"Dagny, there are things I would like you to learn to notice. Lights, colors, flowers, music, they are not as negligible as you might think...They are the things that make life beautiful" said Mrs. Taggart. "I want this evening to be very beautiful for you, Dagny. The first ball is the most romantic event of ones life."
{But} At the end of the evening she saw Dagny in a corner of the ballroom, sitting on a balustrade as if it were a fence rail, her legs dangling under the chiffon skirt as if she were dressed in slacks. She was talking to a couple of helpless young men, her face contemptuously empty...
...When Dagny turned Mrs. Taggart saw only puzzled helplessness in her face...
..."Mother, do they think its exactly in reverse?" she asked.
"What?" asked Mrs. Taggart, bewildered.
"The things you were talking about. The lights and the flowers. Do they expect those things to make them romantic, not the other way around?"
"Darling, what do you mean?"
"There wasn't a person there who enjoyed it,"she said, her voice lifeless, "or who felt anything at all. They moved about, and they said the same dull things they say anywhere. I suppose they thought the lights would make it brilliant."
From "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand
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