Life & Wisdom Quote by Edith Wharton

Wharton’s line has the clean snap of someone who’s watched high society weaponize secrecy and then act shocked when it draws blood. “What’s the use” is a jab at performative obscurity: the little veils people drape over their affairs to look interesting, powerful, untouchable. Wharton’s world ran on those veils - drawing-room manners, carefully curated reputations, the unspoken rules that kept desire and ambition in their place. She’s pointing out the perverse economics of it. Mystery isn’t a lock; it’s an invitation.

The phrasing does a lot of social work. “Making mysteries” suggests manufacturing, not encountering. These aren’t natural enigmas; they’re crafted. And “nose ’em out” lands with deliberate undignified physicality. Wharton deflates the supposed elegance of secrecy by describing curiosity as something animal, almost vulgar - a sniffing instinct triggered by the scent of concealment. That’s the subtext: you can’t cultivate an aura and then complain about the attention it attracts. The “mystery” is the bait; the scandal-hunters are the predictable consequence.

Contextually, Wharton is obsessed with how private lives are policed by public opinion, and how “privacy” is often just a class privilege performed through codes and omissions. This line exposes the hypocrisy at the center of that performance. It’s also a warning: in a culture where everyone is both audience and enforcer, secrecy doesn’t protect you. It recruits the crowd.