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Novels and Short Stories
of Edith Wharton
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Afterward
The assertion, laughingly flung out six months earlier in a bright June garden, came back to Mary Boyne with a sharp perception of its latent significance as she stood, in the December dusk, waiting for the lamps to be brought into the library.
The Reef
All the way from Charing Cross to Dover the train had
hammered the words of the telegram into George Darrow's
ears, ringing every change of irony on its commonplace
syllables: rattling them out like a discharge of musketry,
letting them, one by one, drip slowly and coldly into his
brain, or shaking, tossing, transposing them like the dice
in some game of the gods of malice;
The Touchstone
The Spectator had slipped to his feet and as he picked it up his
eye fell again on the paragraph addressed to the friends of Mrs.
Aubyn. He had read it for the first time with a scarcely
perceptible quickening of attention: her name had so long been
public property that his eye passed it unseeingly, as the crowd in
the street hurries without a glance by some familiar monument.
The Glimpses of the Moon
His hand still lay on hers, and for a long interval, while they
stood silent in the enveloping loveliness of the night, she was
aware only of the warm current running from palm to palm, as the
moonlight below them drew its line of magic from shore to shore.
Summer
It was the beginning of a June afternoon. The
springlike transparent sky shed a rain of silver
sunshine on the roofs of the village, and on the
pastures and larchwoods surrounding it. A 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.
Tales Of Men
It appeared that Winterman, while lying insensible in the Park, had been robbed of the few dollars he possessed; and on leaving the hospital, still weak and half-blind, he had quite simply and unprotestingly accepted the Wades' offer to give him shelter till such time as he should be strong enough to go to work.
House of Mirth
Selden paused in surprise. In the afternoon rush of the Grand Central Station his eyes had been refreshed by the sight of Miss
Lily Bart.
Ethan Frome
It was there that, several years ago, I saw him for the first time; and the sight pulled me up sharp. Even then he was the most striking figure in Starkfield, though he was but the ruin of a man. It was not so much his great height that marked him, for the "natives" were easily singled out by their lank longitude from the stockier foreign breed: it was the careless powerful look he had,
The Age of Innocence
It was Madame Nilsson's first appearance that winter, and what the daily press had already learned to describe as "an exceptionally brilliant audience" had
gathered to hear her, transported through the slippery,
snowy streets in private broughams, in the spacious
family landau, or in the humbler but more convenient
"Brown coupe" To come to the Opera in a Brown
coupe was almost as honourable a way of arriving
as in one's own carriage;
Madame de Treymes
Paris might still be -- to the unimplicated it doubtless still was -- the most beautiful city in the world; but whether it were the most lovable or the most detestable depended for him, in the last analysis, on the buttoning of the white glove over which Fanny de Malrive still lingered.
The Blond Beast
Halting there in the winter light, with the clang of the ponderous vestibule doors in his ears, and his eyes carried down the perspective of the packed interminable thoroughfare, he even dared to remember Rastignac's apostrophe to Paris, and to hazard recklessly under his small fair moustache: "Who knows?"
The Bolted Door
Granice resumed his pacing. Each time he reached the end of the room opposite the door he caught his reflection in the Florentine mirror above the fine old walnut credencehe had picked up at Dijon -- saw himself spare, quick-moving, carefully brushed and dressed, but furrowed, gray about the temples, with a stoop which he corrected by a spasmodic straightening of the shoulders whenever a glass confronted him: a tired middle-aged man, baffled, beaten, worn out.
The Daunt Diana
He told me once how he'd come to Rome. He was originaire of Mystic, Connecticut -- and he wanted to get as far away from it as possible. Rome seemed as far as anything on the same planet could be; and after he'd worried his way through Harvard -- with shifts and shavings that you and I can't imagine -- he contrived to get sent to Switzerland as tutor to a chap who'd failed in his examinations.
The Eyes
The words were so unexpected that they dropped down and down into a fathomless silence, while we continued to stare at each other over Culwin's head, and Culwin stared at his ghosts. At length Frenham, without speaking, threw himself into the chair on the other side of the hearth, and leaned forward with his listening smile . . .
His Father's Son
Even at Harvard he had managed to be several desirable things at once -- writing poetry in the college magazine, playing delightfully "by ear," acquitting himself honorably in his studies, and yet holding his own in the fashionable sporting set that formed, as it were, the gateway of the temple of Society.
