| | 361 | Author: | Wharton review: Cooper, Frederic Taber | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | "Ethan Frome." In: The Bigger Issues and Some Recent Books.  | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | It is hard to forgive Mrs. Wharton for the utter
remorselessness of her latest volume, Ethan Frome, for
nowhere has she done anything more hopelessly, endlessly grey with
blank despair. Ethan Frome is a man whose ambitions long ago
burned themselves out. He early spent his vitality in the daily
struggle of winning a bare sustenance from the grudging soil of a
small New England farm. An invalid wife, whose imaginary ailments
thrived on patent medicines, doubled his burden. And then, one
day, a pretty young cousin, left destitute, came to live on the
farm, and brought a breath of fragrance and gladness into the
gloom. Neither Ethan nor the cousin meant to do wrong; it was
simply one of those unconscious, inevitable attachments, almost
primitive in its intensity. It never was even put into words,
until the day when Ethan's wife, perhaps because of a smouldering
jealousy, perhaps because the motive she gave was the true one,
namely that the girl was shiftless and incompetent, sent her out
into the world to shift for herself. It is while driving her over
to the railway station that Ethan consents to the girl's wish that
just once more he will take her coasting down a long hill, that is
a favourite coasting place throughout the neighbourhood. It is a
long, steep, breathless rush, with a giant tree towering up near
the foot, to be dexterously avoided at the last moment. It is
while he holds the girl close to him on the sled, that a ghastly
temptation comes to Ethan, and he voices it: How much easier,
instead of letting her go away, to face unknown struggles, while he
remained behind, eating his heart out with loneliness—how much
easier merely to forget to steer! One shock of impact, and the end
would come. And to this the girl consents. And neither of them
foresees that not even the most carefully planned death is
inevitable, and that fate is about to play upon them one of its
grimmest tricks, and doom them to a life-long punishment, she with
a broken back, he with a warped and twisted frame, tied beyond
escape to the slow starvation of the barren farm, and grudgingly
watched over by the invalid wife, scarcely more alive than
themselves. Art for art's sake is the one justification of a piece
of work as perfect in technique as it is relentless in substance. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 362 | Author: | Wharton review: Marsh, Edward Clark | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Mrs. Wharton's "The Fruit of the Tree"
In: Seven Books of the Month. | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | It is one of the penalties of so striking a success as Mrs.
Wharton achieved in The House of Mirth that for a long time
to come all her work must endure the comparative judgment. The
first question asked concerning The Fruit of the Tree will
pertain neither to its proper merits nor its formal classification.
"Is it as good as The House of Mirth?"—that is the query
that must be met at the outset, unless it is anticipated by the no
less pressing interrogation, "Will it be as popular as The House
of Mirth?" The implied distinction must be maintained. Those
shallow-pated readers who identify merit with popularity are not to
be found in the intellectual circles to which Mrs. Wharton
ministers. Rather is her most numerous following among those who
forgive the popularity for the sake of the merit. But since the
dual question is sure to be propounded, and the dilemma cannot be
avoided by even the humblest commentator, I may at once lay a
reckless hand on either horn by hazarding the opinion that
The Fruit of the Tree, though a better book
than its predecessor, is not likely to provoke an equal amount of
that heated and emotional public discussion which is the true sign
of popularity. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 363 | Author: | Wharton review: Moss, Mary | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Mrs. Wharton's "Madame de Treymes" | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | Since such crude early attempts as Theodore Fay's preposterous
Norman Leslie deserve scant consideration, Mr. Henry James
may safely claim to have discovered the international episode as a
motive for American fiction. In spite of many competitors, he has
hitherto kept an easy supremacy in this field, with such
masterpieces as Daisy Miller, The American, The Princess
Casamassima, The Ambassadors, The Golden Bowl, not to mention
a host of short stories. But among this brilliant company, Mrs.
