The Touchstone

The Touchstone Summary

The Touchstone by Edith Wharton is a novella published in 1900, marking her first entry into long-form fiction. The story follows Stephen Glennard, a man facing financial difficulties, who discovers that the private letters sent to him by a now-deceased, renowned author, Margaret Aubyn, could be sold for a substantial sum. As he publishes these intimate correspondences, Glennard grapples with guilt and the moral implications of his actions, especially as his marriage to his beloved Alexa becomes strained under the weight of his secret.

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The Touchstone Excerpt

Short Summary: Stephen Glennard, struggling financially, sells the private letters of his former admirer, the late author Margaret Aubyn, to secure his future. The publication's success brings wealth but also deep guilt, threatening his marriage to Alexa as he confronts the moral consequences of his betrayal.

Excerpt:

Stephen Glennard leant a little forward, resting his elbows on the table. The warm light of the September afternoon, slanting through the window, touched the thin edge of his cheekbone and drew across the hollow of his temple a sharp line that no one had noticed there three months before. He had always been slight and fair—a little effaced-looking in fact—with the kind of transparent skin that makes the least fatigue show as a shadow under the eyes; but he had the pleasant, unexacting good looks that go so well with good nature, and his friends had never seen in his easy-going temper a menace of future possibilities.

He had the New Yorker’s diffused sense of amenity, that general disposition to be in accord with the notions and habits of the people he lives among which comes to a good many of us like a kind of moral climate. It was as natural to Glennard to accept the opinions of his friends as it is to a tree to accept the exposure of its roots; and the opinions he accepted had for the most part served him very well. He had never been called on to define his faith any more than the average healthy man is called on to define his digestion; and it was with a kind of impersonal dismay that he now found himself brought face to face with the perpetual need of an answer to the question that faces every man when he begins to deal with his own destiny.

For the first time in his life he was confronted with the necessity of taking a definite stand, of reaching a decision that should involve not only his own future but that of another person. The idea of marriage had never been distasteful to him; he had the normal man's desire for a home and children, and he had never thought of his own claims as offering any obstacle to the realization of such a wish. But he had been content to let things drift, to wait for the conjunction of propitious circumstances that should make the step as inevitable as a phase of the moon.

That such a conjunction had now taken place he was not prepared to affirm; but he was conscious—vaguely yet importunately conscious—of a desire to put his case to the test, to find out what possibilities, if any, it still held for him. He was tired of drifting, tired of the unprofitable ways of life; he wanted to get back to the main road, to have before him a purpose, an aim, an end to work for. And he knew that, for him, this sense of direction could come only through the steadying influence of a woman's hand.

As he sat there, facing the question that had been with him for weeks, he felt a sudden longing for the sound of Alexa Trent's voice, for the light pressure of her hand, for the mere sense of her presence. He had not seen her for two days—an interval unprecedented in their recent intercourse—and the longing was like a physical thirst.

He rose and went to the window. The street below was empty, and the opposite houses, with their close-shuttered windows, seemed to reflect the emptiness. The whole city had the look of having been deserted overnight. He turned back into the room and his eye fell on a letter that lay on his writing-table. It was a note from Alexa, asking him to come to her that afternoon. He glanced at the clock and saw that it lacked but half an hour of the time she had named. As he read the note he had a curious sense of her actual presence, as though her voice had called him from the room beyond. He stood still, listening; then he caught up his hat and went out.