Wharton, Edith — The Age of Innocence [35]

When I was young it used to seem to me that the group in which I grew up was like an empty vessel into which no new wine would ever again be poured. Now I see that one of its uses lay in preserving a few drops of an old vintage too rare to be savored by a youthful palate. — Wharton, Edith, The Age of Innocence, 35

Note

Wharton’s own memoir image answers the Gospel figure of new wine in old bottles with a conservation metaphor: the vessel’s use was preservation, ‘a few drops of an old vintage too rare to be savored by a youthful palate.’ This frames the whole novel as apology, not satire.