Wharton's Madame de Treymes must instantly take undisputed
place. In fact, the author fairly challenges comparison by
choosing a theme almost identical with that of The American—
the clash between a spirited outsider and the intangible
resistance of Old World traditions and standards. And to be frank,
her latest story excels Mr. James's early one in the matter of
probability. For my part I have never been quite satisfied that a
man of Newman's imaginative force would not have broken through the
network of obstacles, if only by not appreciating them, and have
ended by carrying off the object of his homage. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 364 | Author: | Wharton review: Anonymous | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | A Motor Flight through France. | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | It is not to be expected that Mrs. Wharton would write the
ordinary book of travel—nor has she done so in the present
volume. «The motor-car has restored the romance of travel,» she
declares: and to prove her contention she whirls her reader through
the towns and picturesque country scenes of France on a motor-car
that certainly leaves nothing to be desired by the traveler in the
way of comfort and convenience. Mrs. Wharton dwells with delight
on the freedom from the «ugliness and desolation created by the
railway,» as enjoyed by the motorist, and describes in her usual
charming style the various objects of beauty and interest that
flash by her car without being marred by intervening railroad
yards, smoke, and general dulness. With no country is Mrs. Wharton
more thoroughly familiar than with France, and her brilliant
sketches of towns, castles, churches, men, and women, seen in
passing, furnish excellent reading and lend to this book a piquancy
not usually possest by others of its kind. For any one
contemplating a motor trip through France it should serve,
moreover, as an excellent guide. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 365 | Author: | Wharton review: Boynton, H. W. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Some Stories of the Month | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | Her [Miss Wilkins] own New England, the scene of the early
tales, is an affair of black and white, of strong crude forces and
repressions. Such is the New England of Mrs. Wharton in Ethan
Frome and Summer. But while Miss Wilkins's voice had
always a certain raw tang of the native, altogether lacked grace
and flexibility, was the voice of rustic New England, Mrs.
Wharton has had the task of subduing her rich and varied and
worldly instrument to its provincial theme. She has succeeded;
Summer shows all the virtue of her style and none of its
weakness. Here is no routine
elegance, no languor of
disillusion, no bite of deliberate satire. As in Ethan
Frome, this writer who has come perilously near being the idol
of snobs shows herself as an interpreter of life in its elements,
stripped of the habits and inhibitions of the polite world. The
story lacks the tragic completeness of the earlier one, has indeed
a species of happy ending,—an ending, at worst, of pathos not
without hope. The scene is the New England village of North
Dormer, once as good as its neighbours, but now deserted and
decaying in its corner among the hills. It is vignetted in a few
sentences at the beginning: « little wind moved among the round
white clouds on the shoulders of the hills, driving their shadows
across the fields and down the grassy road that takes the name of
street when it passes through North Dormer. The place lies high
and in the open, and lacks the lavish shade of the more protected
New England villages. The clump of weeping willows about the duck
pond, and the Norway spruces in front of the Hatchard gate, cast
almost the only roadside shadow between lawyer Royall's house and
the point where, at the other end of the village, the road rises
above the church and skirts the black hemlock wall enclosing the
cemetery.» The Hatchards are the great people of the place, with
an elderly spinster still solvent and in residence, and a Memorial
Library bearing musty witness to that distinguished and now
extinguished author, Honorius Hatchard, who had hobnobbed with
Irving and Halleck, back in the forties. Another old family are
the Royalls. Their present representative is the middle-aged
lawyer who, after showing promise elsewhere, has returned to North
Dormer while still a young man, for the apparent purpose of going
to seed there at his leisure. Above the village, though at
distance—fastness of a strange community of outlaws and
degenerates—towers the craggy mountain from which, years back,
Lawyer Royall has rescued a child. As Charity Royall she grows up
in his household, and after his wife's death becomes its
unchallenged ruler. Her little liking for Royall himself he has
destroyed by making, in his «lonesomeness,» a single false step
toward her. Her own lonely lot in unyouthful North Dormer is
lightened only by the vague dreams of girlhood. Then the fairy
prince comes in the person of a young architect from the city whom
certain local relics of fine building have attracted to the
neighbourhood, and whom a swift romance with the girl Charity holds
there. She becomes his mistress, he deserts her in her «trouble,»
she turns desperately to the haunt of her people, «the Mountain»;
and is rescued for a second time and finally by Lawyer Royall. In
her marriage with the aging man whom she has scorned there is, we
really believe, some chance of happiness, or at least content.
Young love is dead, but old love is ready to creep into its place.
