“It had been intimated to me that one of these scenes of our climax had entered the sophisticated phase, that of sacrificing to a self-consciousness that was to be regretted — that of making eyes, so to speak, at the larger, the up-town public; that pestilent favour of “society” which is fatal to everything it touches and which so quickly leaves the places of its passage unfit for its own use and uninteresting for any other.”
- Henry James, The American Scene
