—December 4, 1920
KATHERINE MANSFIELD
What about us? What about her readers? Does Mrs. Wharton expect us to grow warm in a gallery where the temperature is so sparklingly cool? We are looking at portraits—are we not? These are human beings, arranged for exhibition purposes, framed, glazed and hung in the perfect light. They pale, they grow paler, they flush, they raise their “clearest eyes,” they hold out their arms to each other, “extended, but not rigid,” and the voice is the voice of the portrait:
“ ‘What’s the use—when you will go back?’ he broke out, a great hopeless How on earth can I keep you? crying out to her beneath his words.”
Is it—in this world—vulgar to ask for more? To ask that the feeling shall be greater than the cause that excites it, to beg to be allowed to share the moment of exposition (is not that the very moment that all our writing leads to?) to entreat a little wildness, a dark place or two in the soul?
We appreciate fully Mrs. Wharton’s skill and delicate workmanship; she has the situation in hand from the first page to the last; we realize how savage must sound our cry of protest, and yet we cannot help but make it; that after all we are not above suspicion—even the “finest” of us!
—from her review of The Age of Innocence in the Athenæum
(December 10, 1920)
Questions
1. “The persons of their world lived in an atmosphere of faint implications and pale delicacies,” (p. 16) writes Edith Wharton. But “What about us? What about her readers?” asks Katherine Mansfield—is it vulgar “to ask that the feeling shall be greater than the cause that excites it?” In short, is Wharton herself guilty of faint implications and pale delicacies?
2. What historical circumstances, would you say, produced the social order of The Age of Innocence?
3. “The worst of doing one’s duty was that it apparently unfitted one for doing anything else,” (pp. 284—285) writes Edith Wharton. Do you feel a subversive impulse in this novel? If you were Ellen Olenska or Newland Archer in Wharton’s world, would you have done anything differently?
4. If Edith Wharton were to write about a different class of people, would she need to come up with a different prose style? (You might consider her novella Ethan Frome.)
5. “His whole future seemed suddenly to be unrolled before him; and passing down its endless emptiness he saw the dwindling figure of a man to whom nothing was ever to happen.” (p. 185) Whose fault is this dismal vision of Newland Archer’s future? Is it the fault of a person or persons, or society, or human nature in general, or an extra-human force?
FOR FURTHER READING
Biographies
Benstock, Shari. No Gifts from Chance: A Biography of Edith Wharton. New York: Scribner‘s, 1994.
Gimbel, Wendy. Edith Wharton: Orphancy and Survival. New York: Praeger, 1984.
Lewis, R. W. B. Edith Wharton: A Biography. New York: Harper and Row, 1975. The most authoritative biography of Wharton.
Wolff, Cynthia Griffin. A Feast of Words: The Triumph of Edith Wharton. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977. A fine in terpretive biography.
Criticism
Bell, Millicent, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Edith Wharton. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. This collection includes many fine essays on Wharton.
Bloom, Harold, ed. Modern Critical Views: Edith Wharton. New York: Chelsea House, 1986.
Nevius, Blake. Edith Wharton: A Study of her Fiction. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1953.
Price, Alan. The End of the Age of Innocence: Edith Wharton and the First World War. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996. A perceptive study of the novel’s relation to the historical time when it was written.
Other Editions of Wharton
The Collected Stories of Edith Wharton, 1891—1937. 2 vols. Edited by Maureen Howard. New York: Library of America, 2001.
The House of Mirth. 1905. With an introduction by Mary Gordon; notes by R. W. B. Lewis. New York: Vintage Books/Library of America, 1990.
The House of Mirth. 1905. With an introduction by Jeffrey Meyers. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2003.
