Nothing could be more characteristic of these three children than their current occupation. Stephen usually watched the birds fly when he left the house, and the birds could be seen. And the only time his uncle Richard ever laid his hand on an orphan boy was when Stephen, three months after his arrival in the Dale Dale, opened his cage and lost Elena his pet, all because he „wanted to see how he flies. „
The vicar suffered – almost the same way he suffered the night his wife, Elena, died – and because he suffered, he put his beautiful cameo-like face in the sunniest smile. It was his path – part of his daily life, an integral part of himself. A pious man, in the strongest senses of this over-used word, Philip Reynolds possessed a noble talent for the things of the earth that at the same time soften human life and give it a poignancy.
At the core of the oldest state, civil war destroyed or wrested from them all the possessions of the town-sands. But Rosehill remained the widow of the southern general, and now she came with two children left by her war, and lived in it bitterly until the hour of her death, but retained her state of Virginia as much as she could, and in no way case without changing her lifestyle.
The novel is about a young woman of both English and Chinese descent, who must choose between lovers of both races, between East and West. Neither effort, nor suffering, nor experience can give perfection to any person, nor any race. Humanity, individual or herd, can only strive – never fully triumph or to fulfill. But there are separate people, there are different people: vintage masculinity, vintage nation.
