Of course, Mrs. Wharton's novel does nothing of the sort. This is
how Tolstoy, or H. G. Wells, or Ernest Poole would have written
"The Age of Innocence." They would have been grandiose, epical;
their stories would have been histories of culture. It would have
been as easy to have called their books broad as it is to call
Mrs. Wharton's fine novel narrow. Tendencies, philosophies,
irrepressible outbursts would have served as their protagonists,
where hers are dwellers in Fifth Avenue or Waverly Place--a
cosmopolitan astray, a dowager, a clubman yearning for
intellectual sympathy.
And yet in the long run it comes to much the same thing. The epic
novelists prefer the panorama: she the drawing-room canvas. They
deduce from vast philosophies and depict society. She gives us the
Mingotts, the Mansons, the Van der Luydens--society, in its little
brownstone New York of the '70's--and lets us formulate
inductively the code of America. A little canvas is enough for a
great picture if the painting is good.
Indeed, the only objection I have ever heard urged against Mrs.
Wharton's fine art of narrative is that it is narrow--an art of
dress suit and sophistication.
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