Flappers and Philosophers Book

Flappers and Philosophers are the tales of youth, mostly… Stories of young dreamers and their beautiful dreams being broken. And I admired how excellently the spirit of that rather rebellious epoch was preserved in the tales.
Ardita scrutinized him carefully ' and classed him immediately as a romantic figure. He gave the effect of towering self-confidence erected on a slight foundation ' just under the surface of each of his decisions she discerned a hesitancy that was in decided contrast to the arrogant curl of his lips.
Being a supreme egotist Ardita frequently thought about herself; never having had her egotism disputed she did it entirely naturally and with no detraction from her unquestioned charm. Though she was nineteen she gave the effect of a high-spirited precocious child, and in the present glow of her youth and beauty all the men and women she had known were but driftwood on the ripples of her temperament. She had met other egotists ' in fact she found that selfish people bored her rather less than unselfish people ' but as yet there had not been one she had not eventually defeated and brought to her feet.
The language is elaborately metaphoric and light irony prevails while the plots are always intriguing and original.
In its mood The Cut-Glass Bowl differs from the other stories - it a kind of a sarcastically dark allegory of fate…
…the night I told him I was going to marry Harold, seven years ago in ninety-two, he drew himself way up and said: 'Evylyn, I'm going to give a present that's as hard as you are and as beautiful and as empty and as easy to see through.' He frightened me a little ' his eyes were so black. I thought he was going to deed me a haunted house or something that would explode when you opened it. That bowl came, and of course it's beautiful.
And this splendid bowl has unexpectedly turned into the instrument of doom…
"At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide." Our expectations for the future are always greater than our disappointments of the past.