Unleavened Bread - Edith Wharton's Comments

In his memoir titled Fourscore, Robert Grant quotes a letter he received from Edith Wharton regarding his novel Unleavened Bread:

"As for Selma, I think her as good in her way as Gwendolen Grandcourt. Every stroke tells, and you never forget the inconscient quality of her selfishness; you never fall into the error of making her deliberately false or cruel. The lesser characters seem to me admirably differentiated, from Mrs. Margaret Rodney Earle to the incomparable Mr. Lyons, whose speech to the Benham Institute in the nomination of Miss Luella Bailey is a masterpiece of American rhetoric."