Who is this impassive man? We seem to know him well, here in our city, and know nothing of him but what is credible and fortunate. Yet hither he comes, year after year, to this gloomy banquet, and sits among the guests like a marble statue. Ask yonder skeleton–perhaps that may solve the riddle! This …
Continue reading The Christmas Banquet, Nathaniel Hawthorne (1844)
The Touchstone sets up a moral dilemma for Stephen Glennard, whose career is floundering making it impossible to marry the woman he loves. He is resentful of his contemporaries who always find a place at someone’s dinner table or invitation to the opera, while he has to calculate cab fares, clothing and food to make …
More than any other person we remembered, this girl seemed to mean to us the country, the conditions, the whole adventure of our childhood. To speak her name was to call up pictures of people and places, to set a quiet drama going in one’s brain. Willa Cather is an incredible nature writer. She loses …
This is an intimate study of the dynamics of a New York City family in the late 19th century. Clarence Day, Jr., the eldest of three boys, writes descriptively and honestly about his parents, especially the control of his father-his word is law and that is it. However, his mother Vinnie is not a meek …
“Whither thou goest will I go, thy people shall be my people…” Yes, France was the Naomi-country that had but to beckon, and her children rose and came. Edith Wharton had been living in France for many years when WWI began. Like many in Europe, Wharton was frustrated and angry at America’s reluctance to enter …
Continue reading The Marne: A Tale of War, Edith Wharton (1918)
Nature is so grim. The city, which represents it so effectively, is also so grim. It does not care at all. It is not conscious. The passing of so small an organism as that of a man or woman is nothing to it. Carrie Meeber, or Sister Carrie as her family calls her, is a …
“Human life is sacred,” he said sententiously.“Ah, that must have been decreed by someone who had never suffered!” Justine exclaimed. The Fruit of the Tree is a departure from most Edith Wharton novels that deal with the superficiality and hypocrisy of the lives of the upper class. While that plays a role here, the novel …
Continue reading The Fruit of the Tree, Edith Wharton (1907)
There was an odour…. William Dyer is a university professor at Miskatonic University and this is his report of the expedition he lead to the Antarctic and the unexpected discoveries his team uncovered. His first communications to the outside world are full of exciting finds and praise for his men and their dedication. As the …
Continue reading At the Mountains of Madness, HP Lovecraft (1936)
“What’s the child looking at,” asked Miss Weatherwax?“Oh, everything!,” said Alice. “It’s all so beautiful!…If you’ve never seen it before, you ought to take a long, long look. You’ll never see it just this way again.”…said the little old American woman, “That’s right, I’ll never see it again for the first time, will I? Well, …
Continue reading Madamoiselle Misfortune, Carol Ryrie Brink (1935)
The Bunner sisters were proud of the neatness of their shop and content with its humble prosperity. It was not what they had once imagined it would be…and it was long since their hopes had soared higher. Edith Wharton is known for her sharp observations about the excesses of the upper classes and expats of …
Classic Laurie 