Full Circle
Mind? Ye gods, he minded now! For more than a year after the publication of "Diadems and Faggots" the letters, the inane indiscriminate letters of condemnation, of criticism, of interrogation, had poured in on him by every post. Hundreds of unknown readers had told him with unsparing detail all that his book had been to them.
The Hermit and the Wild Woman
He had no wish to go back. His longing was to live hidden from life. Up the hillside he found a hollow in the rock, and built before it a porch of boughs bound together with withies. He fed on nuts and roots, and on trout which he caught with his hands under the stones in the stream. He had always been a quiet boy, liking to sit at his mother's feet and watch the flowers grow on her embroidery frame
The Debt
It's all very interesting -- there are few things more stirring to the imagination than that sudden projection of the new hypothesis, light as a cobweb and strong as steel, across the intellectual abyss; but, for an idle observer of human motives, the other, the personal, side of Dredge's case is even more interesting and arresting.
Xingu
The Club was to meet at Mrs. Ballinger's. The other members, behind her back, were of one voice in deploring her unwillingness to cede her rights in favor of Mrs. Plinth, whose house made a more impressive setting for the entertainment of celebrities; while, as Mrs. Leveret observed, there was always the picture-gallery to fall back on.
Writing a War Story
she had been pouring tea once a week for a whole winter in a big Anglo-American hospital in Paris, when one day, as she was passing through a flower-edged court on her way to her ward, she heard one of the doctors say to a pale gentleman in civilian clothes and spectacles, "But I believe that pretty Miss Spang writes.
The Verdict
it suddenly occurred to me to wonder why Gisburn had given up his painting. On reflection, it really was a tempting problem. To accuse his wife would have been too easy
The Vice of Reading
No vices are so hard to eradicate as those which are popularly regarded as virtues. Among these the vice of reading is foremost. That reading trash is a vice is generally conceded; but reading per se -- the habit of reading -- new as it is, already ranks with such seasoned virtues as thrift, sobriety, early rising and regular exercise.
A Venetian Night's Entertainment
It was a rare February day of the year 1760, and a young Tony, newly of age, and bound on the grand tour aboard the crack merchantman of old Bracknell's fleet, felt his heart leap up as the distant city trembled into shape. Venice! The name, since childhood, had been a magician's wand to him.
The Seed of the Faith
The blinding June sky of Africa hung over the town. In the doorway of an Arab coffee-house a young man stood listening to the remarks exchanged by the patrons of the establishment, who lay in torpid heaps on the low shelf bordering the room.
The Rembrandt by Edith Wharton
Time was when I attempted to resist these compulsions of Eleanor's; but I soon learned that, short of actual flight, there was no refuge from her beneficent despotism. It is not always easy for the curator of a museum to abandon his post on the plea of escaping a pretty cousin's importunities
The Refugees
He had left Belgium at once, and deeply disturbed by the dislocation of his plans had carried his shaken nerves to a lost corner of Normandy, where he had spent the ensuing weeks in trying to think the war would soon be over.
The Recovery
But Professor Wildmarsh's article made her feel how little she really knew of the master; and she trembled to think of the state of relative ignorance in which, but for the timely purchase of the magazine, she might have entered Hillbridge.
The Reckoning
A discreet murmur of approval filled the studio, and through the haze of cigarette smoke Mrs. Clement Westall, as her husband descended from his improvised platform, saw him merged in a congratulatory group of ladies. Westall's informal talks on "The New Ethics" had drawn about him an eager following of the mentally unemployed
The Quicksand
Mrs. Quentin, though not a fanciful woman, was sometimes aware of a sixth sense enabling her to detect the faintest vibrations of her son's impulses. She was too shrewd to fancy herself the one mother in possession of this faculty, but she permitted herself to think that few could exercise it more discreetly.
The Pretext
Though slender, and still light of foot, she did not always move so quickly: hitherto, in her life, there had not been much to hurry for, save the recurring domestic tasks that compel haste without fostering elasticity
The Pot-Boiler
Caspar Arran, humorously called "Gasper" on account of his bronchial asthma -- had lately been joined by a sister, Kate Arran, a strapping girl, fresh from the country, who had installed herself in the little room off her brother's studio, keeping house for him with a chafing-dish and a coffee-machine, to the mirth and envy of the other young men in the building.
The Pelican
They began by being drawing-room lectures. The first time I saw her she was standing by the piano, against a flippant background of Dresden china and photographs, telling a roomful of women preoccupied with their spring bonnets all that she thought she knew about Greek art.
