In one of his very last letters to Sibyl Colefax, Wilder took note of the widely circulated reports that she was the Julia of Eliot’s play and vehemently denied the justice of the parallel and added that she was neither the babbling hostess of Act I nor the Ministrix of the Mysteries of Act II.

Everything on the surface appeared to be just as it ought to be. And yet Constantin Demiris still felt that vague sense of unease, a presentiment of trouble.

You need to start thinking about your postcollege life.

Here indeed the power of distinctly conceiving of space and distance falters.