"Oh! I thought I was giving him so much!
And he to me-- and the giving and the taking
Seemed so right: not in terms of calculation
Or what was good for the persons we had been
But for the new person, us. If I could feel
As I did then, even now it would seem right.
And then I found we were only strangers
And that there had been neither giving nor taking
But that we had merely made us of each other
Each for his purpose. That's horrible. Can we only love
Something created by our imagination?
Are we all in fact unloving and unlovable?
Then one is alone
Then lover and beloved are equally unreal
And the dreamer is no more real than his dreams."
---- Celia Coplestone, prior to her crucifixion, in T. S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party (2.2).

And yes, LJH, TSE may have been a misogynist, but I refuse to make Celia's death part & parcel of some cheap feminist argument. For once I find myself dangerously in agreement with Raymond Williams.

Besides, as someone who knows what it means to be unlovable, Celia is the one character who cuts to the emotional bones in TCP: Sir Henry tidies things up, but he never slices.

I wish so badly I could have seen Sir Alec play Sir Henry when he did. I have an audio recording, but that is just not the same. *shrug*