonished than anything else at this sudden rise of passion in the drummer. She could hardly believe her senses—so good-natured and tractable had he invariably been. It was not for her to see the wellspring of human passion.

A real flame of love is a subtle thing. It burns as a will-o’-the-wisp, dancing onward to fairylands of delight.

It roars as a furnace. Too often jealousy is the quality upon which it feeds.

It was not for her to see the wellspring of human passion. A real flame of love is a subtle thing. It burns as a will-o’-the-wisp, dancing onward to fairylands of delight. It roars as a furnace.

Too often jealousy is the quality upon which it feeds.

In a way, she felt the power and satisfaction of the thing, but it did not wholly reassure her. She looked for nothing save what might come legitimately and without the appearance of special favour.

She wanted something, but no man should buy her by false protestations or favour.

She proposed to earn her living honestly.

There was really something exceedingly human—if not pathetic—in his being thus relieved by a clearly worded reproof. He who had for so long remained satisfied with himself now looked outside of himself for comfort—and to such a source.

The mystic cords of affection! How they bind us all.

The colour came to his cheeks. For the moment he forgot the letter from McGregor, James and Hay. If he could only have Carrie, perhaps he could get out of the whole entanglement—perhaps it would not matter.

To those who have never wavered in conscience, the predicament of the individual whose mind is less strongly constituted and who trembles in the balance between duty and desire is scarcely appreciable, unless graphically portrayed.

Those who have never heard that solemn voice of the ghostly clock which ticks with awful distinctness, “thou shalt,” “thou shalt not,” “thou shalt,” “thou shalt not,” are in no position to judge.

Not alone in sensitive, highly organised natures is such a mental conflict possible. The dullest specimen of humanity, when drawn by desire toward evil, is recalled by a sense of right, which is proportionate in power and strength to his evil tendency.

We must remember that it may not be a knowledge of right, for no knowledge of right is predicated of the animal’s instinctive recoil at evil.

Men are still led by instinct before they are regulated by knowledge.

It is instinct which recalls the criminal—it is instinct (where highly organised reasoning is absent) which gives the criminal his feeling of danger, his fear of wrong.

At every first adventure, then, into some untried evil, the mind wavers.

The clock of thought ticks out its wish and its denial.

To those who have never experienced such a mental dilemma, the following will appeal on the simple ground of revelation.

To the untravelled, territory other than their own familiar heath is invariably fascinating.

Next to love, it is the one thing which solaces and delights. Things new are too important to be neglected, and mind, which is a mere reflection of sensory impressions, succumbs to the flood of objects.

Things new are too important to be neglected, and mind, which is a mere reflection of sensory impressions, succumbs to the flood of objects. Thus lovers are forgotten, sorrows laid aside, death hidden from view.

There is a world of accumulated feeling back of the trite dramatic expression⁠—“I am going away.”

As Carrie looked out upon the flying scenery she almost forgot that she had been tricked into this long journey against her will and that she was without the necessary apparel for travelling.

She did not feel herself defeated at all. Neither was she blasted in hope. The great city held much. Possibly she would come out of bondage into freedom—who knows? Perhaps she would be happy. These thoughts raised her above the level of erring.

She was saved in that she was hopeful.

The following morning the train pulled safely into Montreal and they stepped down, Hurstwood glad to be out of danger, Carrie wondering at the novel atmosphere of the northern city.

The troubled state of the man’s mind may be judged by the very construction of this letter. For the nonce he forgot what a painful thing it would be to resume his old place, even if it were given him.

He forgot that he had severed himself from the past as by a sword, and that if he did manage to in some way reunite himself with it, the jagged line of separation and reunion would always show.

He was always forgetting something—his wife, Carrie, his need of money, present situation, or something—and so did not reason clearly. Nevertheless, he sent the letter, waiting a reply before sending the money.

In Chicago the two roads to distinction were politics and trade. In New York the roads were any one of a half-hundred, and each had been diligently pursued by hundreds, so that celebrities were numerous.

The sea was already full of whales. A common fish must needs disappear wholly from view⁠—remain unseen.

In other words, Hurstwood was nothing.

There is a more subtle result of such a situation as this, which, though not always taken into account, produces the tragedies of the world.

The great create an atmosphere which reacts badly upon the small.

This atmosphere is easily and quickly felt. Walk among the magnificent residences, the splendid equipages, the gilded shops, restaurants, resorts of all kinds; scent the flowers, the silks, the wines;

Other things followed from time to time, little things of the same sort, which in their cumulative effect were eventually equal to a full revelation. Carrie was not dull by any means.

