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He sat with his yes fixed on hers while she spoke; then he lowered them and attached them to a spot on the carpet as if he were making a strong effort to say nothing but what he ought. He was a strong man in the wrong, and he was acute enough to see that an uncompromising exhibition of his strength would only throw the falsity of his position into relief. Isabel was not incapable of taking any advantage of position over a person of this quality, and though little desirous to flaunt it in his face she could enjoy being able to say 'You know you oughtn't to have written to me yourself!' and to say it with an air of triumph. By Henry James Strong Spoke Sat Fixed Lowered

embodied in the remark that dear far-away Ruth's intentions were doubtless good. She and Kent are even yet looking for another prop, but no one presents a true sphere of usefulness. They complain that people are self-sufficing. With Saltram the fine type of the child of adoption was scattered, the grander, the elder style. They've got their carriage back, but what's an empty carriage? In short I think we were all happier as well as poorer before; even including George Gravener, who by the deaths of his brother and his nephew has lately become Lord Maddock. His wife, whose fortune clears the property, is criminally dull; he hates being in the Upper By Henry James Ruth Embodied Good Remark Dear

It's very true; there are many more iron pots certainly than porcelain. But you may depend on it that every one bears some mark; even the hardest iron pots have a little bruise, a little hole somewhere. I flatter myself that I'm rather stout, but if I must tell you the truth I've beenshockingly chipped and cracked. I do very well for service yet, because I've been cleverly mended; and I try to remain in the cupboard - the quiet, dusky cupboard where there's an odour of stale spices - as much as I can. Butwhen I've to come out and into a strong light - then, my dear, I'm a horror! By Henry James Iron Pots True Porcelain Cupboard

Had passed between them on this score wasn't so and could never be. Later on, through his mother, I had his version of that, but I may remark that I gave it no credit. Poor Mrs. Nettlepoint, on the other hand, was of course to give it all. I was almost capable, after the girl had left me, of By Henry James Passed Score Nettlepoint Mrs Mother

Make the short story tremendously succinct - with a very short pulse or rhythm - and the closest selection of detail - in other words summarise intensely and deeply and keep down the lateral development. It should be a little gem of bright, quick, vivid form By Henry James Short Make Succinct Rhythm Detail

The summer had turned, the summer had gone; the autumn had dropped upon Bly and had blown out half our lights. The place, with its gray sky and withered garlands, its bared spaces and scattered dead leaves, was like a theater after the performanceall strewn with crumpled playbills. By Henry James Summer Bly Turned Lights Autumn

SHE COULDN'T have said what it was, in the conditions, that renewed the whole solemnity, but by the end of twenty minutes a kind of wistful hush had fallen upon them, as before something poignant in which her visitor also participated. That was nothing verily but the perfection of the charm - or nothing rather but their excluded disinherited state in the presence of it. The By Henry James Conditions Solemnity Participated Renewed End

What had the man had, to make him by the loss of it so bleed and yet live? Something - and this reached him with a pang - that he, John Marcher, hadn't; the proof of which was precisely John Marcher's arid end. No passion had ever touched him, for this was what passion meant; he had survived and maundered and pined, but where had been his deep ravage? ... The escape would have been to love her; then, then he would have lived. By Henry James John Marcher Live Man Make

Some three or four years before this Dr. Sloper had moved his household gods up town, as they say in New York. He had been living ever since his marriage in an edifice of red brick, with granite copings and an enormous fanlight over the door, standing in a street within five minutes' walk of the City Hall, which saw its best days (from the social point of view) about 1820. After this, the tide of fashion began to set steadily northward, as, indeed, in New York, thanks to the narrow channel in which it flows, it is obliged to do, and the great hum of traffic rolled farther to the right and left of Broadway. By Henry James York Sloper Town Years Moved

I don't need the aid of a clever man to teach me how to live. I can find it out for myself. By Henry James Live Aid Clever Man Teach

Only a drummer-boy in a ballad or a story could have been so in the thick of the fight. She was taken into the confidence of passions on which she fixed just the stare she might have had for images bounding across the wall in the slide of a magic-lantern. Her little world was phantasmagoric - strange shadows dancing on a sheet. It was as if the whole performance had been given for her - a mite of a half-scared infant in a great dim theatre. She was in short introduced to life with a liberality in which the selfishness of others found its account, and there was nothing to avert the sacrifice but the modesty of her youth. By Henry James Fight Drummerboy Ballad Story Thick

Are you using me simply as a vulgar tool? Don't you care for me the least little bit? Let me suggest that for a girl in your-your ambiguous position, you are too proud, by several shades. Don't go back to Roger in a hurry! You're not the unspotted maiden you were but two short days ago. Who am I, what am I, to the people whose opinion you care for? A very low fellow, madam; and yet with me you've gone far to cast your lot. If you're not prepared to do more, you should have done less. Nora, Nora," he went on, breaking into a vein none the less revolting for being more ardent, "I confess I don't understand you! But the more you puzzle me the more you fascinate me; and the less you like me the more I love you. What has there been between you and Lawrence? Hang me if I can understand! Are you an angel of purity, or are you the most audacious of flirts? By Henry James Tool Simply Vulgar Nora Care

I have never allowed a gentleman to dictate to me, or to interfere with anything I do. By Henry James Allowed Gentleman Dictate Interfere

It comes over me that I had then a strange alter ego deep down somewhere inside me, as the full-blown flower is in the small tight bud, and I just took the course, I just transferred him to the climate, that blighted him once and for ever. By Henry James Bud Climate Strange Alter Ego

We are far from liking London well enough till we like its defects: the dense darkness of much of its winter, the soot on the chimney-pots and everywhere else, the early lamplight, the brown blur of the houses, the splashing of hansoms in Oxford Street or the Strand on December afternoons.There is still something that recalls to me the enchantment of children - the anticipation of Christmas, the delight of a holiday walk - in the way the shop-fronts shine into the fog. It makes each of them seem a little world of light and warmth, and I can still waste time in looking at them with dirty Bloomsbury on one side and dirtier Soho on the other. By Henry James Christmas London Oxford Street Strand

An enthusiasm for Poe is the mark of a decidedly primitive stage of reflection. Baudelaire thought him a profound philosopher ... Poe was much the greater charlatan of the two, as well as the greater genius. By Henry James Reflection Poe Enthusiasm Mark Decidedly

Now that she was in the secret, now that she knew something that so much concerned her and the eclipse of which had made life resemble an attempt to play whilst with an imperfect pack of cards, the truth of things, their mutual relations, their meaning, and for the most part their horror, rose before her with a kind of architectural vastness. By Henry James Secret Cards Things Relations Meaning

Our men have been real Frenchmen, and their wivesI may say ithave been worthy of them. You may see all their portraits at our house in Auvergne; every one of them an "injured" beauty, but not one of them hanging her head. Not one of them had the bad taste to be jealous ... These are great traditions, and it doesn't seem to me fair that a little American bourgeoise should come in and pretend to alter them, and should hang her photograph, with her obstinate little "air penche By Henry James Frenchmen Men Real Wivesi Ithave

It has made me better loving you ... it has made me wiser, and easier, and brighter. I used to want a great many things before, and to be angry that I did not have them. Theoretically, I was satisfied. I flattered myself that I had limited my wants. But I was subject to irritation; I used to have morbid sterile hateful fits of hunger, of desire. Now I really am satisfied, because I can't think of anything better. It's just as when one has been trying to spell out a book in the twilight, and suddenly the lamp comes in. I had been putting out my eyes over the book of life, and finding nothing to reward me for my pains; but now that I can read it properly I see that it's a delightful story. By Henry James Made Loving Satisfied Book Wiser

