Ross Poldark (Poldark, #1)

by Winston Graham

The sense of separateness from others, of loneliness, had not often been so strong as that morning. He wondered if there was any true content in life, if all men were as troubled as he with a sense of disillusion.

I am happy, he thought again. Something is happening to me, to us, transmuting our shabby little love affair. Keep this mood, hold on to it. No slipping back.

So he found that what he had half despised was not despicable, that what had been for him the satisfaction of an appetite, a pleasant but commonplace adventure in disappointment, owned wayward and elusive depths he had not known before, and carried the knowledge of beauty in its heart.