Two persons cannot long dwell together without coming to an understanding of one another.

The mental difficulties of an individual reveal themselves whether he voluntarily confesses them or not. Trouble gets in the air and contributes gloom, which speaks for itself. Hurstwood dressed as nicely as usual, but they were the same clothes he had in Canada.

Carrie was not dull by any means. Two persons cannot long dwell together without coming to an understanding of one another. The mental difficulties of an individual reveal themselves whether he voluntarily confesses them or not.

Trouble gets in the air and contributes gloom, which speaks for itself.

Hurstwood dressed as nicely as usual, but they were the same clothes he had in Canada. Carrie noticed that he did not install a large wardrobe, though his own was anything but large.

Such bon-mots are ever enticing to those who have all their days longed for such material surroundings and have never had them gratified. They have the charm of showing suffering under ideal conditions.

Who would not grieve upon a gilded chair? Who would not suffer amid perfumed tapestries, cushioned furniture, and liveried servants?

Grief under such circumstances becomes an enticing thing. Carrie longed to be of it. She wanted to take her sufferings, whatever they were, in such a world, or failing that, at least to simulate them under such charming conditions upon the stage.

A little food in the stomach does wonders. She went again, and in so doing temporarily recovered her equanimity. The great awakening blow had, however, been delivered. As often as she might recover from these discontented thoughts now, they would occur again.

Time and repetition⁠—ah, the wonder of it! The dropping water and the solid stone⁠—how utterly it yields at last!

Not long after this matinee experience—perhaps a month—Mrs. Vance invited Carrie to an evening at the theatre with them. She heard Carrie say that Hurstwood was not coming home to dinner.

Nevertheless, wakened out of her melancholia and called to the dinner table, she changed her mind.

A little food in the stomach does wonders.

She went again, and in so doing temporarily recovered her equanimity. The great awakening blow had, however, been delivered. As often as she might recover from these discontented thoughts now, they would occur again. Time and repetition—ah, the wonder of it!

Carrie could not say anything else, but somehow this development shocked her. She had been regretting the wane of a pleasant evening, but she had thought there was a half-hour more.

Oh, the half-hours, the minutes of the world; what miseries and griefs are crowded into them!

She said goodbye with feigned indifference. What matter could it make? Still, the coach seemed lorn.

The immediate result of this was nothing. Results from such things are usually long in growing. Morning brings a change of feeling.

The existent condition invariably pleads for itself.

It is only at odd moments that we get glimpses of the misery of things. The heart understands when it is confronted with contrasts. Take them away and the ache subsides.

The immediate result of this was nothing. Results from such things are usually long in growing. Morning brings a change of feeling. The existent condition invariably pleads for itself.

It is only at odd moments that we get glimpses of the misery of things.

The heart understands when it is confronted with contrasts. Take them away and the ache subsides.

The immediate result of this was nothing. Results from such things are usually long in growing. Morning brings a change of feeling. The existent condition invariably pleads for itself. It is only at odd moments that we get glimpses of the misery of things.

The heart understands when it is confronted with contrasts. Take them away and the ache subsides.

Carrie went on, leading much this same life for six months thereafter or more. She did not see Ames any more. He called once upon the Vances, but she only heard about it through the young wife.

This removes it at once beyond the special care of the founder. It needs not so much foresight now as direction. The man wanes, the need continues or grows, and the fortune, fallen into whose hands it may, continues.

Hence, some men never recognise the turning in the tide of their abilities.

It is only in chance cases, where a fortune or a state of success is wrested from them, that the lack of ability to do as they did formerly becomes apparent.

It had seemed very easy for anyone to get up there and have ample raiment and money to spend, but now that he was out of it, how far off it became.

He began to see as one sees a city with a wall about it. Men were posted at the gates.

You could not get in. Those inside did not care to come out to see who you were. They were so merry inside there that all those outside were forgotten, and he was on the outside.

Only the newspapers and his own thoughts were worth while. The delight of love had again slipped away. It was a case of live, now, making the best you can out of a very commonplace station in life.

The road downward has but few landings and level places.

The very state of his mind, superinduced by his condition, caused the breach to widen between him and his partner. At last that individual began to wish that Hurstwood was out of it.

Her recent experiences with the Vances had wholly unfitted her to view her own state with complacence. The glamour of the high life of the city had, in the few experiences afforded her by the former, seized her completely.

She had been taught how to dress and where to go without having ample means to do either.

