"I know what you mean," he replied, "but they didn't mean any harm; they're only looking out for your best good, Ellen.

You can't always have us; it ain't in the course of nature, you know, Ellen." There was a tone of inexorable sadness, the sadness of fate itself in Andrew's voice.

He had, as he spoke, the full realization of that stage of progress which is simply for the next, which passes to make room for it.

He felt his own nothingness.

It was the throe of the present before the future; it was the pang of anticipatory annihilation.
"Don't talk that way, father," said Ellen.