Souls Belated

Edith Wharton – An Introduction

Edith Newbold Jones was born in New York on January 24th, 1862 to wealthy parents.  This background of privilege would allow her to concentrate, without distraction, on her literary career which would culminate in her becoming the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1921 with ‘The Age of Innocence’

At age 25 she married Edward Robbins Wharton, who was 12 years her senior and together they travelled extensively.  However, by the turn of the century her husband’s acute depression necessitated that their travels cease, and they retired to The Mount, their estate in Lenox, Massachusetts, which had been designed by Edith. 

By 1908 his condition was said to be incurable and, prior to divorcing him in 1913, she began an affair with Morton Fullerton, a Times journalist, who was her intellectual equal and pushed her to create her literary legacy for which she is so well famed. As well as such other classics as ‘Ethan Frome’ and ‘The House of Mirth’, she also wrote many short stories and poetry.

Edith Wharton died of a stroke August 11th, 1937 at Le Pavillon Colombe, her 18th-century house on Rue de Montmorency in Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt in Northern France.

Souls Belated 

Their railway carriage had been full when the train left Bologna; but at the first station beyond Milan their only remaining companion a courtly person who ate garlic out of a carpetbag had left his crumb-strewn seat with a bow.

Lydia's eye regretfully followed the shiny broadcloth of his retreating back till it lost itself in the cloud of touts and cab drivers hanging about the station; then she glanced across at Gannett and caught the same regret in his look. They were both sorry to be alone.

Par-ten-za! shouted the guard. The train vibrated to a sudden slamming of doors; a waiter ran along the platform with a tray of fossilized sandwiches; a belated porter flung a bundle of shawls and band-boxes into a third-class carriage; the guard snapped out a brief Partenza! which indicated the purely ornamental nature of his first shout; and the train swung out of the station.

The direction of the road had changed, and a shaft of sunlight struck across the dusty red velvet seats into Lydia's corner. Gannett did not notice it. He had returned to his Revue de Paris, and she had to rise and lower the shade of the farther window. Against the vast horizon of their leisure such incidents stood out sharply.

Having lowered the shade, Lydia sat down, leaving the length of the carriage between herself and Gannett. At length he missed her and looked up.

I moved out of the sun," she hastily explained.

He looked at her curiously: the sun was beating on her through the shade.

Very well, he said pleasantly; adding, You don't mind? as he drew a cigarette case from his pocket.

It was a refreshing touch, relieving the tension of her spirit with the suggestion that, after all, if he could smoke! The relief was only momentary. Her experience of smokers was limited (her