She takes after Laura in that respect: the same tendency towards absolutism, the same refusal to compromise, the same scorn for the grosser human failings. To get away with that, you have to be beautiful. Otherwise it seems mere peevishness.
Undisclosed failings, she thought; that great weight we all carry around with us, some of us for all our lives, unable to speak about them, unable -- involuntary Atlases all -- to share the burden.