Chapters 13-14 Book II

If there's one thing I hate (which there are many I guess) it's when books or movies do NOT have happy endings...or even bearable endings!  Wharton's The House of Mirth had one of the most bitter-sweet endings ever.  I still can't believe Lily died.  Had I known this a couple chapters ago, I would have readily testified that she had purposefully taken too much chloral in order to forever escape her miseries.  But it seems now that it must have been a tragic but honest mistake.  I feel like Lily had found a new sense of hope in her future after witnessing how Nettie Struther and her family had survived despite unfavorable odds.  Lily had hope.  She had courage.  She was to see her love the next day.  I believe Selden is comforted by two things at the end of this novel.  One: I think he felt that Lily had been more at peace with herself than ever before before she died.  He also took comfort in the fact that "at least he had loved her -- had been willing to stake his future on his faith in her" (Wharton, 267-268).  I don't know how Selden will go on living, knowing that the only thing that really stood between himself and his love, Lily, was fear.