Representing Lawyers: Edith Wharton’S Portrayal of Lawyers and Lawyering in the Touchstone and Summer

REPRESENTING LAWYERS: EDITH WHARTON’S PORTRAYAL OF LAWYERS AND LAWYERING IN THE TOUCHSTONE AND SUMMER

DEBORAH HECHT

“Representing Lawyers” focuses on the working lawyers in two of Edith Wharton’s novellas: The Touchstone (1900) and Summer (1917). Stephen Glennard of The Touchstone is an ambitious young man practicing corporate law in Manhattan. In contrast, lawyer Royall is an older man, a Lincolnian figure who ekes out a living in the remote village of North Dormer, Massachusetts. Glennard seems to exemplify the sophisticated corporate lawyer, while Royall might be the embodiment of the romanticized solo practitioner. Wharton, however, subverts any possibility of the reader idealizing either of these fictional lawyers, each of whom struggles with a serious ethical dilemma.

Edith Wharton is noted for her ironic portrayals of Old New York, that rule- bound, intensely conventional world in which she grew up. More recently, she is recognized for her empathetic and realistic portrayals of working class women in fiction as seemingly diverse as “The Bunner Sisters” and The House of Mirth. Wharton also creates memorable portraits of lawyers and their approaches to lawyering, and she does so in works including The Touchstone (1900) and Summer (1917), novellas that present the reader with two very different kinds of barristers. In The Touchstone, the ambitious young lawyer Stephen Glennard, a member of an elite Manhattan law firm, is believed to have demonstrated his finan- cial acumen. In Summer, a solo practitioner, Lawyer Royall, ekes out a living in the remote Massachusetts village of North Dormer. At first glance, Glennard might be compared to the aristocrats described by Alexis de Toqueville in Democracy in America, an exemplar of the corporate lawyer, while Royall might be compared to the romanticized Lincolnian figure described by Jerold Auerbach in Unequal Justice.1 However, although Glennard and Royall might

1 Jerold Auerbach, Unequal Justice (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976). 15. 84 Deborah Hecht seem to represent one or another aspect of the developing late nineteenth century legal profession, Wharton subverts any possibility of the reader idealizing her fictional lawyers. In each of these novellas, Wharton exposes serious per- sonal, legal and ethical dilemmas with which Glennard and Royall struggle. It is not surprising that Wharton created characters who are lawyers since her parents’ circle of friends included George Templeton Strong, noted lawyer and diarist; similarly, Wharton’s circle of relatives and friends also included lawyers. For example, Thomas Newbold, her first cousin and advisor, represented Wharton when she divorced her husband Teddy. Billy Wharton, her brother-in-law, received his law degree from Harvard in 1873 and went on to become a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and he was later appointed Assistant Secretary of State under President Benjamin Harrison. Other connections include the Parisian lawyer Andre Boccon-Gibbard, who represented Wharton when she contested her mother’s will; Judge Robert Grant, Boston lawyer and novelist, and the elusive and never-married lawyer Walter Van Rensselaer Berry. Indeed, Walter Berry was one of Wharton’s most cherished friends. Although it is tempting to speculate that some of Wharton’s fictional lawyers might be based on the elite lawyers with whom she was acquainted, in Wharton’s autobiography A Backward Glance she states: “Nothing can be more trying to the creative writer than to have a clumsy finger point at one of the beings born in that mysterious other-world of invention…” 2 As mentioned previously, Glennard and Royall might initially seem to fit one or another aspect of the late nineteenth century legal profession. At the turn of the last century, the dominant trend among the elite members of the bar was to professionalize the training of lawyers and to raise standards. For many, as Justice David Josiah Brewer states in his 1906 essay, “The Ideal Lawyer,” 3 the goal was “to put safeguards around their ranks, which will prevent the entrance of, and also remove after entrance, the unworthy and incompetent, and at the same time lift up its character.” For some, the movement to professionalize was a way to prevent immigrants (such as Jews and Italians) from becoming lawyers. However, the most dramatic change in the legal profession during the last part of the 19th Century was the emergence of the corporate lawyer. In the previously mentioned Unequal Justice, Jerold Auerbach points out that the best opportunities were for “those lawyers who possessed appropriate social, religious, and ethnic credentials…. Only those lawyers who possessed ‘considerable social capital’ could inhabit the corporate law firm world.” 4 The

2 Edith Wharton, A Backward Glance (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1934). 943. 3 David Josiah Brewer, “The Ideal Lawyer” (The Atlantic Monthly, November 1906) 13. 4 Auerbach, 21.