How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"[…] But you knew; you understood; you had felt the world outside tugging at one with all its golden hands— and yet you hated the things it asks of one; you hated happiness bought by disloyalty and cruelty and indifference. […]" (18.98)
So, yes, there are a lot of duties that seem ridiculous (like all those bridal visits). But the duty to not hurt a human being, the duty to keep your promises, the duty to care about your family— these are all good things, no?
Quote #5
"…if it's not worthwhile to have given up, to have missed things, so that others may be saved from disillusionment and misery— then everything I came home for, everything that made my other life seem by contrast so bare and so poor because no one there took account of them— all these things are a sham or a dream." (24.25)
Archer's sense of duty is attractive to Ellen Olenska. She wants him to keep hold of it, even when he wants to throw it away in order to be with her.
Quote #6
It was the perfect balance she had held between their loyalty to others and their honesty to themselves that had so stirred and yet tranquilized him; a balance not artfully calculated, as her tears and her faltering showed, but resulting naturally from her unabashed sincerity. (25.2)
Archer and Ellen try to find compromises that allow them to have their cake and eat it too— to fulfill their duty and to maintain their relationship at the same time. Ultimately, both realize that there are no such compromises.