Dear Ms. Bart, what have you done?

    For once, Miss Bart decides to stay home but not to keep good company to the simple Mrs. Peniston.  For the Bellomont society has come to know Lily and her situation all too well, and now she is literally trapped within her own life.  Although the meeting between Mrs. Haffen and Lily served as a small section of Wharton's focus in The House of Mirth, I found an interesting contrast between the two women.  During their conversation, I expected Wharton to point out the similarities between Lily and Mrs. Haffen, and she does.  However, she stresses one strong distinction between the two women: acceptance.  Lily, up to this point, has refused to accept her cascading position among the New York elite.  Mrs. Haffen, on the other had, has completely accepted her poverty.  She knows how horrific her financial state is, and therefore, is willing to go to any length to help herself and her family.  Lily has had many outlets.  The problem is, once they're right under her finger, she lets them slip away.  When a wealthy man makes his sentiment evident, she turns her thoughts toward Selden.  This common theme in the life of Miss Bart recalled to my mind a line from a song:  "what we want is only what we want until its ours."(Train-"Calling All Angels")

    I mentioned in the previous paragraph that Wharton points out similarities between the two women.  I think the most concealed yet dramatic comparison presents itself when Lily accepts the letters.  In a way, I believe this brings her down completely to Mrs. Haffen's level.  I think choosing to keep the letters serves as her moment of surrender and also one of the more devastating points of the novel.  "The thought of the ridicule struck deeper than any other sensation: Lily knew every turn of the allusive jargon which could flay its victims without the shedding of blood.  Her cheek burned at the recollection, and she rose and caught up the letters.  She no longer meant to destroy them..." (Wharton, 89).