Other Times, Other Manners
She had set out on the voyage quietly enough, -- in what she called her "reasonable" mood, -- but the week at sea had given her too much time to think of things, had left her too long alone with the past.
The Other Two
They had been hastily recalled from their honeymoon by the illness of Lily Haskett, the child of Mrs. Waythorn's first marriage. The little girl, at Waythorn's desire, had been transferred to his house on the day of her mother's wedding, and the doctor, on their arrival, broke the news that she was ill with typhoid
The Moving Finger
Claydon professionally described her as the right frame for him; but if she defined, she also enlarged; if she threw the whole into perspective, she also cleared new ground, opened fresh vistas, reclaimed whole areas of activity that had run to waste under the harsh husbandry of privation.
The Muse's Tragedy
No one but a woman could understand what I went through during those years -- the moments of revolt, when I felt that I must break away from it all, fling the truth in his face and never see him again; the inevitable reaction, when not to see him seemed the one unendurable thing
The Mission of Jane
Lethbury accompanied his wife to the hospital in a mood of chastened wonder. It did not occur to him to oppose her wish. He knew, of course, that he would have to bear the brunt of the situation: the jokes at the club, the inquiries, the explanations.
Mrs. Manstey's View
and his death had left her alone, for her only daughter had married in California, and could not afford the long journey to New York to see her mother. Mrs. Manstey, perhaps, might have joined her daughter in the West
The Last Asset
There are lots of ways of being miserable, but there's only one way of being comfortable, and that is to stop running round after happiness. If you make up your mind not to be happy there's no reason why you shouldn't have a fairly good time.
The Long Run
There had been no time, before our passage to the dining-room, for more than the barest expression of delight at meeting, and our seats had been at opposite ends of the longish table, so that we got our first real look at each other in the screened secluded sofa-corner to which Mrs. Cumnor's vigilance now tactfully directed us.
The Line Of Least Resistance
Having vented his wrath in action, he felt calmer, but scarcely more happy. A marble nymph smiled at him from the terrace; but he knew how much nymphs cost, and was not sure that they were worth the price. Beyond the shrubberies he caught a glimpse of domed glass.
The Letters
At first the ascent had seemed tedious enough, as dull as the trudge to her other lessons. Lizzie was not a heaven-sent teacher; she had no born zeal for her calling, and though she dealt kindly and dutifully with her pupils, she did not fly to them on winged feet. But one day something had happened to change the face of life, and since then the climb to the Deering house had seemed like a dream-flight up a heavenly stairway.
The Lady's Maid's Bell
she told me the lady she'd in mind was a niece of hers, a Mrs. Brympton, a youngish lady, but something of an invalid, who lived all the year round at her country-place on the Hudson, owing to not being able to stand the fatigue of town life.
The Lamp of Psyche
She was reliving it now, as she often did in the rare hours which separated her from her husband; when presently she heard his step on the stairs, and started up with the blush of eighteen. As she walked across the room to meet him
Kerfol
it's just the place for a solitary-minded devil like you. And it would be rather worth while to own the most romantic house in Brittany. The present people are dead broke, and it's going for a song -- you ought to buy it.
In Trust
I want to bring the poor starved wretches back to their lost inheritance, to the divine past they've thrown away -- I want to make 'em hate ugliness so that they'll smash nearly everything in sight," he would passionately exclaim, stretching his arms across the shabby black-walnut writing-table and shaking his thin consumptive fist in the fact of all the accumulated ugliness in the world.
The Introducers
She colored, and negligently dropped her sunshade between her eyes and his. "Well, I wasn't, you see -- and my sketches were not good enough to sell. So I've taken to this kind of thing instead. But I thought you meant to stick to your digging.
The House of the Dead Hand
Lombard is a queer stick, and jealous of showing his treasures; but we struck up a friendship when I was working on the Sodomas in Siena three years ago, and if you will give him the enclosed line you may get a peep at the Leonardo. Probably not more than a peep, though, for I hear he refuses to have it reproduced.
That Good May Come
He glanced at a heap of type-written pages which lay on the shabby desk at his elbow; then, pushing back his chair, he began to stride up and down the length of the little bedroom in which he and Helfenridge sat.
The Fulness of Life
And so death is not the end after all," in sheer gladness she heard herself exclaiming aloud. "I always knew that it couldn't be. I believed in Darwin, of course. I do still; but then Darwin himself said that he wasn't sure about the soul
Expiation
Mrs. Fetherel's eye clouded. "Don't joke, Bella, please. I suppose to experienced authors there's always something absurd in the nervousness of a new writer, but in my case so much is at stake; I've put so much of myself into this book and I'm so afraid of being misunderstood .
