And the
"family" as Mrs. Wharton describes it is just the bourgeois
Puritanism of nineteenth century America.
Was May right when, with the might of innocence, she forced
Newland to give up life for mere living? Was the Countess right
when, in spite of her love for him, she aided and abetted her,
making him live up to the self-restraint that belonged to his
code? The story does not answer, being concerned with the
qualities of the "family," not with didacticism.
It says that the insistent innocence of America had its rewards as
well as its penalties. It says, in so far as it states any
conclusion definitely, that a new and less trammeled generation
must answer whether it was the discipline of its parents that
saved the American family from anarchy, or the suppressions of its
parents that made it rebellious. And the answer is not yet.
"The Age of Innocence" is a fine novel, beautifully written, "big"
in the best sense, which has nothing to do with size, a credit to
American literature--for if its author is cosmopolitan, this
novel, as much as her earlier "Ethan Frome," is a fruit of our
soil.
November 6, 1920.
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