Mrs. Wharton has often been accused of bitterness; let her critics
note that the whole effect of this powerful story hangs upon our
recognition of the power of simple human goodness—not
«virtuousness,» but faithful, unselfish devotion of one sort or
another—to make life worth living. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 366 | Author: | Wharton review: Anonymous | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | A Few Thought-Compelling Novels. | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | It is possible to write about the «smart set» and not be
sophomoric or flippant. Edith Wharton does this, and her new
novel, «The Reef» (Appletons), is a serious and important criticism
of the aimless existence of the idle rich. Her criticism,
however, is made subtly; it is a matter not of statement but of
suggestion. George Darrow, a diplomatist, drifts into a foolish
intrigue with Sophy Viner, a commonplace little person who has been
making a dreary living as a companion to a vulgar woman of wealth.
After a Parisian sojourn they separate, and when next he meets her,
after three years, she is acting as governess to the little
daughter of Anna Leath, a widow whom he is courting. This is
embarrassing enough, but worse is in store. Sophy, he finds, is
affianced to Owen Leath, Mrs. Leath's stepson. There is something
reminiscent of Pinero in Mrs. Wharton's method of juggling these
troubled souls. «The Reef» could be made into an admirable drama.
The plot comes to its climax naturally, in the manner of life, with
that irony which is characteristic of the way of the gods with
foolish people. For Mrs. Wharton's people are foolish—they are
vain, selfish and flatly materialistic. She has knowledge of but
not love for mankind. Perhaps it is fairer to say that she has no
love for the class of which she writes with such cruel realism. It
is certain that the future historian who wishes a clear idea of the
thoughts and actions of the most worthless people of this
generation will need but two books—«The House of Mirth» and «The
Reef.» | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 368 | Author: | Wharton review: Boynton, H. W. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Mrs. Wharton's Manner | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | Mrs. Wharton's early successes as a writer of short stories
were not the chance successes of a tyro. She had already served
her apprenticeship, without making the public pay for the crude
products of that trying phase of experience. She had learned what
she wanted to do, and how to do it. She could take a situation or
an episode involving two or three human figures, and wring the
truth from it—the truth as she personally saw it. She could drive
home her interpretation with witty phrase and epigram. She could
make people «sit up,» without the use of vulgar stimulants. If
there was one quality which pleased her audience more than her
brilliancy, it was her breeding. A final zest was given to the
enjoyment of her style by the sense that it was gentlemanlike.
That sense was misleading, of course, for she has always been
strongly feminine; but it is possible for a voice a trifle deeper
than common, a gesture somewhat more frank, to enhance the charm of
femininity by its hint of contradiction. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 369 | Author: | Wharton review: Anonymous | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Ethan Frome | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | More than ten years ago Mrs. Wharton published a short story
called «The Duchess at Prayer.» Since that time we have cherished
an estimate of her powers which no intermediate accession to her
repertory has raised, nor even, to speak truth, quite justified.
Practised, cosmopolitan, subtle, she has seemed, on the whole, to
covet most earnestly the refinements of Henry James. In spite of
her habit of a franker approach, her consistent rating of matter
above manner, and the gravitation — we should hesitate to say
transfer — of her interest from exotic to native themes; we might
have been reasonably content to rank her as the greatest pupil of
a little master, were it not for the appearance of «Ethan Frome.»
This startling fulfilment recalls not only the promise of the early
story, but its revelation of a more potent influence — the
inspiriting example of a greater novelist to whom Mr. James's
devoirs have been paid in the phrase, «The master of us
all.» Exactly how much the inception and execution of «The Duchess
at Prayer» owed to Balzac's «La grande Breteche» is beyond our
present point, which is, specifically, that the excellence of Mrs.
Wharton's work in this case outstripped the charge of imitation,
and allied her with that company of splendid talents whom neither
magnificence nor the catastrophes of passion can abash. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 370 | Author: | Wharton review: Franklin, C. L. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Women and Business | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | Mrs. Wharton's The House of Mirth is
a splendid study of social conditions; but, as the reviewers have
pointed out, it leaves us somewhat cold as to the fortunes of Lily
Bart (very largely, I conceive, owing to the extreme unpleasantness
of her name), and hence we shall not be shocking its readers too
much if we discuss in cold blood certain financial matters which
come up near the end of the book. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 372 | Author: | Wilkins, Mary E. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Three Old Sisters and the Old Beau | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | THE three old sisters, Rachel and Nancy and Camilla, lived in the
house in which they had been born. They were very old in
years—the youngest was nearly seventy—but they were, after all,
the most youthful maidens in the village. Not a child dragging her
doll-carriage past their windows, not a young girl strolling by in
the twilight on her lover's arm, was as young as they, for the
youth in them had actually triumphed over age, and gained, as it
were, a species of immortality in this world. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 373 | Author: | Wilkins, Mary E. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | A Wandering Samaritan | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | A LOW stone wall bordered the lane on either side. There were
clumps of tansy and yarrow with straggling bushes of meadow-sweet
and hardback clustering closely around the loosely piled rocks.