Life is, in fact, a battle. Evil is insolent and strong; beauty enchanting, but rare; goodness very apt to be weak; folly very apt to be defiant; wickedness to carry the day; imbeciles to be in great places, people of sense in small, and mankind generally unhappy. But the world as it stands is no narrow illusion, no phantasm, no evil dream of the night; we wake up to it, forever and ever; and we can neither forget it nor deny it nor dispense with it. By Henry James Life Fact Battle Apt Evil

I'm yours for everfor ever and ever. Here I stand; I'm as firm as a rock. If you'll only trust me, how little you'll be disappointed. Be mine as I am yours. By Henry James Everfor Stand Rock Firm Disappointed

She had been looking all round her again - at the lawn, the great trees, the reedy, silvery Thames, the beautiful old house; and while engaged in this survey she had made room in it for her companions; a comprehensiveness of observation easily conceivable on the part of a young woman who was evidently both intelligent and excited. She had seated herself and had put away the little dog; her white hands, in her lap, were folded upon her black dress; her head was erect, her eye lighted, her flexible figure turned itself easily this way and that, in sympathy with the alertness with which she evidently caught impressions. Her impressions were numerous, and they were all reflected in a clear, still smile. I've never seen anything so beautiful as this. By Henry James Thames Easily Evidently Lawn Trees

Rush? not in the least. I take it uncommon easy." "Ah I'm bound to say you do!" Mrs. Nettlepoint returned with inconsequence. I guessed at a certain tension between the pair and a want of consideration on the young man's part, arising perhaps from selfishness. His mother was nervous, in suspense, wanting to be at rest as to whether she should have his company on the voyage or be obliged to struggle alone. But as he stood there smiling and slowly moving his fan he struck me somehow as a person on whom this fact wouldn't sit too heavily. He was of the type of those whom other people worry about, not of those who worry about other people. Tall and strong, By Henry James Rush People Worry Nettlepoint Easy

To believe in a child is to believe in the future. Through their aspirations they will save the world. With their combined knowledge the turbulent seas of hate and injustice will be calmed. They will champion the causes of life's underdogs, forging a society without class discrimination. They will supply humanity with music and beauty as it has never known. They will endure. Towards these ends I pledge my life's work. I will supply the children with tools and knowledge to overcome the obstacles. I will pass on the wisdom of my years and temper it with patience. I shall impact in each child the desire to fulfill his or her dream. I shall teach. By Henry James Future Supply Child Knowledge Life

The main object of the novel is to represent life ... The success of a work of art, to my mind, may be measured by the degree to which it produces a certain illusion; that illusion makes it appear to us for the time that we have lived another life - that we have had a miraculous enlargement of experience. By Henry James Life Main Object Represent Illusion

Mr. Morris's poem is ushered into the world with a very florid birthday speech from the pen of the author of the too famous Poems and Ballads, - a circumstance, we apprehend, in no small degree prejudicial to its success. But we hasten to assure all persons whom the knowledge of Mr. Swinburne's enthusiasm may have led to mistrust the character of the work, that it has to our perception nothing in common with this gentleman's own productions, and that his article proves very little more than that his sympathies are wiser than his performance. If Mr. Morris's poem may be said to remind us of the manner of any other writer, it is simply of that of Chaucer; and to resemble Chaucer is a great safeguard against resembling Swinburne. By Henry James Ballads Morris Swinburne Poem Circumstance

One's theories, after all, matter little, it is one's humor that is the great thing. By Henry James Theories Matter Thing Humor Great

You must save what you can of your life; you musn't lose it all simply because you've lost a part. By Henry James Life Part Save Mus Lose

I was too much taken up with another interest to care; I felt beneath my feet the threshold of the strange door, in my life, which had suddenly been thrown open and out of which came an air of a keenness I had never breathed and of a taste stronger than wine. I had heard all my days of apparitions, but it was a different thing to have seen one and to know that I should in all likelihood see it familiarly, as I might say, again. I was on the lookout for it as a pilot for the flash of a revolving light and ready to generalise on the sinister subject, to answer for it to all and sundry that ghosts were much less alarming and much more amusing than was commonly supposed. There's no doubt that I was much uplifted. I couldn't get over the distinction conferred on me, the exception - in the way of mystic enlargement of vision - made in my favour.("Sir Edmund Orme") By Henry James Care Door Life Wine Interest

My father ain't in Europe; my father's in a better place than Europe." Winterbourne imagined for a moment that this was the manner in which the child had been taught to intimate that Mr. Miller had been removed to the sphere of celestial reward. But Randolph immediately added, "My father's in Schenectady. By Henry James Europe Father Place Miller Schenectady

I don't think I pity her. She doesn't strike me as a girl that suggests compassion. I think I envy her ... I don't know whether she is a gifted being, but she is a clever girl, with a strong will and a high temper. She has no idea of being bored ... Very pretty indeed; but I don't insist upon that. It's her general air of being someone in particular that strikes me. By Henry James Pity Girl Compassion Suggests Strike

I don't care about anything but you, and that's enough for the present. I want you to be happynot to think of anything sad; only to feel that I'm near you and I love you. Why should there be pain? In such hours as this what have we to do with pain? That's not the deepest thing; there's something deeper. By Henry James Present Care Pain Sad Happynot

The superiority of one man's opinion over another's is never so great as when the opinion is about a woman. By Henry James Woman Opinion Superiority Man Great

Well, I am rather afraid of that visit," said Clifford. "It seems to me it will be rather like going to school again."The Baroness looked at him a moment."My dear child," she said, "there is no agreeable man who has not, at some moment, been to school to a clever womanprobably a little older than himself. And you must be thankful when you get your instructions gratis. With me you would get it gratis. By Henry James Clifford Visit Afraid School Gratis

She looked about her again, on her feet, at her scattered melancholy comrades some of them so melancholy as to be down on their stomachs in the grass, turned away, ignoring, burrowing; she saw once more, with them, those two faces of the question between which there was so little to choose for inspiration. It was perhaps superficially more striking that one could live if one would; but it was more appealing, insinuating, irresistible in short, that one would live if one could. By Henry James Ignoring Burrowing Melancholy Feet Grass

It had come back to him simply that what he had been looking at all summer was a very rich and beautiful world, and that it had not all been made by sharp railroad men and stock-brokers. By Henry James World Stockbrokers Back Simply Summer

I keep a band of music in my ante-room," he said once to her. "It has orders to play without stopping; it renders me two excellent services. It keeps the sounds of the world from reaching the private apartments, and it makes the world think that dancing's going on within. By Henry James Anteroom Band Music World Stopping

You must come to Lockleigh again," said Miss Molyneux, very sweetly, to Isabel, ignoring this remark of Isabel's friend. Isabel looked into her quiet eyes a moment, and for that moment seemed to see in their grey depths the reflexion of everything she had rejected in rejecting Lord Warburton - the peace, the kindness, the honour, the possessions, a deep security and a great exclusion. She kissed Miss Molyneux and then she said: "I'm afraid I can never come again. By Henry James Isabel Lockleigh Miss Molyneux Sweetly