Now, these things—ever-present realities as they were—filled her eyes and mind. The more circumscribed became her state, the more entrancing seemed this other.

He buried himself in his papers and read. Oh, the rest of it—the relief from walking and thinking!

What Lethean waters were these floods of telegraphed intelligence!

He forgot his troubles, in part. Here was a young, handsome woman, if you might believe the newspaper drawing, suing a rich, fat, candy-making husband in Brooklyn for divorce.

He ascended into the fine parlour of the Morton House, then one of the best New York hotels, and, finding a cushioned seat, read. It did not trouble him much that his decreasing sum of money did not allow of such extravagance.

Like the morphine fiend, he was becoming addicted to his ease.

Anything to relieve his mental distress, to satisfy his craving for comfort. He must do it. No thoughts for the morrow—he could not stand to think of it any more than he could of any other calamity.

In a flash, he thought he foresaw the result of this thing. Now, when the worst of his situation was approaching, she would get on the stage in some cheap way and forsake him. Strangely, he had not conceived well of her mental ability.

That was because he did not understand the nature of emotional greatness.

He had never learned that a person might be emotionally—instead of intellectually—great. Avery Hall was too far away for him to look back and sharply remember. He had lived with this woman too long.

The agent studied a moment, and then said to himself:

“It’s funny how anxious these women are to get on the stage.”

Carrie found ample food for reflection in the fifty-dollar proposition. “Maybe they’d take my money and not give me anything,” she thought. She had some jewelry—a diamond ring and pin and several other pieces.

When Carrie renewed her search, as she did the next day, going to the Casino, she found that in the opera chorus, as in other fields, employment is difficult to secure.

Girls who can stand in a line and look pretty are as numerous as labourers who can swing a pick.

She found there was no discrimination between one and the other of applicants, save as regards a conventional standard of prettiness and form. Their own opinion or knowledge of their ability went for nothing.

At the Lyceum she entered one of those secluded, under-stairway closets, berugged and bepanneled, which causes one to feel the greatness of all positions of authority.

Here was reserve itself done into a box-office clerk, a doorman, and an assistant, glorying in their fine positions.

“Ah, be very humble now—very humble indeed. Tell us what it is you require. Tell it quickly, nervously, and without a vestige of self-respect. If no trouble to us in any way, we may see what we can do.”

This was the atmosphere of the Lyceum—the attitude, for that matter, of every managerial office in the city.

These little proprietors of businesses are lords indeed on their own ground.

Carrie came away wearily, somewhat more abashed for her pains.

Hurstwood saw the difficulty of this thing, and yet it did not seem so terrible. Carrie was tired and dispirited, but now she could rest.

Viewing the world from his rocking-chair, its bitterness did not seem to approach so rapidly.

Tomorrow was another day.

Hurstwood saw the difficulty of this thing, and yet it did not seem so terrible. Carrie was tired and dispirited, but now she could rest. Viewing the world from his rocking-chair, its bitterness did not seem to approach so rapidly. Tomorrow was another day.

Tomorrow came, and the next, and the next.

Carrie saw the manager at the Casino once.

In the face of so much distress on Carrie’s part, he had to make some showing, and it was thus he did so.

It was lassitude’s apology to energy.

Monday Carrie went again to the Casino.

She forgot her youth and her beauty. The handicap of age she did not, in her enthusiasm, perceive.

Thus, ever, the voice of success.

Still, she could not keep her secret. She tried to be calm and indifferent, but it was a palpable sham.

Hurstwood, still tactful in distress, added nothing to this. It seemed an easy thing. He looked out of the door, and then gathered up his coffee when ready and came away.

The game of a desperate man had begun.

Rent was paid, and now came the grocer. Hurstwood managed by paying out of his own ten and collecting from Carrie at the end of the week.

Hurstwood read this, formulating to himself his own idea of what would be the outcome.

He was a great believer in the strength of corporations.

“They can’t win,” he said, concerning the men. “They haven’t any money. The police will protect the companies. They’ve got to. The public has to have its cars.”

About certain corners and nearby saloons small groups of men were lounging. Several spring wagons passed him, equipped with plain wooden chairs, and labelled “Flatbush” or “Prospect Park. Fare, Ten Cents.” He noticed cold and even gloomy faces.

Labour was having its little war.

When he came near the office in question, he saw a few men standing about, and some policemen. On the far corners were other men—whom he took to be strikers—watching. All the houses were small and wooden, the streets poorly paved.

Of its true social significance, he never once dreamed. His was not the mind for that. The two feelings blended in him—neutralised one another and him. He would have fought for this man as determinedly as for himself, and yet only so far as commanded.

