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...decided inclemency of to-day ... kept the cat within doors; whence, however, she soon emerged, pursued by the cook, and with what looked like the better half of a roast chicken in her mouth. - Chapter VIII

вообще с 18-й главы парня повело, и в плане игривой сексуальной откровенности - тоже. ménage à trois:

...began to encroach upon my dreams. In those of the last night, Hollingsworth and Zenobia, standing on either side of my bed, had bent across it to exchange a kiss of passion. Priscilla, beholding this,--for she seemed to be peeping in at the chamber window...

sovereignty

"...physical force, that unmistakable evidence of sovereignty" - Hawthorne, Blithedale Romance. Veblen himself would not have put this better. The context is also enlightening:

"I would call upon my sex," rails Hollingsworth, "to use its physical force, that unmistakeable evidence of sovereignty, to scourge them back within their proper bounds!"

see also In a pig's eye: masculinity, mastery, and the returned gaze of The Blithedale Romance.

Altogether, by projecting our minds outward, we had imparted a show of novelty to existence, and contemplated it as hopefully as if the soil beneath our feet had not been fathom-deep with the dust of deluded generations, on every one of which, as on ourselves, the world had imposed itself as a hitherto unwedded bride.

The Blithedale Romance

And finally, unless there be real affection in his heart, a man cannot,--such is the bad state to which the world has brought itself,---cannot more effectually show his contempt for a brother mortal, nor more gallingly assume a position of superiority, than by addressing him as "friend." ... For my part, I should have taken it as far less an insult to be styled" fellow," "clown," or "bumpkin."

Chapter 11

Nature thrusts some of us into the world miserably incomplete on the emotional side, with hardly any sensibilities except what pertain to us as animals. No passion, save of the senses; no holy tenderness, nor the delicacy that results from this. Externally they bear a close resemblance to other men, and have perhaps all save the finest grace; but when a woman wrecks herself on such a being, she ultimately finds that the real womanhood within her has no corresponding part in him. Her deepest voice lacks a response; the deeper her cry, the more dead his silence. The fault may be none of his; he cannot give her what never lived within his soul. But the wretchedness on her side, and the moral deterioration attendant on a false and shallow life, without strength enough to keep itself sweet, are among the most pitiable wrongs that mortals suffer.

Chapter 12

там же, в 11-й главе, помянут дьявол, очень похоже на описание встречи Берлиоза с Воландом. профессор опять же...