It argued a special genius; he was clearly a case of that. The spark of fire, the point of light, sat somewhere in his inward vagueness as a lamp before a shrine twinkles in the dark perspective of a church; and while youth and early middle-age, while the stiff American breeze of example and opportunity were blowing upon it hard, had made the chamber of his brain a strange workshop of fortune. This establishment, mysterious and almost anonymous, the windows of which, at hours of highest pressure, never seemed, for starers and wonderers, perceptibly to glow, must in fact have been during certain years the scene of an unprecedented, a miraculous white-heat, the receipt for producing which it was practically felt that the master of the forge could not have communicated even with the best intentions. By Henry James Genius Argued Special Case American

It was amusing, in such lightness of air, that the Prince should again present himself only to speak for the Princess, so unfortunately unable again to leave home; and that Mrs Verver should as regularly figure as an embodied, a beautifully deprecating apology for her husband, who was all geniality and humility among his own treasures, but as to whom the legend had grown up that he couldn't bear, with the height of his standards and the tone of the company, in the way of sofas and cabinets, habitually kept by him, the irritation and depression to which promiscuous visiting, even at pompous houses, had been found to expose him. By Henry James Princess Prince Mrs Verver Amusing

I have in my own fashion learned the lesson that life is effort, unremittingly repeated. By Henry James Effort Unremittingly Repeated Fashion Learned

She had a great desire for knowledge, but she really preferred almost any source of information to the printed page; she had an immense curiosity about life, and was constantly staring and wondering. She carried within herself a great fund of life, and her deepest enjoyment was to feel the continuity between the movements of her own heart and the agitations of the world. For this reason she was fond of seeing great crowds and large stretches of country, of reading about revolutions and wars, of looking at historical pictures ... By Henry James Great Life Knowledge Page Wondering

She carried within herself a great fund of life, and her deepest enjoyment was to feel the continuity between the movement of her own heart and the agitations of the world. For this reason, she was fond of seeing great crowds, and large stretches of country, of reading about revolutions and wars, of looking at historical picturesa class of efforts to which she had often gone so far as to forgive much bad painting for the sake of the subject. By Henry James Great Life World Carried Fund

True admiration," said Mrs. Keith, "is one half respect and the other half self-denial. By Henry James Keith Mrs True Admiration Selfdenial

The power to guess the unseen from the seen, to trace the implication of things, to judge the whole piece by the pattern, the condition of feeling life, in general, so completely that you are well on your way to knowing any particular corner of it-this cluster of gifts may almost be said to constitute experience, and they occur in country and in town, and in the most differing stages of education. By Henry James Things Pattern Life General Experience

The old superstition about fiction being 'wicked' has doubtless died out in England; but the spirit of it lingers in a certain oblique regard directed toward any story which does not more or less admit that it is only a joke. Even the most jocular novel feels in some degree the weight of the proscription that was formerly directed against literary levity; the jocularity does not always succeed in passing for gravity. It is still expected, though perhaps people are ashamed to say it, that a production which is after all only a 'make believe' (for what else is a 'story'?) shall be in some degree apologetic-shall renounce the pretension of attempting really to compete with life. This, of course, any sensible wide-awake story declines to do, for it quickly perceives that the tolerance granted to it on such a condition is only an attempt to stifle it, disguised in the form of generosity. By Henry James England Wicked Directed Story Joke

He was "distinguished" to the tips of his polished nails, and there was not a movement of his fine perpendicular person that was not noble and majestic. Newman had never yet been confronted with such an incarnation of the art of taking oneself seriously; he felt a sort of impulse to step backward, as you do to get a view of a great facade. By Henry James Distinguished Nails Majestic Tips Polished

There is an old-fashioned distinction between the novel of character and the novel of incident, which must have cost many a smile to the intending romancer who was keen about his work. It appears to me as little to the point as the equally celebrated distinction between the novel and the romance- to answer as little to any reality. There are bad novels and good novels, as there are bad pictures and good pictures; but that is the only distinction in which I see any meaning, and I can as little imagine speaking of a novel of character as I can imagine speaking of a picture of character. When one says picture, one says of character, when one says novel, one says of incident, and the terms may be transposed. What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character? What is a picture or a novel that is not of character? What else do we seek in it and find in it? By Henry James Character Distinction Incident Picture Work

He sank upon the old yellow sofa, the sofa of his lifetime and of so many years before, and buried his head on the shabby, tattered arm. A succession of sobs broke from his lips -- sobs in which the accumulated emotion of months and the strange, acute conflict of feelings that had possessed him for the three weeks just past found relief and a kind of solution. Lady Aurora sat down beside him, and laid her finger-tips gently on his hand. So, for a minute, while his tears flowed and she said nothing, he felt her timid, consoling touch. At the end of the minute he raised his head; it came back to him that she had said "we" just before, and he asked her whom she meant. By Henry James Sofa Shabby Tattered Arm Sank

I would live for you still - if I could." Her eyes closed for a little, as if, withdrawn into herself, she were for a last time trying. "But I can't!" she said as she raised them again to take leave of him. She couldn't indeed, as but too promptly and sharply appeared, and he had no vision of her after this that was anything but darkness and doom. By Henry James Live Withdrawn Eyes Closed Time

It was one of the secret opinions, such as we all have, of Peter Brench, that his main success in life would have consisted in his never having committed himself about the work, as it was called, of his friend Morgan Mallow. This was a subject on which it was, to the best of his belief, impossible with veracity to quote him, and it was nowhere on record that he had, in the connexion, on any occasion and in any embarrassment, either lied or spoken the truth. Such a triumph had its honour even for a man of other triumphsa man who had reached fifty, who had escaped marriage, who had lived within his means, who had been in love with Mrs Mallow for years without breathing it, and who, last but not least, had judged himself once for all. By Henry James Brench Peter Morgan Mallow Opinions

The will, I believe, is the mystery of mysteries. Who can say beforehand that his will is strong? There are all kinds of indefinable currents moving to and fro between one's will and one's inclinations. People talk as if the two things were essentially distinct; on different sides of one's organism, like the heart and the liver. I believe there is a certain group of circumstances possible for every man, in which his will is destined to snap like a dry twig. By Henry James Mysteries Mystery Strong Inclinations People

Before me and beside me sat a row of the comeliest young men, clad in black gowns and wearing on their shoulders long hoods trimmed in white fur. Who and what they were I know not, for I preferred not to learn, lest by chance they should not be so mediaeval as they looked. By Henry James Men Clad Fur Sat Row

Really, universally, relations stop nowhere, and the exquisite problem of the artist is eternally but to draw, by a geometry of his own, the circle within which they shall happily appear to do so. By Henry James Universally Relations Draw Stop Exquisite

It often seemed to her that she thought too much about herself, you could have made her blush any day of the year, by telling her she was selfish. She was always planning out her own development, desiring her own perfection, observing her own progress. Her nature had for her own imagination a certain garden-like quality, a suggestion of perfume and murmuring bows, of shady bowers and of lengthening vistas, which made her feel that introspection was, after all, an exercise in the open air, and that a visit to the recesses of one's mind was harmless when one returned from it with a lapful of roses. By Henry James Year Selfish Made Thought Blush

the company - that at the eleventh hour an old ship with a lower standard of speed had been put on in place of the vessel in which I had taken my passage. America was roasting, England might very well be stuffy, and a slow passage (which at that season of the year would probably also be a fine one) was a guarantee of ten or twelve days of fresh air. I strolled down By Henry James Passage Company Eleventh Hour Ship

[Thomas Henry] Huxley is a very genial, comfortable being-yet with none of the noisy and windy geniality of some folks here, whom you find with their backs turned when you are responding to the remarks that they have made you. By Henry James Thomas Henry Huxley Genial Comfortable

