Edith Wharton on Characters

Which comes first—the characters or the plot? In 1933 the novelist Edith Wharton explained that sometimes it was a character and other times a situation that suggested to her the idea for a story.When I first began to talk with novelists about the art of fiction I was amazed at the frequently repeated phrase, "I've been hunting about for months for a good subject." Hunting about for a subject!