THE ALTAR OF THE DEAD
The Glimpses of the Moon. By Edith Wharton. 12mo. 364 pages. D. Appleton and Company. $2.
IT has not been exactly roses, roses all the way for Mrs Wharton's new novel, but it has been subject, subject. Mrs Wharton has written a new book about the upper set. (Cheers!) Mrs Wharton again exposes the vices of the rich. (Excitement!) Mrs Wharton's hero says Men are different. (Cries of Take him out!) Mrs Wharton re-establishes marriage. (Sensation in Heaven!)
If I suggest with some asperity that these things are in the second order of importance it is not only to make again a plea for the kind of criticism which will concern itself, at least for a little, with the elements of form. It is because The Glimpses of the Moon is a peculiarly affecting example of nearly all the dangers which the novelist who cares for his form is likely to encounter; and that so conscientious and so intelligent an artist as Mrs Wharton has failed to overcome them is exceedingly instructive. In a word I feel that even the enthusiasts for this new work are a little bewildered by it because they lack the fulfilment of satisfaction; and I am convinced that this failure is due not to Mrs Wharton's preoccupation with any given social set nor to the domestic ideals which she gives to her hero nor to the celebrated coldness of her treatment of love; it can be explained only by the structural fault in the work itself.
What that fault is she has made exceptionally clear. The book deals with two young people, Susy and Nick Lansing, married in spite of their poverty and in spite of their loose association with the rich. They hope to live as long as possible on the bounty of their friends, then each is to give the other a helping hand to a more prosperous affiliation. In securing this bounty Susy is more or less against her will forced to do something she holds dishonourable; when Nick hears of it, hears from her that such compromises are likely to be the essence of their compact, he leaves her. Each then comes close to another marriage; but meeting again they return to each other. Giving thus the plot-subject of the book I have given enough for the reader who knows Mrs Wharton's extraordinary
