Note 14 — Chapter III · Henry James, Edith Wharton, William Dean Howells and American Society on Parade

Edmund Wilson in the New Republic, March 16, 1927. Sarcastic Mr. Wilson sums up the spiritual failure and the sentimental starvation of the typical American virgin in Henry James’ novels as follows: “She goes on eating marrons glacés in a hotel parlor with her father and sister, all her life,” a life fortunately short enough to bring to a quick close this original form of Dantesque torture.