Wharton, Edith — The Age of Innocence [1070]

Newland Archer, standing on the verandah of the house, looked curiously down upon this scene. On each side of the shiny painted steps was a large blue china flower-pot on a bright yellow china stand. A spiky green plant filled each pot, and below the verandah ran a wide border of blue hydrangeas edged with more red geraniums. Behind him, the French windows of the drawing rooms through which he had passed gave glimpses, between swaying lace curtains, of glassy parquet floors islanded with chintz poufs, dwarf armchairs, and velvet tables covered with trifles in silver. — Wharton, Edith, The Age of Innocence, 1070

Note

The Newport scene is inventoried with a painter’s eye for the exact palette — blue china on yellow stands, blue hydrangeas edged with red geraniums — and the ‘islanded’ parquet floors and ‘trifles in silver’ convey a world of objects arranged for display. The precision establishes the setting as tableau rather than place.