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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from House of Mirth by Edith Wharton: footlights. The people who take society as an escape from work
are putting it to its proper use; but when it becomes the thing
worked for it distorts all the relations of life." Selden raised
himself on his elbow. "Good heavens!" he went on, "I don't
underrate the decorative side of life. It seems to me the sense
of splendour has justified itself by what it has produced. The
worst of it is that so much human nature is used up in the
process. If we're all the raw stuff of the cosmic effects, one
would rather be the fire that tempers a sword than the fish that
dyes a purple cloak. And a society like ours wastes such good
material in producing its little patch of purple! Look at a boy
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