418
PARTISAN REVIEW
The second is from
The Glimpses of the Moon,
fifteen years
later.
But on the threshold a still more familiar figure met her: that of a
lady in exaggerated pearls and sables, descending from an exaggerated
motor, like the motors in magazine advertisements, the huge arks in
which jeweled beauties and slender youths pause to gaze at snow peaks
from an Alpine summit.
Specimens of old New York in the novels now become spindly
and ridiculous, like Mr. Wyant in
T wilight Sleep
and Mr. Spears in
Hudson River Bracketed.
The Wheaters in
The Children
are meant
to be rich New Yorkers traveling in Europe. Their children, of
various nationalities, their absurd marital mix-up, their impossible,
red-carpeted, be-yachted life, with a movie star ex-wife whose favorite
swear word is "Fudge!" and an American-born princess who hopes
that the size of families will be regulated by legislation, constitute a
grotesque parody of international drifters. Mrs. Wharton has no
true insight into their lives; she stands apart like her spokesman,
Mrs. Sellars, in disdain, describing the Wheaters only in terms of
snobbish and disapproving suppositions.
Eventually there seemed to be no aspect of American life that
did not disgust her. It was not only the vulgar rich; there were also
the vulgar intellectuals. This passage from
The Gods Arrive
is meant
to represent a conversation between young American writers in Paris.
"Poor old Fynes," another of them took it up, "sounded as if he'd
struck a new note because he made his people talk in the vernacular.
Nothing else new about him-might have worked up his method out
of Zola. Probably did."
"Zola-who's he?" somebody yawned.
"Oh, I dunno. The French Thackeray, I guess."
"See here, fellows, who's read Thackeray, anyhow?"
"Nobody since Lytton Strachey, I guess."
"Well, anyway, 'This Globe' is one great big book. Eh, Vance,
that the way you see it?"
Vance roused himself and looked at the speaker. "Not the way I
see life. Life's continuous!"
"Life continuous-continuous? Why, it's a series of jumps in the
dark. That's Mendel's law, anyhow," another budding critic took up the
argument.
"Gee! Who's Mendel? Another new novelist?"
