I thought I ought to try and read some classics I have never gotten around to reading, and had resolved on reading F. Scott Fitzgerald, when I was instead sidetracked into beginning Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence. I didn't care for the movie at all, but so far am loving the book:

She sang, of course, "M'ama!" and not "he loves me," since an unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of the English-speaking audiences. This seemed as natural to Newland Archer as all the other conventions on which his life was molded: such as the duty of using two silver backed brushes with his monogram in blue enamel to part his hair, and of never appearing in society without a flower (preferably a gardenia) in his buttonhole.

~Edith Wharton, Age of Innocence