Who is it this time?
Ah, my child, you are born to be adored or to be hated." Without replying to his question, Laura lifted her full, dark eyes to his face.

As he met the intellectual power of her glance, he told himself that he understood the mysterious active principle of her personality--how the many were repelled while the few returned to worship.

One felt her, was repulsed or possessed by her, even in her muteness.
"I don't see how any one who has ever dreamed dreams," she said at last, "could fall in love and marry--it is so different--so different." "So you have refused Mr.Wilberforce?
Well, well, he has reached the age when a poor lover may make an excellent friend--and besides, to become Rosa's mouthpiece for a moment, he is very rich." "And old enough to be my father--but it isn't that.

Age has nothing to do with it, nor has congeniality--it is nothing in real life that comes between, for I am fond of him and I don't mind his white hairs in the least, but I can't give up my visions--my ideal hopes." "Ah, Laura, Laura," sighed the old man, "the trouble is that you don't live on the earth at all, but in a little hanging garden of the imagination." "And yet I want life," she said.
"We all want it, my child, until we've had it.

At your age I wanted it, too, for I had my dreams, though I was not a poet.