Because you can't have depths without surfaces.
Linda Grant, thinking about clothes, books and other matters.
Pure Collection Ltd.
Net-a-porter UK

Thursday, 17 July 2008

Appeal to well-read readers . . .

Can anyone kindly identify which Edith Wharton novel this passage comes from? House of Mirth perhaps?

She had a few handsome dresses left- survivals of her last phase of splendour. . . as she spread them out on the bed, the scenes in which they had been worn rose vividly before her. An association lurked in every fold: each fall of lace and gleam of embroidery was like a letter in the record of her past. She was startled to find how the atmosphere of her old life enveloped her. . . She put back the dresses one by one, laying away with each some gleam of light, some note of laughter, some stray waft from the rose shores of pleasure.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Linda
I think its The House of Mirth

Sheila

Linda Grant said...

It's certainly the most obvious novel. I'll have to go and flip though the last third until I come across it. I just need confirmation that that's the source.

Caro said...

Google Books to the rescue: http://tinyurl.com/5f2pu5

Susan B said...

I'm thinking it's House of Mirth as well.

materfamilias said...

Chapter 13, apparently -- I used an English prof's checking-for-plagiarism trick and typed a sentence into Google. Very handy and should strike fear into my students ;-)

Linda Grant said...

Thanks to all of you, and that google thing is astonishing.

Anonymous said...

It is House of Mirth. I remember that from the beginning wrt Lily Bart.