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?

“But, in the first place, New York was a metropolis, and perfectly aware that in metropolises it was ‘not the thing’ to arrive early at the opera.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”