“He spread them out in heaps and bathed his hands in them; then he counted them and set them up in regular piles, and felt their rounded outline between his thumb and fingers, and thought fondly of the guineas that were only half-earned by the work in his loom, as if they had been unborn children.”
“It was a disappointment that all men know —the artist most of all. The disappointment of reaching for the flower and having it fade the moment your fingers touch it.”