“She still has a fine manner, but it is like the fine gowns of her heroines, a fashion of the times for interpreting decadent symptoms in human nature. What she says will not last, because it is simply the fashionable drawing of ephemeral types and still more ephemeral sentiments.”
| + — | Ind. 59: 150. Jl. 20, ‘05. 820w. | |
| + — | Ind. 59: 1151. N. 16, ‘05. 250w. |
[*] “Miss Bart is a blend of Becky Sharp and Gwendolen Harleth. She is not as compellingly human as the one, nor as inspiring as the other. Frankly, Mrs. Wharton has surpassed George Eliot in this theme. Not only is Lily Bart more congenial and better, as a human variation, than Gwendolen or Becky, but Mrs. Wharton’s style is more plastic and seductive than that of Mrs. Lewes.”
| + + | Lit. D. 31: 886. D. 9, ‘05. 820w. |
[*] “A dozen other novels of the year are good; but this book is really good. What Mrs. Wharton appears to lack is in a word the creative gift at its fullest. She sees with certainty and her hand is as sure as her eye. But with the richest imaginations something takes place beyond this.”
| + + — | Lond. Times. 4: 421. D. 1, ‘05. 790w. |
[*] “A feeling for fair play obliges us to protest Mrs. Wharton’s picture as a prejudiced one, yet it is not consciously unveracious. Though depressing, it is not wholly unprofitable.”
| + + — | Nation. 81: 447. N. 30, ‘05. 1100w. | |
| * | + | N. Y. Times. 10: 824. D. 2, ‘05. 190w. |
“The story is the product of the most carefully calculated, the most skilfully handled, artistic values and effects; but the workmanship is the manner, not the substance of the novel. A story of such integrity of insight and of workmanship is an achievement of high importance in American life.”
| + + + | Outlook. 81: 404. O. 21, ‘05. 1590w. |