New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1913-11-29
MRS. WHARTON IN STRANGE
MOOD.

MOOD.
u,,r, CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY. BY
4rdith Wharton. 12mo, PIP. 594. Charles
Scrbner's sons
:. &c an ugly custom, the custom
,bich gives Mrs. Wharton's new novel
ne title. People marry from the basest
motives and then, writing under in
o,itable dscomforts, promptly seek
d,vorce. They buy it, as they buy
everything else, living as they do in
- utterly materialstic world The
,,,o,pre of married life drawn in this
hook or, rather, the series of pictures
Cor I,ndine Spragg, the heroine, has
ono husband after another, is unspeaK-
ab1,, revolving. But il is just at the
moment Of repulsion that the reader
heqins 10 smile and presently his smile
,breatens TO become a grin. He real
;,es that what he is looking at is not
. nicture but only a caricature. The
"custom" is not a custom at all, but
sporadic sickness to which Mrs.
Wharton has sought TO give the Sig
,iscance Of a national disease. start
ing with a rational sense of well-rec-
opnized abuse, her casugauon OF
American facility in the matter of d.
vorce misses its mark because she for
cets the first duty Of the satirlst,
which is to keep his temper and OBJ
ssrve the laws Of proportion. If this
nicture is awry it is for no other rea-
con than that the author does not keep
her eve on the object. She dislocates
her perspective by looking all tbs time
At something which she thinks is there
but which isn't.
IN the middle of the book Mr.. Ralph
Maxwell. lust recovered from serious
illness. calls at the Office Of his father
;n-law. Mr.. Abner Spragg, and there
receives the astounding information
that his wife has gone West to get
divorce. The old gentleman has oc-
cas,on 10 allude to the train taken by
his daughter, saying that the Twen-
tieth Century's generally considered
the best route to Dakota and in the
midst Of this fairly tragic crisis, at
what turns out to be, in fact, the nigh
est emotional point in her story, Mrs
Wharton finds time TO note that MT
spragg pronounced the word roWt.
The irrelevant and even painfully
superfuous touch is symptomatic or
q certain weakness in THE Custom or
the Country" of a kind of petty anil
mus running through it almost from
beginning 10 end. We say almost
because the truth is that in her open
ing charters Mrs. Wharton's analysis
of Undine Spragg gives some promise
Of an accurate Interpretation Of the
utra-modern, heartlessly selfish girl
But as the tale proceeds it is obvious
that this heroine is in no wise repre-
sentative and that Mrs. Wharton IS
indicting not a type, but an impos-
sible creature-and class-of ner own
imagining.
She cannot persuade us TO share her
eontemnt for I'ndine and her people
because she cannot persuade us that
they have anything to do with AnerI-
can life. Carnivorous beauties DOUBT
less get intelligent men into their tolls
and invoke the aid Of the divorce court
when they are ready to take on otner
partners; but the realities of our social
phenomena are too Enthusiastically dis
torted in Undine's personality and ca
reer for even momentary belief her
ruthlessness is credible, but not her
vulgarity or her stupidity. Not even
the citation OF an historical case IN
support of the hypothesis, here Illus
trated. that a product of Apex CITY
Ike Undine spragg, could throw dust
In the eyes Of a denizen Of Washington
Square, like Ralph MARVEL could
make THE Custom Of the Country go
down. The entire affair is too strained
TOO frantic in movement, too crude in
color, and too patiently accented by