The Rise of Silas Lapham

“But I found that I had got back to another world. The day of small things was past.”

Silas returns from the Civil War as a changed man in a changed country. The society is different from before, having shed its youthful naïve innocence after the killing of Americans by Americans on either side. The United States is no longer a small country, concerned with small things, and men like Silas must rise up to the demands of the moment by expanding their business empires in the emerging Gilded Age of American wealth and politics.

“A man can be a man on Beacon Street as well as anywhere else, I guess.”

As they discuss whether to build a house in a fashionable neighborhood, Silas and Persis both engage in a faux modesty. They circle around each other, reaffirming the unnecessary idea of moving to such a neighborhood even though the desire is fermenting in their minds. Silas assures his wife that he can be just as much of “a man” (37) on the wealthy Beacon Street as he can be anywhere else. This is part of their own particular system of social etiquette, in which they reiterate their modesty at the expense of their desire, which stands in contrast to the system of etiquette among the Boston elite.