“It had been a moving, tranquil apotheosis, immersed in the transfiguring sunset glow of decline and decay and extinction.”

—  Thomas Mann, book Tristan

Source: Tristan (1902), Ch. 10
Context: It had been a moving, tranquil apotheosis, immersed in the transfiguring sunset glow of decline and decay and extinction. An old family, already grown too weary and too noble for life and action, had reached the end of its history, and its last utterances were sounds of music: a few violin notes, full of the sad insight which is ripeness for death.

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Thomas Mann photo
Thomas Mann159
German novelist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate 1875–1955

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