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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: insignificant details of her former life. Its very drudgeries had
a charm now that she was involuntarily released from them:
card-leaving, note-writing, enforced civilities to the dull and
elderly, and the smiling endurance of tedious dinners--how
pleasantly such obligations would have filled the emptiness of
her days! She did indeed leave cards in plenty; she kept herself,
with a smiling and valiant persistence, well in the eye of her
world; nor did she suffer any of those gross rebuffs which
sometimes produce a wholesome reaction of contempt in their
victim. Society did not turn away from her, it simply drifted by,
preoccupied and inattentive, letting her feel, to the full
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