Discussion Groups / English Usage / November 2009

Hello:

Could he refer to anything but  _financial_ "wealth/poverty?" I don't
think it's about a "wealth of evidence."

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[Strether meets Mme Vionnet, Chad's friend, at a party. It seems he's
being able to answer at least some of his own questions about her. He
had just learned Miss Gostrey, his friend, knew her, but didn't tell
him anything about it.]

Strether wondered to find Miss Gostrey already involved, feeling that
he missed a link; but feeling also, with small delay, how much he
should like to talk with her of Madame de Vionnet on this basis of
evidence.

The evidence as yet in truth was meagre; which, for that matter, was
perhaps a little why his expectation had had a drop. There was somehow
not quite a wealth in her; and a wealth was all that, in his
simplicity, he had definitely prefigured. Still, it was too much to be
sure already that there was but a poverty.

Henry James, The Ambassadors, p. 132
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/432/432-h/432-h.htm
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Thanks.
Marius Hancu