Edith Wharton has done it again. In The House of Mirth, there is a metaphor that I absolutely love. It reads, "The light projected on the situation by Mrs. Fisher had the cheerless distinctness of a winter dawn. It outlined the facts with a cold precision unmodified by shade or color, and refracted, as it were, from the blank walls of the surrounding limitations: she had opened windows from which no sky was ever visible" (Wharton 204).

 I love the imagery I get from this excerpt. It's so vivid and I feel as though I can actually see what is going on. I just love it so much. It is saying she "opened the window", so to speak,  and shed light on the situation. Lily had never even thought about marrying anyone else to get Bertha off her back. And Mrs. Fisher gave Lily a sort of guided epiphany with this thought.