He liked however the open shutters; he opened everywhere those Mrs. Muldoon had closed, closing them as carefully afterwards, so that she shouldn't notice: he likedoh this he did like, and above all in the upper rooms!the sense of the hard silver of the autumn stars through the window-panes, and scarcely less the flare of the street-lamps below, the white electric lustre which it would have taken curtains to keep out. This was human actual social; this was of the world he had lived in, and he was more at his ease certainly for the countenance, coldly general and impersonal, that all the while and in spite of his detachment it seemed to give him. By Henry James Mrs Muldoon Shutters Closed Closing

She had never yet encountered a personage so exotic, and she always felt more at ease in the presence of anything strange. It was the usual things of life that filled her with silent rage; which was natural enough inasmuch as, to her vision, almost everything that was usual was inqiuitous. By Henry James Exotic Strange Encountered Personage Felt

Fancy me between Scylla and Charybdis. By Henry James Charybdis Scylla Fancy

He envied Miss Barrace at any rate her power of not being. She seemed, with little cries and protests and quick recognitions, movements like the darts of some fine high-feathered free-pecking bird, to stand before life as before some full shop-window. You could fairly hear, as she selected and pointed, the tap of her tortoise-shell against the glass. By Henry James Miss Barrace Envied Rate Power

The girl had a certain nobleness of imagination, which rendered her a good many services and played her a great many tricks. She spent half her time in thinking of beauty, bravery, magnanimity; she had a fixed determination to regard the world as a place of brightness, of free expansion, of irresistible action, she thought it would be detestable to be afraid or ashamed. She had an infinite hope that she would never do anything wrong. She had resented so strongly, after discovering them, her mere errors of feeling. By Henry James Imagination Tricks Girl Nobleness Rendered

When the congregation began to disperse, a number of persons, chiefly ladies, waited for him near the pulpit, and, as he came down, met him with greetings and compliments. Nora watched him from her place, listening, smiling and passing his handkerchief over his forehead. At last they relieved him, and he came up to her. She remembered for years afterward the strange half-smile on his face. There was something in it like a pair of eyes peeping over a wall. It seemed to express so fine an acquiescence in what she had done, that, for the moment, she had a startled sense of having committed herself to something. He gave her his hand, without manifesting any surprise. "How By Henry James Disperse Persons Chiefly Ladies Waited

To live in the world of creation - to get into it and stay in it - to frequent it and haunt it - to think intently and fruitfully - to woo combinations and inspirations into being by a depth and continuity of attention and meditation - this is the only thing - and I neglect it, far and away too much; from indolence, from vagueness, from inattention, and from a strange nervous fear of letting myself go. If I can vanquish that nervousness, the world is mine. By Henry James World Creation Fruitfully Meditation Thing

When you lay down a proposition which is forthwith controverted, it is of course optional with you to take up the cudgels in its defence. If you are deeply convinced of its truth, you will perhaps be content to leave it to take care of itself; or, at all events, you will not go out of your way to push its fortunes; for you will reflect that in the long run an opinion often borrows credit from the forbearance of its patrons. In the long run, we say; it will meanwhile cost you an occasional pang to see your cherished theory turned into a football by the critics. A football is not, as such, a very respectable object, and the more numerous the players, the more ridiculous it becomes. Unless, therefore, you are very confident of your ability to rescue it from the chaos of kicks, you will best consult its interests by not mingling in the game. By Henry James Controverted Defence Long Lay Proposition

To take what there is in life and use it, without waiting forever in vain for the preconceived, to dig deep into the actual and get something out of that; this, doubtless, is the right way to live. By Henry James Doubtless Preconceived Live Life Waiting

Instead of leading to the high places of happiness, from which the world would seem to lie below one, so that one could look down with a sense of exaltation and advantage, and judge and choose and pity, it led rather downward and earthward, into realms of restriction and depression, where the sound of other lives, easier and freer, was heard as from above, and served to deepen the feeling of failure. By Henry James Happiness Advantage Pity Earthward Depression

When you have lived as long as I, you will see that every human being has his shell, and that you must take the shell into acount. By the shell I mean the whole envelope of circumstances. There is no such thing as an isolated man or woman; we are each of us made up of a cluster of apurtenances. What do you call one's self? Where does it begin? Where does it end? It overflows into everythng tht belongs to us - and then flows back again. ( ... ) One's self - for other people - is one's expression of one's self; and one's house, one's clothes, the books one reads, the company one keeps - these things are all expressive. By Henry James Shell Acount Lived Long Human

Home: I found her in her back drawing-room, where the wide windows opened to the water. The room was dusky - it was too hot for lamps - and she sat slowly moving her fan and looking out on the little arm of the sea which is so pretty at night, reflecting the lights of Cambridgeport and Charlestown. I supposed she was musing on the loved ones she was to leave behind, her married daughters, her grandchildren; but she struck By Henry James Home Drawingroom Water Found Back

The superiority you discern in me," she concurred, "announces my futility. If you knew," she sighed, "the dreams of my youth!" But our realities are what has brought us together. We're beaten brothers in arms. By Henry James Concurred Announces Futility Superiority Discern

Our relation, all round, existsit's a reality, and a very good one; we're mixed up, so to speak, and it's too late to change it. We must live IN it and with it By Henry James Relation Round Existsit Reality Speak

The prompt Paris morning struck its cheerful notes - in a soft breeze and a sprinkled smell, in the light flit, over the garden-floor, of bareheaded girls with the buckled strap of oblong boxes, in the type of ancient thrifty persons basking betimes where terrace-walls were warm, in the blue-frocked brass-labelled officialism of humble rakers and scrapers, in the deep references of a straight-pacing priest or the sharp ones of a white-gaitered red-legged soldier. He watched little brisk figures, figures whose movement was as the tick of the great Paris clock, take their smooth diagonal from point to point; the air had a taste as of something mixed with art, something that presented nature as a white-capped master-chef. The By Henry James Paris Notes Smell Flit Gardenfloor

Had for him in these days most of comfort - that he was free to believe in anything that from hour to hour kept him going. He had positively motions and flutters of this conscious hour-to-hour kind, temporary surrenders to irony, to fancy, frequent instinctive snatches at the growing rose of observation, constantly stronger for him, as he felt, in scent and colour, and in which he could bury his nose even to wantonness. This By Henry James Hour Comfort Days Free Kind

There was always a sort of tacit understanding among women, born of the solidarity of the sex, that they should discover or invent lovers for each other ... By Henry James Women Born Sex Sort Tacit

Live as you like best, and your character will take care of itself. Most things are good for you; the exceptions are very rare. By Henry James Live Character Care Rare Things

Apologies, Mrs. Touchett intimated, were of no more use to her than bubbles, and she herself never dealt in such articles. One either did the thing or one didn't, and what one "would" have done belonged to the sphere of the irrelevant, like the idea of a future life or of the origin of things. By Henry James Mrs Touchett Apologies Intimated Bubbles

I think I don't regret a single 'excess' of my responsive youth - I only regret, in my chilled age, certain occasions and possibilities I didn't embrace. By Henry James Regret Single Excess Youth Age

Did he live in a false world, a world that had grown simply to suit him, and was his present slight irritation - in the face now of Jim's silence in particular - but the alarm of the vain thing menaced by the touch of the real? By Henry James World Jim Irritation Real Live

There may be unselfish natures, there may be disinterested feelings. By Henry James Natures Feelings Unselfish Disinterested

