“Old Money”

“By now, Skylar had reached South Dartmouth Avenue, a cocoon of greenery enveloped the pedestrian from above and below and on all sides. The yards here were meadows flowing gently down to planting strips of thick grass that separated the sidewalk from the street, along which grew, in even distribution, Norway maples more than fifty feet in height, with gray, fissured trunks whose bark resembled dried-out mud flats, and rounded crowns of dense, umbriferous foliage that lent the sidewalks beneath them, even at midday, a mysterious twilight feel. The mansions, for so they were, had been set back from the street, so that one usually saw only a portion of a facade, or a second story only, or a couple of outbuildings. Dartmouth Avenue, he knew, was the home of the old money, the families that had been the leading bankers, merchants, and landowners in the city for generations. The avenue, almost its own principality, was their enclave, with the thick scent of money hanging over it, with the aura of privilege radiating off it, for it symbolized the holiness of the dollar to which all America bent its knee. Here, it seemed, the modern nobility had forgathered, on estates which, while physically within blocks of the commoners, were, atmospherically, in a distant empyrean. On the other side was noise, here, a hush. On the other side was struggle, here, ease. On the other side were dreams pursued, here, dreams achieved.”