The following text is adapted from Edith Wharton’s 1920 novel The Age of Innocence.
Newland Archer reflects on the rigid social conventions governing elite New York society.
In the subtle and elaborate hierarchy of old New York, an unalterable code regulated every gesture, from the precise date for exchanging summer calls to the exact shade of gloves permissible at an evening opera. It was a world where real feelings were never mentioned, and where the direct expression of an opinion was regarded as almost indecent. Newland Archer had been bred in this atmosphere of delicate evasions; he accepted its decrees unquestioningly, yet he occasionally felt a faint stir of restlessness, a sudden fleeting suspicion that this meticulous preservation of form was merely a collective conspiracy to avoid facing the reality of life.
Newland Archer reflects on the rigid social conventions governing elite New York society.
In the subtle and elaborate hierarchy of old New York, an unalterable code regulated every gesture, from the precise date for exchanging summer calls to the exact shade of gloves permissible at an evening opera. It was a world where real feelings were never mentioned, and where the direct expression of an opinion was regarded as almost indecent. Newland Archer had been bred in this atmosphere of delicate evasions; he accepted its decrees unquestioningly, yet he occasionally felt a faint stir of restlessness, a sudden fleeting suspicion that this meticulous preservation of form was merely a collective conspiracy to avoid facing the reality of life.