Strip him of his uniform, and he would have soon picked his side.

Hurstwood ascended a dusty flight of steps and entered a small, dust-coloured office, in which were a railing, a long desk, and several clerks.

This put desperate thoughts in the minds of the men. Peaceful methods meant, they saw, that the companies would soon run all their cars and those who had complained would be forgotten.

There was nothing so helpful to the companies as peaceful methods.

All at once they blazed forth, and for a week there was storm and stress.

He met them all blandly, becoming deft in excuse. At last he became bold, pretended to be out, or waved them off.

“They can’t get blood out of a turnip,” he said.

“If I had it I’d pay them.”

The reliance of others made her feel as if she must, and when she must she dared. Experience of the world and of necessity was in her favour. No longer the lightest word of a man made her head dizzy.

She had learned that men could change and fail.

Flattery in its most palpable form had lost its force with her. It required superiority—kindly superiority—to move her—the superiority of a genius like Ames.

He sat a long while without rocking, and added quite clearly, out loud:

“I tried, didn’t I?”

At midnight he was still rocking, staring at the floor.

As day after day passed and she heard nothing at all, the thought of being bothered by him passed. In a little while she was, except for occasional thoughts, wholly free of the gloom with which her life had been weighed in the flat.

It is curious to note how quickly a profession absorbs one.

Carrie became wise in theatrical lore, hearing the gossip of little Lola. She learned what the theatrical papers were, which ones published items about actresses and the like.

“I intend to,” said Carrie.

The regular entrance of thirty-five dollars a week to one who has endured scant allowances for several years is a demoralising thing.

Carrie found her purse bursting with good green bills of comfortable denominations. Having no one dependent upon her, she began to buy pretty clothes and pleasing trinkets, to eat well, and to ornament her room. Friends were not long in gathering about.

They had got one there. She thought of going down and buying a few copies of the paper, but remembered that there was no one she knew well enough to send them to. Only Lola, apparently, in all the world was interested.

The metropolis is a cold place socially, and Carrie soon found that a little money brought her nothing.

The world of wealth and distinction was quite as far away as ever. She could feel that there was no warm, sympathetic friendship back of the easy merriment with which many approached her.

The critic of the Evening World, seeking as usual to establish a catch phrase which should “go” with the town, wound up by advising:

“If you wish to be merry, see Carrie frown.”

The result was miraculous so far as Carrie’s fortune was concerned. Even during the morning she received a congratulatory message from the manager.

“One hundred and fifty a week!” she murmured, when she was again alone. She found, after all—as what millionaire has not?—that there was no realising, in consciousness, the meaning of large sums.

It was only a shimmering, glittering phrase in which lay a world of possibilities.

Down in a third-rate Bleecker Street hotel, the brooding Hurstwood read the dramatic item covering Carrie’s success, without at first realising who was meant. Then suddenly it came to him and he read the whole thing over again.

“Well, let her have it,” he said. “I won’t bother her.”

It was the grim resolution of a bent, bedraggled, but unbroken pride.

All those who had supposedly been her equals and superiors now smiled the smile of sociability, as much as to say: “How friendly we have always been.” Only the star comedian whose part had been so deeply injured stalked by himself.

Figuratively, he could not kiss the hand that smote him.

Doing her simple part, Carrie gradually realised the meaning of the applause which was for her, and it was sweet. She felt mildly guilty of something—perhaps unworthiness. When her associates addressed her in the wings she only smiled weakly.

Oh, it was so easy now! The world was so rosy and bright. She felt so thrilled that she must needs walk back to the hotel to think, wondering what she should do.

It does not take money long to make plain its impotence, providing the desires are in the realm of affection.

With her one hundred and fifty in hand, Carrie could think of nothing particularly to do. In itself, as a tangible, apparent thing which she could touch and look upon, it was a diverting thing for a few days, but this soon passed.

“I don’t know,” she said.

Unconsciously her idle hands were beginning to weary.

Here his preference was to close his eyes and dream of other days, a habit which grew upon him. It was not sleep at first, but a mental hearkening back to scenes and incidents in his Chicago life.

As the present became darker, the past grew brighter, and all that concerned it stood in relief.

He was unconscious of just how much this habit had hold of him until one day he found his lips repeating an old answer he had made to one of his friends. They were in Fitzgerald and Moy’s.

Hurstwood swallowed something that rose to his throat.

Hunger and weakness had made a coward of him.

“Here you are,” said a stranger, handing money to the captain.