Critical Essay | Critical Review by Alice Meynell

Critical Review by Alice Meynell

SOURCE: Meynell, Alice. “The House of Mirth.” Bookman 29, no. 171 (December 1905): 130-31.

In the following review, Meynell finds Wharton's moral stance lacking in The House of Mirth.

Mrs. Wharton is essentially a moralist, albeit with the whole modern resolve not to declare herself. A Gift from the Grave remains her highest, most complete, and most commanding work, because, in a memorable passage she set her sail to a natural wind. Moral passion swept through the world of that book—direct grief, emotion close to the fact of life, love, indignation, remorse, dishonour, and honour; all the storms of breasts complex, civilised, but incorrupt. In The House of Mirth we have to read of the fortunes of a woman full of desires and of self-love, but void of virtue, of passion, and of intellect; and round about her are only lovers of their own ease and supremacy; claimants to the...
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