Rebecca vocabulary

this faculty of working for the public good, of which he felt himself utterly devoid, was possibly not so much a quality as a lack of something—not a lack of good, honest, noble desires and tastes, but a lack of vital force, of what is called heart, of that impulse which drives a man to choose someone out of the innumerable paths of life, and to care only for that one.

Leo Tolstoy. Anna Karenina (1878)

---

But until death came she had to go on living, that is, to use her vital forces.

Leo Tolstoy. War and Peace

---

when I thought of my strength, of my vital force, of the best elements in myself,

Marcel Proust. In Search of Lost Time [volume 6] The Sweet Cheat Gone