The House Book 1: 9 and 10

To be completely honest, I did not get too much out of chapter nine in The House of Mirth.  We saw that Lily now has leverage against Seldon and Dorset.  Though, those letters would not be used to hurt Seldon in the possession of Lily, in other hands they could hurt him.  Because of this, Lily decides to purchase the letters and initially decides to burn them, but that does not end up happening. This obviously shows-to me at least-the Lily has some feelings toward Seldon still because she did buy those letters for a price that Wharton decides not to put into the chapter.

Wealth: a social symbol that categorized people on where they belong in society.  All of Lily's life, she viewed wealth as a symbol, not as a power to do something good with.  Her mother instilled in her the notion that with money you don’t have to do a single thing for anyone, it just states how high up you are in society.  However, Lily begins to see wealth in a different light after her newly acquired money goes to helping a young women's charity that’s being run by Mrs. Farish. I see this mindset change as being a major factor for later events because we begin to see the Lily is not flowing with the norm that she has come to accept as okay. Instead, she is beginning to really embrace the human caring virtues and begins using her money for something other than a social status.  “...and drawing out her little gold purse she slipped a liberal fraction of the amount into Miss Farish’s hand”(Wharton, 90).