X ingu by Edith Wharton
is a tale of ladies who serve up lit-
erature with their lunch, digesting
only the latter. The ladies of "The
Lunch Club" are all aflutter, for they
anticipate a visit from eminent con-
temporary novelist Osric Dane,
author of The Wings of Death,
which they intend to discuss, some
of them without benefit of reading
the tome. Mrs. Roby is the pariah
of the group, who admits to reading
Trollope rather than contemporary
authors, because he "amuses" her.
But the ladies are seeking Elevation
and Improvement: "The object of
our little club…is to concentrate the
highest tendencies of Hillbridge—to
centralize and focus its complex in-
tellectual effort."
One wonders, from the titles of
Osric's oeuvre, if Wharton is gently
An introductory
note...
HYLAND