The Letters of Edith Wharton. Edited by R. W. B. Lewis and Nancy Lewis. New York: Scribner‘s, 1988.
a Swedish opera singer (1843-1921) known for her role as Marguerite in Gounod’s Faust.
b Victor Capoul (1839-1924), singing the role of Faust.
c A well-known aria in Faust.
d An opera by Richard Wagner (1813-1883); the march is often played at weddings.
e Maria Taglioni (1804-1884), Italian ballerina.
f William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905), French painter of nudes considered risque. Oddly, Wharton uses the title Love Victorious, a painting of a nude cupid by Caravaggio (1573-1610).
g A romance by popular French writer Octave Feuillet (1821-1890) that deals with adultery and family duty, topics that are appropriate to Wharton’s theme.
h Novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) set in Italy.
i Isle in Greek mythology where sirens lured sailors, as Circe lured Odysseus in the Odyssey.
j Works by the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892).
k Presumably a family portrait by English painter Thomas Gains-borough (1727-1788).
l Daniel Huntington (1816-1906), an American portrait painter.
m Alexandre Cabanel (1823-1889), a French painter.
n In the Bible (Esther 8:3), Queen Esther pleads with her husband, King Ahasuerus, to prevent the killing of the Jews, her people.
o Adelina Patti (1843-1919), Italian soprano, famed for playing Amina in La Sonnambula, by Vicenzo Bellini (1801-1835).
p In Roman mythology, the goddess of the hunt.
q Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) and Petrarch (1304-1374), Italian poets.
r Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) and Fra Angelico (c. 1400-1455), Italian painters.
s Randolph Rogers (1825-1892), American sculptor whose statuettes were popular household decorations.
t In Greek mythology, character who predicts the future but is never believed.
u The prints are of famous paintings.
v the elegant knife-cases are by Thomas Sheraton (1751-1806), English designer.
w Boucicault (1820-1890) was a writer of popular melodramas.
x Character in an etching by English artist William Hogarth (1697-1764).
y Comedy by Eugène Labiche (1815-1888), often read in French classes.
z Sonnets from the Portuguese is a collection of love poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861), wife of the poet Robert Browning (1812-1889), whose “How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Alix” was often memorized by schoolchildren.
aa Local African Americans, often former slaves, were commonly hired as servants.
ab Wedding march by German composer George Frideric Handel (1685-1759).
ac Symphony by German composer Louis Spohr (1784-1859).
ad Traditional wedding march by German composer Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847). Wharton mentions three famous wedding marches in this novel.
ae Pioneering English fashion designer Charles Worth (1825-1895) became a founder of haute couture in Paris.
af British prep school.
ag Brothers Edmond (1822-1896) and Jules (1830-1870) de Goncourt were French writers who ran a salon; Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893) was considered France’s greatest short story writer; Prosper Mérimée (1803-1870) was a well-known French author.
ah Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), French writer, author of Madame Bovary.
ai Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier (1815-1891), French artist.
aj Mary France Scott Siddons (1844-1890), well-known English actress, performing Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem.
ak Cowes, on England’s Isle of Wight, is a yachting resort; Baden is a German town renowned for its thermal baths.
al Private room (French).
am Small desk.
an In mythology, a monster with live serpents for hair; any
one who looked at a Gorgon turned to stone.
ao Jules Michelet (1798-1874), French historian of the French Revolution.
ap English actress (1846-1880), famous for playing Juliet.
aq Duke Charles-August de Morny (1811-1865), French speculator who aided a coup d‘état that made his half brother Emperor Napoleon III; he became a deputy of France.
ar Eugène Verboeckhoven (1798-1881), Belgian painter.
as Henry Poole, well-known tailor on London’s Savile Row.
at The typewriter had been invented in various forms.
au Club devoted to the collecting and preservation of finely made books.
av Claude Debussy (1862-1918), French composer.
aw Name of a convent school in Paris. Marguerite in Gounod’s Faust is assumed into heaven, as was the Virgin Mary in Catholic doctrine.
ax Titian (1488/90-1576), great Venetian School painter during the Italian Renaissance.
ay Jules Hardouin-Mansard (1646-1708), French architect favored by Louis XIV.
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