It is altogether an extraordinary growing, swarming, glittering, pushing, chattering, good-natured, cosmopolitan place, and perhaps in some ways the best imitation of Paris that can be found (with a great originality of its own). By Henry James Swarming Glittering Pushing Chattering Goodnatured

Charlotte was in pain, Charlotte was in torment, but he himself had given her reason enough for that; and, in respect to the rest of the whole matter of her obligation to follow her husband, that personage and she, Maggie, had so shuffled away every link between consequence and cause that the intention remained, like some famous poetic line in a dead language subject to varieties of interpretation. What By Henry James Charlotte Maggie Pain Torment Husband

They strike one, above all, as giving no account of themselves in any terms already consecrated by human use; to this inarticulate state they probably form, collectively, the most unprecedented of monuments; abysmal the mystery of what they think, what they feel, what they want, what they suppose themselves to be saying. By Henry James Collectively Form Monuments Abysmal Feel

Between nine and ten, at last, in the high clear picture--he was moving in these days, as in a gallery, from clever canvas to clever canvas--he drew a long breath: it was so presented to him from the first that the spell of his luxury wouldn't be broken. By Henry James Clever Canvas Ten Picture Days

Though leaving him always to remark, portentously, on his probably having formed a relation, his probably enjoying a consciousness, unique in the experience of man. People enough, first and last, had been in terror of apparitions, but who had ever before so turned the tables and become himself, in the apparitional world, an incalculable terror? He might have found this sublime had he quite dared to think of it; but he didn't too much insist, truly, on that side of his privilege. By Henry James Portentously Remark Relation Consciousness Unique

The faculty of attention has utterly vanished from the Anglo-Saxon mind, extinguished at its source by the big bayad?re of journalism, of the newspaper and the picture magazine which keeps screaming, "Look at me." Illustrations, loud simplifications ... bill poster advertising ? only these stand a chance. By Henry James Mind Extinguished Bayad Journalism Screaming

[Leaves of Grass is] monstrous because it pretends to persuade the soul while it slights the intellect; because it pretends to gratify the feelings while it outrages the taste. By Henry James Pretends Leaves Grass Monstrous Intellect

It was the air she wanted and the world she would now exclusively choose; the quiet chambers, nobly overwhelming, rich but slightly veiled, opened out round her and made her presently say 'If I could lose myself here!' There were people, people in plenty, but, admirably, no personal question. It was immense, outside, the personal question; but she had blissfully left it outside...". By Henry James Question Choose Chambers Nobly Overwhelming

It had begun to be present to him after the first fortnight, it had broken out with the oddest abruptness, this particular wanton wonderment: it met him thereand this was the image under which he himself judged the matter, or at least, not a little, thrilled and flushed with itvery much as he might have been met by some strange figure, some unexpected occupant, at a turn of one of the dim passages of an empty house. The quaint analogy quite hauntingly remained with him, when he didn't indeed rather improve it by a still intenser form: that of his opening a door behind which he would have made sure of finding nothing, a door into a room shuttered and void, and yet so coming, with a great suppressed start, on some quite erect confronting presence, something planted in the middle of the place and facing him through the dusk. By Henry James Met Fortnight Abruptness Wonderment Matter

I don't do it!" I sobbed in despair; "I don't save or shield them! It's far worse than I dreamed - they're lost!" VIII By Henry James Viii Despair Sobbed Save Shield

Not to give away the woman one loved, but to back her up in her mistakes once they had gone a certain length that was perhaps chief among the inevitabilities of the abjection of love. By Henry James Loved Love Give Woman Back

... the high brutality of good intentions ... By Henry James Intentions High Brutality Good

Let us be vulgar and have some fun, let us invite the President. By Henry James President Fun Vulgar Invite

The only success worth one's powder was success in the line of one's idiosyncrasy ... what was talent but the art of being completely whatever one happened to be? By Henry James Success Idiosyncrasy Worth Powder Line

Whatever life you lead you must put your soul in itto make any sort of success in it; and from the moment you do that it ceases to be romance, I assure you: it becomes grim reality! And you can't always please yourself; you must sometimes please other people. That, I admit, you're very ready to do; but there's another thing that's still more importantyou must often displease others. You must always be ready for thatyou must never shrink from it. That doesn't suit you at allyou're too fond of admiration, you like to be thought well of. You think we can escape disagreeable duties by taking romantic viewsthat's your great illusion, my dear. But we can't. You must be prepared on many occasions in life to please no one at allnot even yourself. By Henry James Romance Reality Lead Put Soul

Who was she, what was she that she should hold herself superior? What view of life, what design upon fate, what conception of happiness, had she that she pretended to be larger than this large occasion? If she would not do this, then she must do great things, she must do something greater. By Henry James Superior Hold Life Fate Happiness

You're a very nice girl, but I wish you'd flirt with me, and me only. By Henry James Girl Nice Flirt

I had an excellent repast - the best repast possible - which consisted simply of boiled eggs and bread and butter. It was the quality of these simple ingredients that made the occasion memorable. The eggs were so good that I am ashamed to say how many of them I consumed ... It might seem that an egg which has succeeded in being fresh has done all that can be reasonably expected of it. By Henry James Repast Butter Excellent Consisted Simply

The news that Daisy Miller was surrounded by half a dozen wonderful mustaches checked Winterbourne's impulse to go straightway to see her. By Henry James Daisy Miller Winterbourne Surrounded Half

She was a coquette; he was sure she had a spirit of her own; but in her bright, sweet, superficial little visage there was no mockery, no irony. Before long it became obvious that she was much disposed towards conversation. By Henry James Sweet Coquette Bright Superficial Mockery

Whether or no being hopelessly vulgar is being 'bad' is a question for the metaphysicians. By Henry James Bad Metaphysicians Hopelessly Vulgar Question

I don't know whythere are no brick gables,' said Mrs. Prest, 'but this corner has seemed to me before more Dutch than Italian, more like Amsterdam than Venice. It's perversely clean, for reasons of its own; and though you can pass on foot scarcely anyone ever thinks of doing so. It has the air of a Protestant Sunday. Perhaps the people are afraid of the Misses Bordereau. I daresay they have the reputation of witches. By Henry James Prest Italian Venice Mrs Dutch

Its clear friendliness seemed to ring out audibly amid this appalling hush of the harmonies of life. "I wish you might know a day's friendliness or a day's freedom, yours without question, without condition, and till death." Here was the voice of nature, of appointed protection; the sound of it aroused her early sense of native nearness to her cousin; had he been at hand she would have sought a wholesome refuge in his arms. She sat down at her writing-table, with her brow in her hands, light-headed with her passionate purpose, steadying herself to think. A day's freedom had come at last; a lifetime's freedom confronted her. For, By Henry James Day Friendliness Life Freedom Clear

Mrs. Wix gave a sidelong look. She still had room for wonder at what Maisie knew. By Henry James Wix Mrs Gave Sidelong Maisie

The truth is that circumstances had done much to cultivate in Mrs. Tristram a marked tendency to irony. Her taste on many points differed from that of her husband, and though she made frequent concessions it must be confessed that her concessions were not always graceful. They were founded upon a vague project she had of some day doing something very positive, something a trifle passionate. What she meant to do she could by no means have told you; but meanwhile, nevertheless, she was buying a good conscience, by installments. By Henry James Mrs Tristram Irony Truth Circumstances

I know at least what I am,' he simply went on; 'the other side of the medal's clear enough. I've not been edifyingI believe I'm thought in a hundred quarters to have been barely decent. I've followed strange paths and worshipped strange gods; it must have come to you again and againin fact you've admitted to me as muchthat I was leading, at any time these thirty years, a selfish frivolous scandalous life. And you see what it has made of me. By Henry James Simply Side Medal Clear Strange

