Wharton, Edith — The Age of Innocence [21]

The absolute imprisonment in which her characters stagnate, their artificial and false standards, the desperate monotony of trivial routine, the slow petrifaction of generous ardours, the paralysis of emotion, the accumulation of ice around the heart, the total loss of life in upholstered existence—are depicted with a high excellence that never falters. — Wharton, Edith, The Age of Innocence, 21

Note

Phelps’s catalogue of Wharton’s theme—‘imprisonment,’ ‘slow petrifaction of generous ardours,’ ‘accumulation of ice around the heart’—builds through escalating destructiveness to the closing oxymoron ‘upholstered existence,’ which fuses the decor interest with the death of feeling.