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August 2013

While the inside of The Mount is magnificent, the majesty of the outside slightly dwarfs it. With its tiered terraces leading down to the formal gardens, and the view of a lake, I can imagine being perfectly content here, if a little lonely. Beauty only goes so far in alleviating that kind of loneliness. But to visit, it’s exquisite, and I imagine grand weeks were spent here between Wharton and her friends.

I can say this since I don’t operate the lawnmowers: though grand, it is certainly not imposing in scale. Expansive yes, and I can’t imagine a single person, or even two, could properly manage such grounds, yet it still feels cozy and intimate, its formal structure not in the least bit cold or constrained. With larger spaces like this, such formality works to organize the vastness of what’s at hand, each section becoming like a little room, connected by corridors of trees and shrubs. It creates secret nooks for stolen kisses, quiet corners for hushed conversations, and hidden opportunities for adoring lovers.

The gardens are just at the end of their summer glory, but the Japanese anemones keep it all fresh, and most of the annuals are still putting on a splendid show. Crowds of cleome, clouds of hydrangea, and a full phalanx of phlox soften the stiff angles of the layout. A long twin row of carefully-manicured trees forms the border of the main walkway, a leafy promenade that called for something much more fanciful than my shorts and sneakers.

A fountain of fish and the accompanying cadence of falling water lend a soothing and cooling aspect in spite of the mid-day sun that beats down relentlessly. It reminds me of how important a water feature is to the garden, and how we may have to implement one next year. There are ways to incorporate ideas from a garden this grand into one decidedly less-so.

A woodland walk leads into the forest to the right of this sculptural focal point, a seamless segue into the wilder environs of the grounds, and a chance to be shaded and hidden. If there hadn’t been so many bugs I would have allowed the forest to close more completely behind me.

This corner of the premises offers the most striking view of the house, perched upon its namesake, resplendent in the early afternoon sunlight and framed by ancient pine trees. The soft splashing of the fountain and the calls of a few birds are all that break the tenuous silence – though silence here seems to carry more substance, more lasting power than other places.

The fountain in the West garden (seen below) mirrors the one in the East garden (above), though in a more informal manner – its grouping of rocks more aligned with the shadier, wilder aspect of this part of the land, the circular shape softer and gentler than the rigid angles of the East.

An enormous wall of climbing hydrangeas must have been quite the sight in full bloom – for now just the white begonias and hostas are sharing their subtle blossoms. This garden is more hidden, sunken down slightly lower than the rest of the grounds, tucked deeper into the hillside. Its plants are fit for the shade, less showy with their flowers, more focused on the verdant surfaces of its leaves.

I like the quieter feel of this area. It’s the perfect place to finish up our tour of The Mount. As we walk back towards the house, a large tour group is just traversing the promenade. Our little pocket of stillness and quiet has come to its close, the morning of my birthday easing into the afternoon as we make our way back to New York.

Sometimes there is no more intimate glimpse into a person than in seeing their home. It’s where the inner-sanctums of our lives take place, when the unguarded moments of solitude or intimately-shared living occur. It’s almost painfully revealing, particularly when the person in residence is not present.

Whenever I find myself in a friend’s home, either waiting for their arrival, or hanging out until their return, I feel like I’ve been given a privileged peek at what they hold most dear. I usually read too much into it – wondering at the choice of a pillow (that they probably got as a gift) or the placement of a bookshelf (that probably came with the house).

I know if someone scrutinized my home that way I’d be saddled with all sorts of unfair attributes. (The slate entryway was not my idea, and that shoddy, torn, on-its-last-legs leather sofa is all Andy, all the way.) So I realize the insanity of placing so much stock in the surroundings, but part of me feels it is an accurate representation of who someone is at their most unguarded.

You can also tell a lot about a person by the books one reads. A lot, yes, but certainly not everything, especially with a library as big as the one seen here. No doubt Ms. Wharton read a great deal, but she surely didn’t read everything here. Some books belonged to her husband, some to friends, and some were probably just shelf-filler to balance an empty row out. The mere fact that she held a library in such high-esteem says more than her choice of books.

Simply being in the same space that someone once occupied can give little clues as to what they were like, or at least give an idea of what they might have seen, or how the light may have moved them. Those are the intimate details I crave about the people I love and admire. To see where someone whose words so moved me actually lived and worked and wrote can be as telling as any biography, or autobiography for that matter.

Because sometimes what is unsaid and unwritten is more meaningful and impactful than what we choose to reveal.