It had belonged to that idea of the exasperated consciousness of his victim to become a real test for him; since he had quite put it to himself from the first that, oh distinctly! he could "cultivate" his whole perception. He had felt it as above all open to cultivationwhich indeed was but another name for his manner of spending his time. He was bringing it on, bringing it to perfection, by practice; in consequence of which it had grown so fine that he was now aware of impressions, attestations of his general postulate, that couldn't have broken upon him at once. By Henry James Distinctly Belonged Idea Exasperated Consciousness

It seemed to him he had waited an age for some stir of the great grim hush; the life of the town was itself under a spellso unnaturally, up and down the whole prospect of known and rather ugly objects, the blankness and the silence lasted. Had they ever, he asked himself, the hard-faced houses, which had begun to look livid in the dim dawn, had they ever spoken so little to any need of his spirit? Great builded voids, great crowded stillnesses put on, often, in the heart of cities, for the small hours, a sort of sinister mask, and it was of this large collective negation that Brydon presently became consciousall the more that the break of day was, almost incredibly, now at hand, proving to him what night he had made of it. By Henry James Great Hush Unnaturally Objects Lasted

The effort really to see and really to represent is no idle business in face of the constant force that makes for muddlement. The great thing is indeed that the muddled state too is one of the very sharpest of the realities, that it also has color and form and character, has often in fact a broad and rich comicality. By Henry James Muddlement Effort Represent Idle Business

The young girl inspected her flounces and smoothed her ribbons again; and Winterbourne presently risked an observation upon the beauty of the view. He was ceasing to be embarrassed, for he had begun to perceive that she was not in the least embarrassed herself. By Henry James Winterbourne View Young Girl Inspected

Well," said Winterbourne, "when you deal with natives you must go by the custom of the place. Flirting is a purely American custom; it doesn't exist here. So when you show yourself in public with Mr. Giovanelli, and without your mother - " "Gracious! By Henry James Winterbourne Place Custom Gracious Deal

However, Nick acted as much as possible under the circumstances, and that was rectifying - it brought with it enjoyment and a working faith. He had not gone counter to the axiom that in a case of doubt one was to hold off; for that applied to choice, and he had not at present the slightest pretension to choosing. He knew he was lifted along, that what he was doing was not first-rate, that nothing was settled by it and that if there was essentially a problem in his life it would only grow tougher with keeping. But if doing one's sum to-morrow instead of to-day does not make the sum easier it at least makes to-day so. By Henry James Nick Circumstances Rectifying Faith Acted

Things are always different than what they might be ... If you wait for them to change, you will never do anything. By Henry James Things Change Wait

The picture had no flourishes, but she liked its lowness of tone and the atmosphere of summer twilight that pervaded it. It spoke of the kind of personal issue that touched her most nearly; of the choice between objects, subjects, contacts - what might she call them? - of a thin and those of a rich association; of a lonely, studious life in a lovely land; of an old sorrow that sometimes ached to-day; of a feeling of pride that was perhaps exaggerated, but that had an element of nobleness; of a care for beauty and perfection so natural and so cultivated together that the career appeared to stretch beneath it in the disposed vistas and with the ranges of steps and terraces and fountains of a formal Italian garden - allowing only for arid places freshened by the natural dews of a quaint half-anxious, half-helpless fatherhood. By Henry James Flourishes Picture Lowness Tone Atmosphere

when she asked where Miss Mavis might be answered that he hadn't the least idea. I sat with my friend at her particular request: she told me she knew that if I didn't Mrs. Peck and Mrs. Gotch would make their approach, so that I must act as a watch-dog. She was flurried and fatigued with her migration, and I think that Grace Mavis's choosing this occasion for retirement suggested to her a little that she had been made a fool of. She remarked that the girl's not being there showed her for the barbarian she only could be, and that she herself was really very good so to have put herself out; her charge was a mere bore: that was the end of it. I could see that my companion's advent By Henry James Miss Mavis Mrs Idea Asked

Great statesmen oughtn't to waltz. By Henry James Great Waltz Statesmen

That was originally what I had loved him for: that at a period when our native land was nude and crude and provincial, when the famous 'atmosphere' it is supposed to lack was not even missed, when literature was lonely there and art and form akmost impossible, he had found the means to live and write like one of the first; to be free and general and not at all afraid; to feel, understand, and express everything. By Henry James Atmosphere Understand Provincial Famous Missed

He would return in half an hour - or in less. He walked away and I sat there alone, conscious, on the dark dismantled simplified scene, in the deep silence that rests on American towns during the hot season - there was now and then a far cry or a plash in the water, and at intervals the tinkle of the bells of the horse-cars on the long bridge, slow in the suffocating night - of the strange influence, half-sweet, half-sad, that abides in houses uninhabited or about to become so, in places muffled and bereaved, where the unheeded sofas and patient belittered tables seem (like the disconcerted dogs, to whom everything is alike sinister) to recognise the eve of a journey. By Henry James Hour Return Half American Conscious

London doesn't love the latent or the lurking, has neither time, nor taste, nor sense for anything less discernible than the red flag in front of the steam-roller. It wants cash over the counter and letters ten feet high. By Henry James London Lurking Time Taste Steamroller

And with this reminder other things came to her how strange it was that, with all allowance for their merit, it should befall some people to be so inordinantly valued, quoted, as they said in the stock-market, so high, and how still stranger, perhaps, that there should be cases in which, for some reason, one didn't mind the so frequently marked absence in them of the purpose really to represent their price. By Henry James Quoted Merit Valued Stockmarket High

One of my latest sensations was going to Lady Airlie's to hear Browning read his own poems - with the comport of finding that, at least, if you don't understand them, he himself apparently understands them even less. He read them as if he hated them and would like to bite them to pieces. By Henry James Lady Airlie Browning Poems Understand

Take the word for it of a man who has made his way inch by inch, and does not believe that we'll wake up to find our work done because we've lain all night a-dreaming of it; anything worth doing is devilish hard to do! By Henry James Inch Word Man Made Wake

Art does not lie in copying nature.- Nature furnishes the material by means of which is to express a beauty still unexpressed in nature.-The artist beholds in nature more than she herself is conscious of. By Henry James Nature Nature Art Lie Copying

The historic atmosphere was there, certainly; but the historic atmosphere, scientifically considered, was no better than a villainous miasma By Henry James Historic Atmosphere Scientifically Considered Miasma

I looked at the place with my heart beating as I had known it to do in the dentist's parlor. By Henry James Parlor Looked Place Heart Beating

Her aunt seemed to her aggressive and foolish, and to see it so clearly - to judge Mrs. Penniman so positively - made her feel old and grave. She did not resent the imputation of weakness; it made no impression on her, for she had not the sense of weakness, and she was not hurt at not being appreciated. She had an immense respect for her father, and she felt that to displease him would be a misdemeanour analogous to an act of profanity in a great temple; but her purpose had slowly ripened, and she believed that her prayers had purified it of its violence. By Henry James Mrs Penniman Weakness Foolish Positively

She had had a real fright but had fallen back to earth. The odd thing was that in her fall her fear too had been dashed down and broken. It was gone. By Henry James Earth Real Fright Fallen Back

She had a new feeling, the feeling of danger; on which a new remedy rose to meet it, the idea of an inner self or, in other words, of concealment. By Henry James Feeling Danger Words Concealment Remedy

