∗gilded cage of manners masking the heart's rebellion

what was or was not "the thing" played a part as important in Newland Ar…

thinking over a pleasure to come often gave him a subtler satisfaction t…

It was one of the great livery-stableman's most masterly intuitions to h…

We all have our pet common people

∗Wharton's precisely calibrated prose dissects New York society's intricate codes of propriety and desire, rewarding readers who attend to the gap between what is said and what is felt.

A man of society faces impossible choice between duty and love in 1870s New York.