Ecstasy, A Study of Happiness: A Novel

"I do not know if you were offended by my mystical utterances. I cannot recall distinctly what I said, but I remember that you told me that I was going too far. I trust that you...

"Oh, for that which cannot be told, because words are so few, always the same combinations of a few letters and sounds; oh, for that which cannot be thought of in the narrow lim...

Cecile passed through the long hall, which was almost a gallery: footmen stood on either side of the hangings; a hum of voices came from behind. The train of her dress rustled a...

Cecile was astonished at her unusually long fit of abstraction, that it should continue for days before she returned to her usual condition of serenity, the delightful abode fro...

Next evening, when Cecile entered the Van Attemas' drawing-room, slowly with languorous steps, in the sinuous black of her crape, Dolf at once came to her and took her hand:

Cecile had passed those three weeks in a state of ignorance which had filled her with pain. She had, it is true, heard through Dolf that Quaerts was away shooting, but beyond th...

Dolf Van Attema, in the course of an after-dinner stroll, had called on his wife's sister, Cecile van Even, on the Scheveningen Road. He was waiting in her little boudoir, pacin...

Quaerts lived on the Plein, above a tailor, where he occupied two small rooms furnished in the most ordinary style. He could have had much better lodgings if he chose, but he wa...

Then she knew, next day, when she sat alone, wrapped in reflection, that the sphere of happiness, the highest and brightest, may not be trod; that it may only beam upon us as a...

It was after dinner; she was sitting on the sofa in her little boudoir with Dolf and Christie, an arm thrown round each of them, sitting between them, so young, like an elder si...

This evening Cecile had written a great deal into her diary; and she now paced up and down in her room, with locked hands hanging before her and her head slightly bowed and a fi...

Jules had been away from school for a day or two with a bad headache, which had made him look very pale and given him an air of sadness; but he was a little better now and, feel...

Cecile was alone; the children had gone upstairs to tidy themselves for dinner. She tried to get back her distant vistas, fading into the pale horizon; she tried to recover the...

He sat facing her, motionless, with anguish on his face. Outwardly she was very calm, only there was a sadness in her look and in her voice. In her white dress, with the girdle...

She shut herself up; she saw little of her children; she told her friends that she was ill. She was at home to no visitors. She guessed intuitively that people in their circles...