My Ántonia

by Willa Cather

He is legal counsel for one of the great Western railways, and is sometimes away from his New York office for weeks together. That is one reason why we do not often meet. Another is that I do not like his wife.

Between that earth and that sky I felt erased, blotted out.

When I came up, he touched my shoulder and looked searchingly down into my face for several seconds. I became somewhat embarrassed, for I was used to being taken for granted by my elders.

He had the gift of simple and moving expression. Because he talked so little, his words had a peculiar force; they were not worn dull from constant use.

where the spirit if not the fact of slavery persisted.

He squandered too much in the heat of personal communication.

And I guess everybody thinks about old times, even the happiest people.”

In the course of twenty crowded years one parts with many illusions. I did not wish to lose the early ones. Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again.

in farmhouses, somehow, life comes and goes by the back door.

The trouble with me was, Jim, I never could believe harm of anybody I loved.”