The Duchess at Prayer
He was the oldest man I had ever seen; so sucked back into the past that he seemed more like a memory than a living being. The one trait linking him with the actual was the fixity with which his small saurian eye held the pocket that, as I entered, had yielded a lira to the gate-keeper's child. He went on, without removing his eye
The Dilettante
As a promoter of this pleasure no one he had known was comparable to Mrs. Vervain. He had taught a good many women not to betray their feelings, but he had never before had such fine material to work in.
The Descent of Man
To cease from work was not to cease from thought of it; and in the unwonted pause from effort the Professor found himself taking a general survey of the field he had travelled. At last it was possible to lift his nose from the loom, to step a moment in front of the tapestry he had been weaving.
Coming Home
There was no time to pick them up during the first months -- the whole business was too wild and grim. The horror has not decreased, but nerves and sight are beginning to be disciplined to it.
The Choice
Her host sounded an immediate protest. "Going already? Nothing of the sort! Why, the night's still young, as the poet says. Long way from here to the rectory? Nonsense! In our little twenty-horse motor we do it in five minutes -- don't we, Belle?
Bunner Sisters
The middle of the street was full of irregular depressions, well adapted to retain the long swirls of dust and straw and twisted paper that the wind drove up and down its sad untended length; and toward the end of the day, when traffic had been active, the fissured pavement formed a mosaic of coloured hand-bills, lids of tomato-cans, old shoes, cigar-stumps and banana skins, cemented together by a layer of mud, or veiled in a powdering of dust, as the state of the weather determined.
The Best Man
Mrs. Mornway, fresh from her afternoon walk, entered the room with that air of ease and lightness which seemed to diffuse a social warmth about her; fine, slender, pliant, so polished and modeled by an intelligent experience of life that youth seemed clumsy in her presence. She looked down at her husband and shook her head.
The Angel at the Grave
Fate seemed to have taken a direct share in fitting Paulina for her part as the custodian of this historic dwelling. It had long been secretly regarded as a "visitation" by the great man's family that he had left no son and that his daughters were not quot; intellectual."
A Backward Glance
I never cared much in my little childhood for fairy tales, or any appeals to my fancy through the fabulous or legendary. My imagination lay there, coiled and sleeping, a mute hibernating creature, and at the
least touch of common things--flowers, animals, words, especially the sound of words
Certain People by Edith Wharton
In less than an hour she would be under his roof, Jane Aldis would be receiving her in that low panelled room full of books, and she would be saying--what would she be saying?
False Dawn (The 'Forties)
Now and again the gentlemen, warned by a menacing hum, slapped their cheeks, their brows or their bald crowns; but they did so as furtively as possible, for Mr. Halston Raycie, on whose verandah they sat, would not admit that there were mosquitoes at High Point.
The Old Maid (The 'Fifties) by Edith Wharton
The Spark (The 'Sixties) by Edith Wharton
New Year'S Day (1924) by Edith Wharton
A Backward Glance by Edith Wharton
Hudson River Bracketed (1929) by Edith Wharton
After Holbein by Edith Wharton
Atrophy by Edith Wharton
Dieu D'Amour by Edith Wharton
The Refugees by Edith Wharton
Certain People by Edith Wharton
Mr. Jones by Edith Wharton
Twilight Sleep (1927) by Edith Wharton
The Children (1928) by Edith Wharton
The Gods Arrive (1932) by Edith Wharton
The Mother's Recompense (1925) by Edith Wharton
Here and Beyond (1926) by Edith Wharton
Backbone
Statement
Oh, how sorry we are for you Baha'is
How boring to spend your days in futile study
of obscure writings that mislead and depress.
Response
It is good of you to be so concerned for us.
We are swimming in an ocean of sweetness
Will you not give it a try?
Like any true scientist you must test a system
Over and over until it pleases you or fails.
Statement
But why would I do that?
This world offers me great pleasures and fame.
Where would I be if others saw me as I see you?
Response
We will always be here.
Moving from strength to strength.
The world is a souring lake, overcrowded
with persons without backbone
Flapping like a flag in the winds of change.
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Pages Updated On: 1-March--MMVII
Copyright © MMI -- MMVII
ArthursClassicNovels.com
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