She had never met a woman who had less of that fault which is the principal obstacle to friendship - the air of reproducing the more tiresome parts of one's own personality. By Henry James Friendship Personality Met Woman Fault

It may be, of course, above all, that what suddenly broke into this gives the previous time a charm of stillness - that hush in which something gathers or crouches. The change was actually like the spring of a beast. By Henry James Stillness Crouches Suddenly Broke Previous

She feels in italics and thinks in CAPITALS. By Henry James Capitals Feels Italics

I mean that everything this afternoon has been too beautiful, and that perhaps everything together will never be so right again. I'm very glad therefore you've been a part of it. By Henry James Beautiful Afternoon Glad Part

By the time she had grown sharper, ... , she found in her mind a collection of images and echoes to which meanings were attachable- images and echoes kept for her in the childish dusk, the dim closet, the high drawers, like games she wasn't big enough to play. By Henry James Sharper Time Grown Images Echoes

Everything had something behind it: life was like a long corridor with rows of closed doors. By Henry James Life Doors Long Corridor Rows

Night came on, the lamps were lighted, the tables near him found occupants, and Paris began to wear that peculiar evening look of hers which seems to say, in the flare of windows and theatre-doors, and the muffled rumble of swift-rolling carriages, that this is no world for you unless you have your pockets lined and your scruples drugged. By Henry James Paris Night Lighted Occupants Theatredoors

The image of the "presence," whatever it was, waiting there for him to gothis image had not yet been so concrete for his nerves as when he stopped short of the point at which certainty would have come to him. For, with all his resolution, or more exactly with all his dread, he did stop shorthe hung back from really seeing. The risk was too great and his fear too definite: it took at this moment an awful specific form. By Henry James Presence Image Waiting Gothis Concrete

There is always a place for chance in things. By Henry James Things Place Chance

Heaven preserve us! what a hotch-potch!" cried Hubert. "Is that what they are doing nowadays? I very seldom read a novel, but when I glance into one, I'm sure to find some such stuff as that! Nothing irritates me so as the flatness of people's imagination. Common life - I don't say it's a vision of bliss, but it's better than that! Their stories are like the underside of a carpet, - nothing but the stringy grain of the tissue - a muddle of figures without shape and flowers without color. When I read a novel my imagination starts off at a gallop and leaves the narrator hidden in a cloud of dust; I have to come jogging twenty miles back to the denouement. Your clergyman here with his Romish sweetheart must be a very pretty fellow. Why didn't he marry her first and convert her afterwards? Isn't a clergyman after all, before all, a man? I By Henry James Heaven Preserve Hubert Read Imagination

Don't underestimate the value of irony - it is extremely valuable. By Henry James Irony Valuable Underestimate Extremely

Any point of view is interesting that is a direct impression of life. You each have an impression colored by your individual conditions; make that into a picture, a picture framed by your own personal wisdom, your glimpse of the American world. By Henry James Life Impression Point View Interesting

They had found themselves looking at each other straight, and for a longer time on end than was usual even at parties in galleries; but that, after all, would have been a small affair, if there hadn't been something else with it. It wasn't, in a word, simply that their eyes had met; other conscious organs, faculties, feelers had met as well. By Henry James Straight Galleries Affair Found Longer

It had been devilish awkward, as the young men say, to be found by Juliana in the dead of night examining the attachment of her bureau; and it had not been less so to have to believe for a good many hours after that it was highly probable I had killed her. By Henry James Juliana Awkward Bureau Devilish Young

What there was no effective record of indeed was the small strange pathos on the child's part of an innocence so saturated with knowledge and so directed to diplomacy. By Henry James Diplomacy Effective Record Small Strange

He felt the whole vision turn to darkness and his very feet give way. His head went round; he was going; he had gone. By Henry James Felt Vision Turn Darkness Feet

Summer afternoon - summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language. By Henry James Summer Afternoon English Language Beautiful

It's very silly," she said, "but I go on with it in spite of myself. I'm afraid I'm too easily pleased; no novel is so silly I can't read it. By Henry James Silly Spite Pleased Afraid Easily

To treat a big subject in the intensely summarized fashion demanded by an evening's traffic of the stage when the evening, freely clipped at each end, is reduced to two hours and a half, is a feat of which the difficulty looms large. By Henry James Evening Freely End Half Large

Little and then gone back. Miss Mavis hadn't turned up - and she didn't turn up. The stewardess began to look for her - she hadn't been seen on deck or in the saloon. Besides, she wasn't dressed - not to show herself; all her clothes were in her By Henry James Back Mavis Miss Turned Turn

I should think that to hear such lovely music as that would really make him feel better." The lady gave a discriminating smile. "I am afraid there are moments in life when even Beethoven has nothing to say to us. We must admit, however, that they are our worst moments. By Henry James Hear Lovely Music Make Feel

One doesn't defend one's god; one's god is in himself a defense. By Henry James God Defense Defend

You can do a great many things if you're rich which would be severely criticised if you were poor. You can go and come, you can travel alone, you can have your own establishment: I mean of course if you'll take a companion - some decayed gentlewoman, with a darned cashmere and dyed hair, who paints on velvet. By Henry James Poor Great Things Rich Severely

He found on the spot the image of his recent history; he was like one of the figures of the old clock at Berne. THEY came out, on one side, at their hour, jigged along their little course in the public eye, and went in on the other side. He too had jigged his little coursehim too a modest retreat awaited. By Henry James Berne History Side Found Spot

There are moods in which one feels the impulse to enter a tacit protest against too gross an appetite for pure aesthetics in this starving and sinning world. One turns half away, musingly, from certain beautiful useless things. By Henry James World Musingly Moods Feels Impulse

Life is a predicament which precedes death. By Henry James Life Death Predicament Precedes

She had none the less extracted from her a vow in respect to the time that if the Colonel might be depended on they would spend at Fawns; and nothing came home to her more in this connexion or inspired her with a more intimate interest than her sense of absolutely seeing her interlocutress forbear to observe that Charlotte's view of a long visit even from such allies was there to be reckoned with. By Henry James Fawns Colonel Charlotte Extracted Vow

She knew that this silent, motionless portal opened into the street; if the sidelights had not been filled with green paper, she might have looked out on the little brown stoop and the well-worn brick pavement. But she had no wish to look out, for this would have interfered with her theory that there was a strange, unseen place on the other side--a place which became, to the child's imagination, according to its different moods, a region of delight or terror. By Henry James Silent Motionless Street Paper Pavement

That accurst autobiographic form which puts a premium on the loose, the improvised, the cheap, and the easy. By Henry James Loose Improvised Cheap Easy Accurst

You think too much.''I suppose I do; but I can't help it, my mind is so terribly active. When I give myself, I give myself. I pay the penalty in my headaches, my famous headachesa perfect circlet of pain! But I carry it as a queen carries her crown. By Henry James Active Give Much Suppose Mind

Cats and monkeys - monkeys and cats - all human life is there! By Henry James Cats Monkeys Human Life

Susie had an intense thought and then an effusion. 'My dear child, we move in a labyrinth.' 'Of course we do. That's just the fun of it!' said Milly with a strange gaiety. Then she added: 'Don't tell me that - in this for instance - there are not abysses. I want abysses. By Henry James Susie Effusion Intense Thought Abysses

