Ethan Frome

"Ethan Frome" book has a beautiful glossy cover and a blank page for the dedication. "It was there that, several years ago, I saw him for the first time; and the sight pulled me up sharp.

Even then he was the most striking figure in Starkfield, though he was but the ruin of a man.

It was not so much his great height that marked him, for the "natives" were easily singled out by their lank longitude from the stockier foreign breed: it was the careless powerful look he had, in spite of a lameness checking each step like the jerk of a chain.

There was something bleak and unapproachable in his face, and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an old man and was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two.

I had this from Harmon Gow, who had driven the stage from Bettsbridge to Starkfield in pre-trolley days and knew the chronicle of all the families on his line."