Passion in The Age of Innocence

Edith Wharton can sure write about passion. Look: 

“"Then stay with me a little longer," Madame Olenska said in a low tone, just touching his knee with her plumed fan. It was the lightest touch, but it thrilled him like a caress.” (Ch.8) 

That is from an early meeting between Newland Archer and Ellen Olenska. 

“The words stole through him like a temptation, and to close his senses to it he moved away from the hearth and stood gazing out at the black tree-boles against the snow. But it was as if she too had shifted her place, and he still saw her, between himself and the trees, drooping over the fire with her indolent smile. Archer's heart was beating insubordinately. What if it were from him that she had been running away, and if she had waited to tell him so till they were here alone together in this secret room?” (Ch.15) 

If I had good concentration now, I would be very tempted to reread Anna Karenina to see the way Tolstoy writes about passion.
Contrast the way Newland feels about Ellen, with the way he feels about May: 

“The young man was sincerely but placidly in love. He delighted in the radiant good looks of his betrothed, in her health, her horsemanship, her grace and quickness at games, and the shy interest in books and ideas that she was beginning to develop under his guidance.” (Ch.6) 

The word “radiant” or “radiance” seems to be linked to May: 

“The day was delectable. […] It was the weather to call out May's radiance, and she burned like a young maple in the frost. Archer was proud of the glances turned on her, and the simple joy of possessorship cleared away his underlying perplexities.” (Ch.10) 

He loves May’s looks, and he’s aware that she’s seen as a prize, so to speak (especially after they’re married), but she doesn’t inspire passion in him as Ellen does. Several times he travels to meet Ellen, on an impulse (Skuytercliffe, then the Blenkers’ house, then Boston). 

“He was not sure that he wanted to see the Countess Olenska again; but ever since he had looked at her from the path above the bay he had wanted, irrationally and indescribably, to see the place she was living in, and to follow the movements of her imagined figure as he had watched the real one in the summer-house. The longing was with him day and night, an incessant undefinable craving, like the sudden whim of a sick man for food or drink once tasted and long since forgotten. He could not see beyond the craving, or picture what it might lead to, for he was not conscious of any wish to speak to Madame Olenska or to hear her voice. He simply felt that if he could carry away the vision of the spot of earth she walked on, and the way the sky and sea enclosed it, the rest of the world might seem less empty.” (Ch.22) 

The passages about passion in The Age of Innocence are too great not to share. 

“As the paddle-wheels began to turn, and wharves and shipping to recede through the veil of heat, it seemed to Archer that everything in the old familiar world of habit was receding also. He longed to ask Madame Olenska if she did not have the same feeling: the feeling that they were starting on some long voyage from which they might never return. But he was afraid to say it, or anything else that might disturb the delicate balance of her trust in him. In reality he had no wish to betray that trust. There had been days and nights when the memory of their kiss had burned and burned on his lips; the day before even, on the drive to Portsmouth, the thought of her had run through him like fire; but now that she was beside him, and they were drifting forth into this unknown world, they seemed to have reached the kind of deeper nearness that a touch may sunder.” (Ch.23) 

Is that not magnificent? 
The writing is even better because the passion is unfulfilled: 

“… for a man sick with unsatisfied love, and parting for an indefinite period from the object of his passion, he felt himself almost humiliatingly calm and comforted. It was the perfect balance she had held between their loyalty to others and their honesty to themselves that had so stirred and yet tranquillized him; a balance not artfully calculated, as her tears and her falterings showed, but resulting naturally from her unabashed sincerity. It filled him with a tender awe, now the danger was over, and made him thank the fates that no personal vanity, no sense of playing a part before sophisticated witnesses, had tempted him to tempt her. Even after they had clasped hands for good-bye at the Fall River station, and he had turned away alone, the conviction remained with him of having saved out of their meeting much more than he had sacrificed.” (Ch.25) 

The Age of Innocence is such a great book. Like The House of Mirth and The Custom of the Country, it has some critique of high society and social conventions, but it’s much mellower, especially as Edith Wharton wrote this novel after the war and her perspective now changed. The Age of Innocence has a tenderness and melancholy not in the other novels, and there is also lots of passion. 




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Now, I must admit that a part of me disapproves of Newland Archer. I empathise with him, but can’t help feeling that he’s a coward and he’s being unfair to both May and Ellen, especially May. When he meets and falls in love with Ellen, he’s engaged but not married to May, he’s still free; Ellen is legally married, but separated, and seeking a divorce. It would be difficult, there would be a scandal, but he’s not in the same situation as, say, Anna Karenina. 
I don’t think I’m judging Newland from the modern perspective. His choice, I can’t help thinking, cannot be seen purely in abstract terms as a choice between individualism/ human needs and social conventions/ public image/ other people’s expectations. On the one hand, I understand that breaking the engagement in order to marry Ellen would hurt everyone involved and both families, but on the other hand, is it not worse that he marries May but yearns for Ellen and keeps thinking that May is innocent, conventional, limited, and doesn’t have what Ellen’s got? Newland himself says that Ellen gives him a glimpse of real life, and his life with May is a sham one. 
On a personal level I find it difficult to sympathise with Newland completely—he realises his feelings for Ellen, but instead of thinking about it and considering everything, he decides to shorten the engagement and hurry the wedding. Then he goes on with the wedding after he and Ellen have confessed their feelings to each other. 
Perhaps it’s too early to write about these things—I might change my view at the end of the book. People feel for Newland and Ellen, and their thwarted desire, I find myself caring more about May. It’s unjust to her.