The Novels and Tales of Henry JamesC. Scribner's sons, 1908 - Manners and customs |
Common terms and phrases
afraid Ameri American amuse answered appeared asked aunt Bantling beautiful Bedfordshire believe better Caspar Goodwood certainly charming clever companion Countess course cousin cried daugh deal dear delightful Edmund Ludlow England enquired everything exclaimed eyes face father feel felt Florence fond Gardencourt gave gentleman Gilbert Osmond girl give glad hands happy hope hour idea interest Isabel Italy Jermyn Street knew laugh less light live Lockleigh looked Lord Warburton Madame Merle marry matter mean ment Merle's mind Miss Archer Miss Molyneux Miss Stackpole mother natural need n't never niece one's panion Pansy perfectly perhaps person poor present pretty question Ralph Touchett remarked Rome seemed sense sister smile sort speak stood struck suppose sure talk tell there's things thought told tone took uncle visitor wish wonder young lady
Popular passages
Page viii - I need to show my people, to exhibit their relations with each other; for that is all my measure. If I watch them long enough I see them come together, I see them placed, I see them engaged in this or that act and in this or that difficulty. How they look and move and speak and behave, always in the setting I have found for them, is my account of them - of which I dare say, alas, que cela manque souvent d...
Page xxi - It is a representation simply of her motionlessly seeing, and an attempt withal to make the mere still lucidity of her act as "interesting" as the surprise of a caravan or the identification of a pirate.
Page xii - It came to be a square and spacious house — or has at least seemed so to me in this going over it again; but, such as it is, it had to be put up round my young woman while she stood there in perfect isolation.
Page 1 - UNDER certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.
Page 69 - Altogether, with her meagre knowledge, her inflated ideals, her confidence at once innocent and dogmatic, her temper at once exacting and indulgent, her mixture of curiosity and fastidiousness, of vivacity and indifference, her desire to look very well and to be if possible even better, her determination to see, to try, to know, her combination of the delicate, desultory, flame-like spirit and the eager and personal creature of conditions: she would be an easy victim of scientific criticism if she...
Page 67 - ... her so; for it seemed to her often that her mind moved more quickly than theirs, and this encouraged an impatience that might easily be confounded with superiority. It may be affirmed without delay that Isabel was probably very liable to the sin v' of self-esteem; she often surveyed with complacency •, the field of her own nature; she was in the habit of / taking for granted, on scanty evidence, that she was right; she treated herself to occasions of homage. Meanwhile her errors and delusions...
Page xiii - Challenge any such problem with any intelligence, and you immediately see how full it is of substance; the wonder being, all the while, as we look at the world, how absolutely, how inordinately, the Isabel Archers, and even much smaller female fry, insist on mattering. George Eliot has admirably noted it — "In these frail vessels is borne onward through the ages the treasure of human affection.
Page 401 - She was like a sheet of blank paper — the ideal jeune fille of foreign fiction. Isabel hoped that so fair and smooth a page would be covered with an edifying text. The Countess Gemini also came to call upon her, but the Countess was quite another affair. She was by no means a blank sheet ; she had been written over in a variety of hands, and Mrs.
Page x - The house of fiction has in short not one window, but a million— a number of possible windows not to be reckoned, rather; every one of which has been pierced, or is still piercable, in its vast front, by the need of the individual vision and by the pressure of the individual will.