She was acquiring truths, but in a series of shocks rather than by the process of analysis.
There were seven tales in all--short stories--a method of expression quite strange to her, after the immense canvases of Dickens and Hugo.

When she had finished the first tale, there was a sense of disappointment.

She had expected a love story; and love was totally absent.

It was a tale of battle, murder, and sudden death on the New York waterfront.

Sordid; but that was not Ruth's term for it; she had no precise commentary to offer.
From time to time she would come upon a line of singular beauty or a paragraph full of haunting music; and these would send her rushing on for something that never happened.