The Age of Innocence

The Age of Innocence

by

Edith Wharton

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Mr. Beaufort is an English banker who has frequent affairs, most prominently with a prostitute named Miss Fanny Ring. Most of society doesn’t quite trust him because he’s a foreigner of uncertain origin and he’s prone to disregarding their rules. He tries to court Ellen, but she spurns him, despite the fact that she feels he’s one of the only people who understands her perspective on the world. Due to shady business dealings, Beaufort’s bank eventually collapses, causing many of society’s families to lose money and thrusting him and his wife out of society.

Julius Beaufort Quotes in The Age of Innocence

The The Age of Innocence quotes below are all either spoken by Julius Beaufort or refer to Julius Beaufort. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Innocence vs. Experience Theme Icon
).
Chapter 15 Quotes

No, it was worse a thousand times if, judging Beaufort, and probably despising him, she was yet drawn to him by all that gave him an advantage over the other men about her: his habit of two continents and two societies, his familiar association with artists and actors..., and his careless contempt for local prejudices.... [T]he circumstances of his life, and a certain native shrewdness, made him better worth talking to than many men, morally and socially his betters, whose horizon was bounded by the Battery and the Central Park. How should anyone coming from a wider world not feel the difference and be attracted by it?

Related Characters: Newland Archer, Ellen Olenska, Julius Beaufort
Page Number: 89
Explanation and Analysis:
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Julius Beaufort Quotes in The Age of Innocence

The The Age of Innocence quotes below are all either spoken by Julius Beaufort or refer to Julius Beaufort. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Innocence vs. Experience Theme Icon
).
Chapter 15 Quotes

No, it was worse a thousand times if, judging Beaufort, and probably despising him, she was yet drawn to him by all that gave him an advantage over the other men about her: his habit of two continents and two societies, his familiar association with artists and actors..., and his careless contempt for local prejudices.... [T]he circumstances of his life, and a certain native shrewdness, made him better worth talking to than many men, morally and socially his betters, whose horizon was bounded by the Battery and the Central Park. How should anyone coming from a wider world not feel the difference and be attracted by it?

Related Characters: Newland Archer, Ellen Olenska, Julius Beaufort
Page Number: 89
Explanation and Analysis: