The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from In the Cage by Henry James: her circle in whom she recognised an equal. She was perfectly
aware that her imaginative life was the life in which she spent
most of her time; and she would have been ready, had it been at all
worth while, to contend that, since her outward occupation didn't
kill it, it must be strong indeed. Combinations of flowers and
green-stuff, forsooth! What SHE could handle freely, she said to
herself, was combinations of men and women. The only weakness in
her faculty came from the positive abundance of her contact with
the human herd; this was so constant, it had so the effect of
cheapening her privilege, that there were long stretches in which
inspiration, divination and interest quite dropped. The great
|