The American by Henry James

...and he had sat down with an aesthetic headache.

...he was evidently going through his remnant of life in tiptoe, for fear of waking up the hostile fates.

"I know the best can't be had for mere money."

...she was buying a good conscience, by instalments.

...a woman's first duty is not to be beautiful, but to be pleasing.

"A beauty has no faults in her face; the face of a beautiful woman may have faults that only deepen its charm."

"...she stands alone; she is of a different clay."

One's theories, after all, matter little; it is one's humour that is the great thing.

He was blessed with a natural impulse to disfigure with a direct, unreasoning blow the comely visage of temptation.

It is very well to sneer at money-getting after you have filled your pockets.

He had been tied with so short a rope in his youth that he had now a mortal grudge against family discipline.

"It's a part of one's pleasure to complain."