Her fine high forehead sloped gently up to where her hair, bordering it like an armorial shield, burst into lovelocks and waves and curlicues of ash blonde and gold. Her eyes were bright, big, clear, wet and shining, the colour of her cheeks was real, breaking close to the surface from the strong young pump of her heart. Her body hovered delicately on the last edge of childhood -- she was almost eighteen, nearly complete, but the dew was still on her.
Interpretation
This quote captures the beauty and innocence of a young woman on the cusp of adulthood.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's description paints a vivid picture of a young woman teetering between the carefree nature of childhood and the complexities of adulthood. Through evocative imagery, he highlights her physical beauty while suggesting a deeper emotional awakening, symbolized by the remaining dew of youth, which evokes a sense of fleeting time and the beauty of innocence before it transforms into maturity.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech about the beauty of youth and the importance of cherishing the moments of childhood.
Don't be so anxious about it,' she laughed. 'I'm not used to being loved. I wouldn't know what to do; I never got the trick of it.' She looked down at him, shy and fatigued. 'So here we are. I told you years ago that I had the makings of Cinderella.' He took her hand; she drew it back instinctively and then replaced it in his. 'Beg your pardon. Not even used to being touched. But I'm not afraid of you, if you stay quiet and don't move suddenly.
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
It was about then [1920] that I wrote a line which certain people will not let me forget: "She was a faded but still lovely woman of twenty-seven."
The words seemed to bite physically into Gatsby.
But you can love more than just one person, can't you?
A sudden gust of rain blew over them and then another - as if small liquid clouds were bouncing along the land. Lightning entered the sea far off and the air blew full of crackling thunder. The table cloths blew around the pillars. They blew and blew and blew. The flags twisted around the red chairs like live things, the banners were ragged, the corners of the table tore off through the burbling billowing ends of the cloths.
But let me see thee stoop from heaven on wings That fill the sky with silver glitterings!
Those moments before a poem comes, when the heightened awareness comes over you, and you realize a poem is buried there somewhere, you prepare yourself. I run around, you know, kind of skipping around the house, marvelous elation. It’s as though I could fly.
The painter makes real to others his innermost feelings about all that he cares for. A secret becomes known to everyone who views the picture through the intensity with which it is felt.
The essence of poetry is invention; such invention as, by producing something unexpected, surprises and delights.
Whatever I do with music, I try to make it align deeply with the values and principles of who I am and what I believe the purpose of my life is.
I am a camera, with its shutter open. Someday, all of this will be developed, printed, fixed.
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