The Age of Innocence

By: Wharton, Edith

Though there was already talk of the erection, in remote metropolitan distances "above theForties," of a new Opera House which should compete in costliness and splendour with those ofthe great European capitals, the world of fashion was still content to reassemble every winter inthe shabby red and gold boxes of the sociable old Academy. Conservatives cherished it for beingsmall and inconvenient, and thus keeping out the "new people" whom New York was beginningto dread and yet be drawn to; and the sentimental clung to it for its historic associations, and themusical for its excellent acoustics, always so problematic a quality in halls built for the hearingof music.It was Madame Nilsson's first appearance that winter, and what the daily press had alreadylearned to describe as "an exceptionally brilliant audience" had gathered to hear her, transportedthrough the slippery, snowy streets in private broughams, in the spacious family landau, or in thehumbler but more convenient "Brown coupe." To come to the Opera in a Brown coupe wasalmost as honourable a way of arriving as in one's own carriage; and departure by the samemeans had the immense advantage of enabling one (with a playful allusion to democraticprinciples) to scramble into the first Brown conveyance in the line, instead of waiting till thecold-and-gin congested nose of one's own coachman gleamed under the portico of the Academy.It was one of the great livery-stableman's most masterly intuitions to have discovered thatAmericans want to get away from amusement even more quickly than they want to get to it.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B08R6PFN16
• ISBN13: 9798584139773
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 236 Pages
• Weight: 0.77 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"