John Galsworthy

“ Mattock sharply. "I find they do nothing but grumble."
"They don't grumble at me: they are delightful persons", and Lady Bonington gave Shelton a grim smile.
He could not help thinking that to grumble in the presence of that rich, despotic personality would require a superhuman courage.
"They're the most ungrateful people in the world," said Mrs. Mattock. ”

“ They had a radical weakness for fresh air, and Antonia, even after her presentation two seasons back, had insisted on returning home, stigmatising London balls as "stuffy things."
When Shelton arrived the stream had only just begun, but every day brought fresh, or rather jaded, people to occupy the old, dark, sweet-smelling bedrooms. Individually, he liked his fellow-guests, but he found himself observing them. He knew that, if a man judged people singly, almost all were better than himself ”

“ Things he had never before noticed now had profound effect on him, such as the tone in which men spoke of women—not precisely with hostility, nor exactly with contempt best, perhaps, described as cultured jeering; never, of course, when men spoke of their own wives, mothers, sisters, or immediate friends, but merely when they spoke of any other women. He reflected upon this, and came to the conclusion that, among the upper classes, each man's own property was holy, while other women were created to supply him with gossip, jests, and spice. ”