Excerpt from Predestined: A Novel of New York LifeShy and retiring as a boy, by disposition always solemn and austere, he had experienced in his life but one great happiness - ah idealistic passion for the brilliant, ardent woman he had married. At her death, which occurred when she still possessed all her powers of fascination, he thought himself de spoiled of everything that made his life worth liv ing. When told that his intense grief would wear away in time, he repulsed his comforters with the fury of a priest before a shrine to which some one has offered sacrilege. He was determined never to mourn her less intensely.He was rich, he had no business, he lived a life of leisure. His mind was not adapted to profitable intellectual pursuits. His time was taken up with petty occupations. He was one of those persons for whom living has been made easy through inheritance, who never feel any positive incentive to achievement, who are content to spend a lifetime aimlessly, from time to time wondering at their ennui and discontent. Growing old, he fell into the melancholy ways of solitaries.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.