But like the Weird Sisters, they would have lied, for in the glory was also the ashes of Dead Sea fruit — an understanding that could neither be inflamed by desire nor satisfied by luxury; a heart that was long since wearied by experience;
a soul that was as bereft of illusion as a windless moon.
And to Aileen, as to Macduff, they might have spoken a more pathetic promise, one that concerned hope and failure. To have and not to have!
All the seeming, and yet the sorrow of not having! Brilliant society that shone in a mirage, yet locked its doors;
love that eluded as a will-o’-the-wisp and died in the dark.
Hail to you, Frank Cowperwood, master and no master,
Prince of a world of dreams whose reality was disillusion!
— The Financier, by Theodore Dreiser
