The House of Mirth Society and Class

She was smaller and thinner than Lily Bart, with a restless pliability of pose, as if she could have been crumpled up and run through a ring, like the sinuous draperies she affected. Her small pale face seemed the mere setting of a pair of dark exaggerated eyes, of which the visionary gaze contrasted curiously with her self-assertive tone and gestures; so that, as one of her friends observed, she was like a disembodied spirit who took up a great deal of room. (1.2.38)

Lily was therefore able to observe Mrs. Dorset also, and by carrying her glance a few feet farther, to set up a rapid comparison between Lawrence Selden and Mr. Gryce. It was that comparison which was her undoing. (1.5.10)

She had always hated her room at Mrs. Peniston's – its ugliness, its impersonality, the fact that nothing in it was really hers. (1.13.78)

But now his love was her only hope, and as she sat alone with her wretchedness the thought of confiding in him became as seductive as the river's flow to the suicide. The first plunge would be terrible – but afterward, what blessedness might come! (1.15.49-50)

And I ain't talking to you as if you were – I presume I know the kind of talk that's expected under those circumstances. I'm confoundedly gone on you – that's about the size of it – and I'm just giving you a plain business statement of the consequences. (1.15.64)

He would get on well enough if she'd let him alone; they like his slang and his brag and his blunders. But Louisa spoils it all by trying to repress him and put herself forward. If she'd be natural herself – fat and vulgar and bouncing – it would be all right; but as soon as she meets anybody smart she tries to be slender and queenly. She tried it with the Duchess of Beltshire and Lady Skiddaw, and they fled. I've done my best to make her see her mistake – I've said to her again and again: 'Just let yourself go, Louisa'; but she keeps up the humbug even with me – I believe she keeps on being queenly in her own room, with the door shut. (2.1.31)

Mrs. Dorset smiled on her reproachfully. "Lecture you – I? Heaven forbid! I was merely trying to give you a friendly hint. But it's usually the other way round, isn't it? I'm expected to take hints, not to give them: I've positively lived on them all these last months."

"Hints – from me to you?" Lily repeated.

"Oh, negative ones merely – what not to be and to do and to see. And I think I've taken them to admiration. (2.2.89-91)

"The whole truth?" Miss Bart laughed. "What is truth? Where a woman is concerned, it's the story that's easiest to believe. In this case it's a great deal easier to believe Bertha Dorset's story than mine, because she has a big house and an opera box, and it's convenient to be on good terms with her." (2.4.23)