“But Wharton hadn’t published any of her books while she lived in this
house. At Land’s End, she had been unknown, an unhappy married woman.
She had not yet become the real Edith Wharton. Not yet divorced. Not yet a
novelist. Not yet a war correspondent in France. She wonders how
terrifying it felt, not to know any of this about herself, to sit out on this big
lawn, looking at the sea, feeling like she was at the very end of it all. She
wonders what it was that made her realize there was somewhere else to go.”