Read "Cass Timberlane, A Novel of Husbands and Wives" by Sinclair Lewis online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The surprising objects that you see when you leave your own Grand Republic and go traveling--pink snakes and polar bears--are nothing beside what you find when you stay at home and have a new girl and meet her friends, whose resentment of you is only less than your amazement that there are such people and that she likes them.
At Tilda Hatter's party, Cass was first uncomfortable because he was the only Elder Statesman present and the young people showed their independence by unduly ignoring him. Then the gods presiding over that form of torture called social gatherings switched to the opposite ordeal, and he found himself the rival of another celebrity, of whom, just to be difficult, the bright young people did make much.