Hugh Selwyn Mauberley Dissatisfaction Quotes

Mauberley is just as likely as any other dude to find a woman attractive. The sad part is that he doesn't wear the right kind of clothes to make women find him attractive. This passage is mostly there to symbolize how passion in the modern world is all about style over substance, and Pound thinks that's a shame.

In modern times, it seems like there's just no place for someone with true, natural style. These poor people have to take shelter from the superficial, money-hungry modern world. For Pound, it's definitely a shame that true artists aren't appreciated, and that they have to live in poverty and sleep under a "sagging roof."

Pound seems to really admire this old man named Mr. Verog, who comes from an old, proud family. Mr. Verog has lots of interesting stories to tell about artists who searched for some sort of higher principle in their art. But unfortunately, the modern world treats Mr. Verog as a dreamer and doesn't respect him. Pound can definitely relate.

When Mauberley goes down to Fleet St., the old stomping grounds of great journalists and writers, he realizes that socks sell much better than beautiful roses. That's because the modern world is all about usefulness instead of beauty. Roses wither and die eventually. But hey, a good deal on socks is tough to find.

There's only so much dissatisfaction a person can express before making a few enemies. As we could have predicted, all of Mauberley's "I'm right and everyone else is wrong" eventually got him in trouble with the writers and art critics of his time. It sounds like these people definitely pushed him out of their clique, or excluded him "from the world of letters."