And always there was the economical stuffiness of indoor winter, and the long summers, nightmares of perspiration between sticky enveloping walls...

dirty restaurants where careless, tired people helped themselves to sugar with their own used coffee-spoons, leaving hard brown deposits in the bowl.
It was not so bad where there were only men or else only women; it was when they were vilely herded that it all seemed so rotten.

It was some shame that women gave off at having men see them tired and poor--it was some disgust that men had for women who were tired and poor.

It was dirtier than any battle-field he had seen, harder to contemplate than any actual hardship moulded of mire and sweat and danger, it was an atmosphere wherein birth and marriage and death were loathsome, secret things.
He remembered one day in the subway when a delivery boy had brought in a great funeral wreath of fresh flowers, how the smell of it had suddenly cleared the air and given every one in the car a momentary glow.
"I detest poor people," thought Amory suddenly.

"I hate them for being poor.