what is the theme to the short story - The far and nere by: thomas wolfe

Appearances are a major theme in the story. For more than twenty years, the engineer blows his train whistle every day as he passes the cottage, and "every day, as soon as she heard this signal, a woman had appeared on the back porch of the little house and waved to him." Although he has seen the woman—and later the two women—do this from afar, the engineer nevertheless allows his mind to fill in the gaps about how the women might appear up close. In his mind, he crafts these assumptions about the women's appearance into an idealistic vision, in which he feels very connected to them.