Untrained human nature was not frank and...
Untrained human nature was not frank and innocent; it was full of the twists and defences of an instinctive guileAnd he felt himself oppressed by this creation of factitious purity, so cunningly manufactured by a conspiracy of mothers and aunts and grandmothers and long-dead ancestresses, because it was supposed to be what he wanted, what he had a right to, in order that he might exercise his lordly pleasure in smashing it like an image made of snow

There was a certain triteness in these reflections: they were those habitual to young men on the approach of their wedding dayBut they were generally accompanied by a sense of compunction and self-abasement of which Newland Archer felt no traceHe could not deplore (as Thackeray's heroes so often exasperated him by doing) that he had not a blank page to offer his bride in exchange for the unblemished one she was to give to himHe could not get away from the fact that if he had been brought up as she had they would have been no more fit to find their way about than the Babes in the Wood; nor could he, for all his anxious cogitations, see any honest reason (any, that is, unconnected with his own momentary pleasure, and the passion of masculine vanity) why his bride should not have been allowed the same freedom of experience as himself

Such questions, at such an hour, were bound to drift through his mind; but he was conscious that their uncomfortable persistence and precision were due to the inopportune arrival of the Countess OlenskaHere he was, at the very moment of his betrothal—a moment for pure thoughts and cloudless hopes—pitchforked into a coil of scandal which raised all the special problems he would have preferred to let lie"Hang Ellen Olenska!" he grumbled, as he covered his louis vuitton duffle bag fire and began to undressHe could not really see why her fate should have the least bearing on his; yet he dimly felt that he had only just begun to measure the risks of the championship which his engagement had forced upon him



A few days later the bolt fell

The Lovell Mingotts had sent out cards for what was known as "a formal dinner" (that is, three extra footmen, two dishes for each course, and a Roman punch in the middle), and had headed their invitations with the words "To meet the Countess Olenska," in accordance with the hospitable American fashion, which treats strangers as if they were royalties, or at least as their ambassadors

The guests had been selected with a boldness and discrimination in which the initiated recognised the firm hand of Catherine the GreatAssociated with such immemorial standbys as the Selfridge Merrys, who were asked everywhere because they always had been, the Beauforts, on whom there was a claim of relationship, and MrSillerton Jackson and his sister Sophy (who went wherever her brother told her to), were some of the most fashionable and yet most irreproachable of the dominant "young married" set; the Lawrence Leffertses, MrsLefferts Rushworth (the lovely widow), the Harry Thorleys, the Reggie Chiverses and young Morris Dagonet and his wife (who was a van der Luyden)The company indeed was perfectly assorted, since all the members belonged to the little inner group of people who, during the long New York season, disported themselves together daily and nightly with apparently undiminished zest

Forty-eight hours later the unbelievable had happened; every one had refused the Mingotts' invitation except the Beauforts and old MrJackson and his sisterThe intended slight was emphasised by the women rolex watches fact that even the Reggie Chiverses, who were of the Mingott clan, were among those inflicting it; and by the uniform wording of the notes, in all of which the writers "regretted that they were unable to accept," without the mitigating plea of a "previous engagement" that ordinary courtesy prescribed

New York society was, in those days, far too small, and too scant in its resources, for every one in it (including livery-stable-keepers, butlers and cooks) not to know exactly on which evenings people were free; and it was thus possible for the recipients of MrsLovell Mingott's invitations to make cruelly clear their determination not to meet the Countess Olenska

The blow was unexpected; but the Mingotts, as their way was, met it gallantlyLovell Mingott confided the case to MrsWelland, who confided it to Newland Archer; who, aflame at the outrage, appealed passionately and authoritatively to his mother; who, after a painful period of inward resistance and outward temporising, succumbed to his instances (as she always did), and immediately embracing his cause with an energy redoubled by her previous hesitations, put on her grey velvet bonnet and said: "I'll go and see Louisa van der Luyden

The New York of Newland Archer's day was a small and slippery pyramid, in which, as yet, hardly a fissure had been made or a foothold gainedAt its base was a firm foundation of what MrsArcher called "plain people"; an honourable but obscure majority of respectable families who (as in the case of the Spicers or the Leffertses or the Jacksons) had been raised above their level by marriage with one of the ruling clansArcher always said, were not as particular as they used to be; and with old Catherine Spicer ruling one end of Fifth Avenue, and chanel quilted handbag Julius Beaufort the other, you couldn't expect the old traditions to last much longer

Firmly narrowing upward from this wealthy but inconspicuous substratum was the compact and dominant group which the Mingotts, Newlands, Chiverses and Mansons so actively representedMost people imagined them to be the very apex of the pyramid; but they themselves (at least those of MrsArcher's generation) were aware that, in the eyes of the professional genealogist, only a still smaller number of families could lay claim to that eminence

"Don't tell me," MrsArcher would say to her children, "all this modern newspaper rubbish about a New York aristocracyIf there is one, neither the Mingotts nor the Mansons belong to it; no, nor the Newlands or the Chiverses eitherOur grandfathers and great-grandfathers were just respectable English or Dutch merchants, who came to the colonies to make their fortune, and stayed here because they did so wellOne of your great-grandfathers signed the Declaration, and another was a general on Washington's staff, and received General Burgoyne's sword after the battle of SaratogaThese are things to be proud of, but they have nothing to do with rank or classNew York has always been a commercial community, and there are not more than three families in it who can claim an aristocratic origin in the real sense of the wordArcher and her son and daughter, like every one else in New York, knew who these privileged beings were: the Dagonets of Washington Square, who came of an old English county family allied with the Pitts and Foxes; the Lannings, who had intermarried with the descendants of Count de Grasse, and the van der Luydens, direct descendants of the first Dutch governor of Manhattan, and related by pre-revolutionary gucci new bag marriages to several members of the French and British aristocracy

The Lannings survived only in the person of two very old but lively Miss Lannings, who lived cheerfully and reminiscently among family portraits and Chippendale; the Dagonets were a considerable clan, allied to the best names in Baltimore and Philadelphia; but the van der Luydens, who stood above all of them, had faded into a kind of super-terrestrial twilight, from which only two figures impressively emerged; those of MrHenry van der Luyden had been Louisa Dagonet, and her mother had been the granddaughter of Colonel du Lac, of an old Channel Island family, who had fought under Cornwallis and had settled in Maryland, after the war, with his bride, Lady Angelica Trevenna, fifth daughter of the Earl of StThe tie between the Dagonets, the du Lacs of Maryland, and their aristocratic Cornish kinsfolk, the Trevennas, had always remained close and cordialvan der Luyden had more than once paid long visits to the present head of the house of Trevenna, the Duke of StAustrey, at his country-seat in Cornwall and at StAustrey in Gloucestershire; and his Grace had frequently announced his intention of some day returning their visit (without the Duchess, who feared the Atlantic)van der Luyden divided their time between Trevenna, their place in Maryland, and Skuytercliff, the great estate on the Hudson which had been one of the colonial grants of the Dutch government to the famous first Governor, and of which Mrvan der Luyden was still "Patroon Their large solemn house in Madison Avenue was seldom opened, and when they came to town they received in it only their most intimate friends

"I wish you would go with me, Newland," his mother said, suddenly pausing at the door of the Brown gucci pantheon cou