But I have sometimes thought that a woman’s nature is like a great house full of rooms: there is the hall, through which everyone passes in going in and out; the drawing-room, where one receives formal visits; the sitting-room, where the members of the family come and go as they list; but beyond that, far beyond, are other rooms, the handles of whose doors perhaps are never turned; no one knows the way to them, no one knows whither they lead; and in the innermost room, the holy of holies, the soul sits alone and waits for a footstep that never comes. ~ Edith Wharton

The master bedroom suite was divided into these two rooms, which Ms. Wharton occupied on her own, for the most part. Though the furniture is not original, it gives an idea of what it might have looked like. The light, and the windows, were as she would have experienced them, and that’s what matters. She would have looked out over the same expanse of green, the same trees in the distance, and the same lake. A similar sky would have appeared countless times, and the exact same sun would have shone as it did on this day, traveling the same trajectory across the floor, molding the same shadows.

We have to make things beautiful; they do not grow so of themselves. ~ Edith Wharton

I believe I know the only cure, which is to make one’s center of life inside of one’s self, not selfishly or excludingly, but with a kind of unassailable serenity – to decorate one’s inner house so richly that one is content there, glad to welcome anyone who wants to come and stay, but happy all the same when one is inevitably alone. ~ Edith Wharton

‘The Mount’ was Edith Wharton’s home and garden for about ten years of her life. She lived there with her husband (in adjoining rooms) in the time before their marriage finally fell apart. It remains a gorgeous estate, and for my birthday this year we made the quick drive into Lenox, MA on a gloriously sunny day.

Ms. Wharton is best known for her written work, particularly ‘The House of Mirth’, ‘The Age of Innocence’, and ‘Ethan Frome’. (Forgive the apostrophes around titles on this blog, but there’s no way to do italics in this format. Well, there may be, but I can’t be bothered to figure out formatting right now.) She was one of my favorite authors in those formative years when what we read somehow seeps into who we become. Her stories were of people trapped, but still trying valiantly to do the right thing, torn between what society demanded of them, and what their hearts desired. And while being trapped is not something to which I could particularly relate at the time (tricksters never get trapped – they always find a way out), the notion of societal expectations was something that struck me.

In many of Wharton’s works, those who dare to defy such constrictions are doomed to live unhappy, lonely lives – but the alternatives are even more harrowing. Lives lived in loveless marriages (Newland Archer) or lives cut short when marriage is put off (Lily Bart) – there are no easy choices, and no decisions are made without some sort of loss or compromise. That cuts through to everyone, whether it’s high-society old New York, or modern-day hum-drum middle-class Albany.

Her first major work, however, was not a scathing work of fiction, but rather a book on interior design – one of the first of its kind in this country. ‘The Decoration of Houses’ was a guide she wrote with Ogden Codman, and many credit the pair with beginning the decorating craze of America. She was, in a way, the forerunner of all things HGTV and Martha Stewart, guiding with a sure hand, sound advice, and practical ideas. She took European notions, but simplified them, reducing the baroque baggage for a more elegant presentation and less cluttered feel. Her gardens maintained a rigid formal structure, but they took in the wild Berkshires as their beautiful backdrop, a vista of untouched lake was the view of her backyard, and the winding casual slopes of woodland walks surrounded the estate.

Looking out over her backyard from the terrace, it was not difficult to understand her love for the place, but beauty can only heal so much.

What is reading, in the last analysis, but an interchange of thought between writer and reader? If the book enters the reader’s mind just as it left the writer’s — without any of the additions and modifications inevitably produced by contact with a new body of thought — it has been read to no purpose. ~ Edith Wharton

Before reaching The Mount, Edith Wharton’s Estate and Garden (where we spent my birthday this year – details coming in the next post), visitors must pass through a length of forested trails, paths leading down a gently sloping incline to the formal grounds. Midway along this journey was this small writing hut. Pieces of white paper were hanging on the open-slatted walls, fluttering in the breeze. A pile of more paper and a few pencils were scattered on a table in the middle of the tiny room, waiting for more messages to be written.

Poems, letters, phrases, and signatures slowly oscillated on their clips and strings. I read a few, and while I know it’s why they – and we – are here, it still feels intensely personal, as if I’m somehow invading someone’s private thoughts. For that reason, I do not write anything down.

I find one that especially touches me. It is anonymous, just a few scribbled words, and maybe it means something and maybe it’s just an artful poem. The pain, though, is palpable. The sense of loss – of missing something, of waiting fruitlessly in vain- is swaying in the wind. There is danger in such desire, and danger in that desperation, but here, in the dappled sunlight, filtered by trees and wood, the danger is removed. It is, more than anything, a sense of peaceful resignation that pervades the space. That is what the rawest writing can do.

Our time in the writing hut is done.

A ghostly robe beckons us on to The Mount.

The forest feels haunted.

There is one friend in the life of each of us who seems not a separate person, however dear and beloved, but an expansion, an interpretation, of one’s self, the very meaning of one’s soul. ~ Edith Wharton