continuous cycle

Time is at the crux of The Hartleys and how the rich waste time in a circular fashion trying to reproduce feelings and lifestyles that they simply prefer.

" 'Why do we have to come back?' Mrs. Hartley was crying. 'Why do we have to come back? Why do we have to make these trips back to the places where we thought we were happy? What good is it going to do? What good has it ever done? We go through the telephone book looking for names of people we knew ten years ago, and we ask them for dinner, and what good does it do? What good has it ever done? We go back to restaurants, the mountains, we go back to the houses, even the neighborhoods, we walk in the slums, thinking that this will make us happy, and it never does. Why in Christ's name did we ever begin such a wretched thing? Why isn't there an end to it? Why can't we separate again? ....' "

In this paragraph alone, we travel back to many places in an attempt to rediscover feelings that they want to have, but no longer do. If the Hartleys were from a modest background, then they wouldn’t have the means to be traveling constantly in an attempt to find these feelings. They could move passed whatever love or anger they have towards one another and find a way to love one another or simply separate. The wealth that appears to be behind them is what is actually moving them to try to rediscover their feelings in this fashion.

Can everyone look for lost feelings by traveling through the past in the present?