Plenty of poison ivy vines clambered over them too. The lane was
narrow and grassy; even the deep wheel-ruts through the center were
overgrown with grass. And everything was dusty; there had been a
little drought lately; the leaves were powdered thick with dust. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 374 | Author: | Crane review: Wyatt, Edith | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Stephen Crane. | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | WHATEVER is deeply thought is well written, in the view of M. Remy
de Gourmont. The observation has an aerial beauty. From its
outlook one instinctively casts a revisiting glance of speculation
at well written places in expression one had lost awhile, to find
how deeply thought they are. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 375 | Author: | Addams, Jane | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Women and Public Housekeeping | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | A city is in many respects a great business corporation, but in other re- spects it is enlarged housekeeping. If
American cities have failed in the first, partly because officeholders have
carried with them the predatory instinct learned in competitive business,
and cannot help "working a good thing" when they have an opportunity, may
we not say that city housekeeping has failed partly because women, the
traditional housekeepers, have not been consulted as to its multiform
activities? The men of the city have been carelessly indifferenct to much
of its civic housekeeping, as they have always been indifferent to the
details of the household. They have totally dis-
regarded a candidate's capacity to keep the streets clean, preferring
to con- sider him in relation to the national
tariff or to the necessity for increasing the national navy, in a pure
spirit of reversion to the traditional type of government, which had to do
only with enemies and outsiders. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 378 | Author: | Anonymous | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Louisiana Amendment the Same as Ours! | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | The pending amendment in this State is a copy of the Suffrage Amendment in
Louisiana except the property clause. The Constitutional Convention of Louisiana
adopted the amendment in 1898. It went into effect soon after. There has been
the fullest possible opportunity to study the question in all its detail. The
city elections last year were held under the provisions of the new constitution.
This year the State election was held under it. No word of complaint has been
heard. No white man has stated that his right to vote was denied. No test has
been made of the question in the courts. So we take it that the working of the
amendment in Louisiana will be its working in this State. It has stood a
practical test there. In order that the people of the State might have the
fullest information on this subject, Hon. Josephus Daniels, editor of the News and Observer, has been to the State of Louisiana and
made a study of the question in all its bearings. He was specially active in
seeking information as to whether white people are disfranchised. His letters
from the South are interesting reading. He interviewed men of every shade of
political opinion. He did not confine his investigation to the towns. The County
Parishes—our townships-were visited and people themselves sounded on
the subject. Attention is invited to some of the leading points taken from his
articles. In the light of experience the people of Louisiana declare unanimously
that their amendment was the only possible solution of the suffrage question,
and the amendment is regarded as an entirely satisfactory solution of it. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 379 | Author: | Austin, Mary | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Bitterness of Women | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | LOUIS CHABOT was sitting under the fig tree in her father's garden at Tres Pinos
when he told Marguerita Dupré that he could not love her. This sort
of thing happened so often to Louis that he did it very well and rather enjoyed
it, for he was one of those before whom women bloomed instinctively and preened
themselves, and that Marguerita loved him very much was known not only to Louis,
but to all Tres Pinos. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 380 | Author: | Austin, Mary | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Search for Jean Baptiste | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | ONE bred to the hills and the care of dumb, helpless things must in the end, whatever
else befalls, come back to them. That is the comfort they give him for their care and
the revenge they have of their helplessness. If this were not so Gabriel Lausanne
would never have found Jean Baptiste. Babette, who was the mother of Jean Baptiste
and the wife of Gabriel, understood this also, and so came to her last sickness in
more comfort of mind than would have been otherwise possible; for it was understood
between them that when he had buried her, Gabriel was to go to America to find Jean
Baptiste. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
|
