Which quotation from The Age of Innocence best illustrates the claim? | Verbal SAT Question

The Age of Innocence is a 1920 novel by Edith Wharton set in New York City in the 1870s. In the novel, Newland Archer attends an opera. Newland compares his intellect favorably to that of other men of New York City society who are in the audience:

Which quotation from The Age of Innocence best illustrates the claim?

“Singly [the men around Newland] betrayed their inferiority; but grouped together they represented ‘New York,’ and the habit of masculine solidarity made him accept their doctrine on all the issues called moral.”

“Newland Archer felt himself distinctly the superior of these chosen specimens of old New York gentility; he had probably read more, thought more, and even seen a good deal more of the world, than any other man of the number.”

“Though there was already talk...of a new Opera House which should compete in costliness and splendour with those of the great European capitals, the world of fashion was still content to reassemble every winter in the shabby red and gold boxes of the sociable old Academy [of Music].”

“An unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English-speaking audiences.”