Edith Wharton,
The Custom of the Country — Chapter XVI
(1913)
“ It was as if he had been struck with a subtle blindness that permitted images to give their colour to the eye but communicated nothing to the brain."Good-night," he said, as he passed on.When a man felt in that way about a woman he was surely in a position to deal with his case impartially. This came to Ralph as the joyless solace of the morning. ”
Edith Wharton,
The Custom of the Country — Chapter XVI
(1913)
“ What could be more delightful than to feel that, while all the women envied her dress, the men did not so much as look at it? Their admiration was all for herself, and her beauty deepened under it as flowers take a warmer colour in the rays of sunset. Only Van Degen's glance weighed on her a little too heavily. Was it possible that he might become a "bother" less negligible than those he had relieved her of? Undine was not greatly alarmed--she still had full faith in her powers of self-defense ”
Edith Wharton,
The Custom of the Country — Chapter XVI
(1913)
“ Undine, hitherto, had found more benefits than drawbacks in her marriage; but now the tie began to gall. It was hard to be criticized for every grasp at opportunity by a man so avowedly unable to do the reaching for her! Ralph had gone into business to make more money for her; but it was plain that the "more" would never be much, and that he would not achieve the quick rise to affluence which was man's natural tribute to woman's merits. ”
