Volume 48, Number 8 · May 17, 2001
The Foster Father
By Elizabeth Hardwick
Catherine Sloper, in the clear, chilly masterpiece Washington Square, must explain to the handsome, corrupt fortune-hunter, Morris Townsend, that if she marries without her father's consent, as she is willing to do, her own adequate fortune will not be augmented at the time of her father's death. Dr. Sloper has correctly diagnosed, as it were, the insidious moral infection of the suitor, a wastrel who could not possibly be in love with his plain, awkward, naively trusting daughter. Townsend, however, is desperately in need; he is bent upon real money rather than Catherine's sufficient income. He believes that if she pressed her case with more astute insistence she could bring her father around from the threat of disinheritance. The poor daughter knows better. Her reason comes forth at last in a painful recognition: 'He is not very fond of me.'
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