Notes - 2 Quotes - From Edith Wharton's The Reef

p.43

That, among the people he frequented, was the usual attitude toward such opportunities.  There were too many, they were a nuisance, one had to defend one's self!  He even remembered wondering, at the moment, whether to a really fine taste the exceptional thing could ever become indifferent through habit; whether the appetite for beauty was so soon dulled that it could be kept alive only by privation.




This quote makes me think of today's rush toward the next thing.  We really do value our opinions and tastes as if they are not so easily shaped by opportunity and repetition.  We value them so much that we think we need to share them and even legislate them.  But our tastes are so malleable.  I often think of what I would have eaten if in the Olde World before the Age of Discovery without chocolate, tomatoes and potatoes. Well, obviously, I wouldn't have missed those thing and I would have liked others.  If you want to bring back the thrill of anything, just go without it for awhile.  The best cook is a hungry appetite.








p.180

"Don't think, please, that I'm casting the least reflection on Anna, or showing any want of sympathy for her, when I say that I consider her partly responsible for what's happened.  Anna is 'modern' - I believe that's what it's called when you read unsettling books and admire hideous pictures.  Indeed," Madame Chantelle continued, leaning confidentially forward, "I myself have always more or less lived in that atmosphere: my son, you know, was very revolutionary.  Only he didn't, of course, apply his ideas: they were purely intellectual.





Once again, I enjoyed reading about the characters' white lady problems.  The more cultured a person is, the bigger difference between what they say and what they mean.

I find myself skipping descriptions and moving on toward the dialogue when reading either of my three favorite authors.  Then I catch myself and go back to the descriptions.  Should I read plays?

In this quote we see a gulf between thinking and doing.  I wonder what the world was like when the only book was hallowed.