of William Wordsworth's (1770–1850) poem, "She was a Phantom of Delight" (1804) that describes an ideal of feminine beauty: "A moment's ornament" represents the way Wharton describes Lily's relationship to her reference group as a beautiful and well-bred socialite. Her value lasts only as long as her beauty and good-standing with the group is maintained. By centering the story around a portrait of Lily, Wharton was able to address directly the social limitations imposed upon her. These included the mores of the upper crust social class to which Lily belonged by birth, education, and breeding. The final title Wharton chose for the novel was The House of Mirth (1905), taken from the Old Testament: The House of Mirth spotlights social context as equally important to the development of the story's purpose, as the heroine. "Mirth" contrasted with "mourning" also bespeaks a moral purpose as it underscores the frivolity of a social set that not only worships money, but also uses it ostentatiously solely for its own amusement and aggrandizement. At the time the novel takes place, Old New York high society was peopled by the extraordinarily wealthy who were conditioned by the economic and social changes the Gilded Age (1870–1900) wrought. Wharton's birth around the time of the Civil War predates that period by a little less than a decade. As a member of the privileged Old New York society, she was eminently qualified to describe it authentically. She also had license to criticize the ways New York high society of the 1890s had changed without being vulnerable to accusations of envy motivated by coming from a lower social caste. She accused her peers of having lost the sense of noblesse oblige of their forebears. Wharton revealed in her introduction to the 1936 reprint of The House of Mirth her choice of subject and her major theme: Wharton figured that no one had written about New York society because it offered nothing worth writing about. But that did not deter her as she thought something of value could be mined there. If only the writer could dig deeply enough below the surface, some "'stuff o' the conscience'" could be found. She went on to declare unabashedly that: The central theme of The House of Mirth is essentially the struggle between who we are and what society tells us we should be. Thus, it is considered by many to be as