It was not velvet; nor plush;
something betwixt and be-
tween; and for chairs, presum-
ably, not dresses. Down I came
one winter’s evening in my
green dress; apprehensive,
yet, for a new dress excites
even the unskilled, elated.
George at once fixed on me that extraor-
dinary observant scrutiny with which he
always inspected our clothes. He looked
me up and down for a moment as if I were a
horse brought into the show ring. Then
the sullen look came into his eyes; the
look of moral, of social, disapproval, as if
he scented some kind of insurrection, of
defiance of his accepted standards. I knew
myself condemned. I was conscious of fear;
of shame; of something like anguish. He
said at last: “Go and tear it up.” He spoke in
a curiously tart, rasping, peevish voice; the
voice of the enraged male.
— Virginia Woolf
“A Sketch of the Past”
