Was Mrs. Wilcox one of the unsatisfactory people- there are many of them- who dangle intimacy and then withdraw it? They evoke our interests and affections, and keep the life of the spirit dawdling around them. Then they withdraw. When physical passion is involved, there is a definite name for such behaviour- flirting- and if carried far enough, it is punishable by law. But no law- not public opinion, even- punishes those who coquette with friendship, though the dull ache that they inflict, the sense of misdirected effort and exhaustion, may be as intolerable. Was she one of these? . E.m. Forster
About This Quote

In the story "Mrs. Wilcox", T S Eliot portrays a woman as a coquette. A coquette is a flirtatious young woman who uses flattery to deceive someone into thinking they have been intimate with them. In other words, flirting with friendship.

Eliot uses this as an allusion to the fact that there are people who play with feelings and feelings of others. He says if she was one of these people, it would be defined as flirting with friendship.

Source: Howards End

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