No sovereign, no court, no personal loyalty, no aristocracy, no church, no clergy, no army, no diplomatic service, no country gentlemen, no palaces, no castles, nor manors, nor old country-houses, nor parsonages, nor thatched cottages nor ivied ruins no cathedrals, nor abbeys, nor little Norman churches no great Universities nor public schools no Oxford, nor Eton, nor Harrow no literature, no novels, no museums, no pictures, no political society, no sporting class no Epsom nor Ascot Some such list as that might be drawn up of the absent things in American life. By Henry James Oxford Eton Norman Universities Harrow

What was at all events not permanently hidden from him was a truth much less invidious about his years of darkness. It was the strange scheme of things again: the years of darkness had been needed to render possible the years of light. By Henry James Years Darkness Events Permanently Hidden

They are hopelessly vulgar. Whether or no being hopelessly vulgar is being 'bad' is a question for the metaphysicians. They are bad enough to dislike, at any rate; and for this short life that is quite enough. By Henry James Hopelessly Vulgar Bad Metaphysicians Dislike

And much addicted to speaking the truth. In her younger years she was a good deal of a romp, and, though it is an awkward confession to make about one's heroine, I must add that she was something of a glutton. By Henry James Truth Addicted Speaking Romp Heroine

The artist beholds in nature more than she herself Nature is conscious of. By Henry James Nature Artist Beholds Conscious

One need not be a rabid Anglican to be extremely sensible to the charm of an English country church ... By Henry James Anglican English Church Rabid Extremely

People can be in general pretty well trusted, of coursewith the clock of their freedom ticking as loud as it seems to do hereto keep an eye on the fleeting hour. By Henry James People Trusted Hour General Pretty

When once the gate is opened to self-torture, the whole army of fiends files in. By Henry James Selftorture Gate Opened Army Fiends

She had been expecting me and was ready. She gave a long slow soundless headshake, merciful only in being inarticulate. This mercy didn't prevent its hurling at me the largest finest coldest 'Never!' I had yet, in the course of a life that had known denials, had to take full in the face. I took it and was aware that with the hard blow the tears had come into my eyes. So for a while we sat and looked at each other; after which I slowly rose. I was wondering if some day she would accept me; but this was not what I brought out. I said as I smoothed my hat: 'I know what to think then. It's nothing! By Henry James Ready Expecting Headshake Merciful Inarticulate

You're like a picture; you ought to be enclosed in a gilt frame and stand against the wall. By Henry James Picture Wall Enclosed Gilt Frame

When you forget to eat, you know you're alive. By Henry James Eat Alive Forget

I have heard many a young unmarried lady exclaim with a bold sweep of conception, "Ah me! I wish I were a widow!" Mrs. Keith was precisely the widow that young unmarried ladies wish to be. With her diamonds in her dressing-case and her carriage in her stable, and without a feather's weight of encumbrance, she offered a finished example of satisfied ambition. By Henry James Conception Young Unmarried Heard Lady

I don't like it, but I'm a person, thank goodness, who can do what I don't like. By Henry James Person Goodness

Nothing exceeds the license occasionally taken by the imagination of very rigid people. By Henry James People Exceeds License Occasionally Imagination

He is outside of everything, and alien everywhere. He is an aesthetic solitary. His beautiful, light imagination is the wing that on the autumn evening just brushes the dusky window. By Henry James Alien Solitary Beautiful Light Window

Her sublimity. And that belief had remained with her, I make out, till the By Henry James Sublimity Till Belief Remained Make

It is as difficult to suppose a person intending to write a modern English, as to suppose him writing an ancient English, novel; that is a label which begs the question. One writes the novel, one paints the picture, of one's language and of one's time, and calling it modern English will not, alas! make the difficult task any easier. By Henry James English Suppose Modern Question Person

Don't try so much to form your character - it's like trying to pull open a tight, tender young rose. Live as you like best and your character will take care of itself. By Henry James Tight Tender Rose Character Form

So then she had to take it, though still with her defeated protest. "It isn't so much your BEING 'right'--it's your horrible sharp eye for what makes you so."Oh but you're just as bad yourself. You can't resist me when I point that out."She sighed it at last all comically, all tragically, away. "I can't indeed resist you."Then there we are!" said Strether. By Henry James Protest Defeated Resist Strether Horrible

I didn't refuse often enough. By Henry James Refuse

They had from an early hour made up their mind that society was, luckily, unintelligent, and the margin allowed them by this had fairly become one of their commonplaces. By Henry James Luckily Unintelligent Commonplaces Early Hour

You young men have too many jokes. When there are no jokes you've nothing left. By Henry James Jokes Young Men Left

Was after all a rather mature blossom, such as could be plucked from the stem only by a vigorous jerk. By Henry James Blossom Jerk Mature Plucked Stem

Take things more easily. Don't ask yourself so much whether this or that is good for you. Don't question your conscience so much - it will get out of tune, like a strummed piano. Keep it for great occasions. Don't try so much to form your character - it's like trying to pull open a rosebud. Live as you like best, and your character will form itself. By Henry James Easily Things Character Form Tune

I adore a moat,' said Isabel. 'Good-bye. By Henry James Isabel Goodbye Moat Adore

If I were to live my life over again, I would be an American. I would steep myself in America, I would know no other land. By Henry James American Live Life America Land

I suspect that the age of letters is waning, for our time. It is the age of Panama Canals, of Sandra Bernhardt, of Western wheat raising, of merely material expansion. Art, form, may return, but I doubt I shall live to see themI don't believe they are as eternal as the poets say. By Henry James Age Waning Time Suspect Letters

Strether wondered, desiring justice. "They seem - all the women - very harmonious." "Oh in closer quarters they come out!" And then, while Strether was aware of fearing closer quarters, though giving himself again to the harmonies, By Henry James Wondered Desiring Justice Strether Closer

She envied Ralph his dying, for if one were thinking of rest that was the most perfect of all. To cease utterly, to give it all up and not know anything more - this idea was as sweet as a vision of a cool bath in a marble tank, in a darkened chamber, in a hot land ... but Isabel recognized, as it passed before her eyes, the quick vague shadow of a long future. She should never escape; she should last to the end. By Henry James Ralph Dying Envied Thinking Rest

I recall this passage as the hour of its first fully coming over me that she was a beautiful liberal creature. I had seen her personality in glimpses and gleams, like a song sung in snatches, but now it was before me in a large rosy glow, as if it had been a full volume of sound. I heard the whole of the air, and it was sweet fresh music, which I was often to hum over.("Sir Edmund Orme") By Henry James Creature Recall Passage Hour Fully

The effect, if not the prime office, of criticism is to make our absorption and our enjoyment of the things that feed the mind as aware of itself as possible, since that awareness quickens the mental demand, which thus in turn wanders further and further for pasture. This action on the part of the mind practically amounts to a reaching out for the reasons of its interest, as only by its ascertaining them can the interest grow more various. This is the very education of our imaginative life. By Henry James Mind Effect Office Demand Pasture

You seemed to me to be soaring far up in the blue - to be sailing in the bright light, over the heads of men. Suddenly some one tosses up a faded rosebud - a missile that should never have reached you - and down you drop to the ground. By Henry James Blue Light Men Soaring Sailing

This impression came out most for Maggie when, in their easier intervals, they had only themselves to regard, and when her companion's inveteracy of never passing first, of not sitting till she was seated, of not interrupting till she appeared to give leave, of not forgetting too familiarly that in addition to being important she was also sensitive, had the effect of throwing over their intercourse a kind of silver tissue of decorum. It By Henry James Till Maggie Intervals Regard Seated

I'm glad you like adverbs - I adore them; they are the only qualifications I really much respect. By Henry James Adverbs Respect Glad Adore Qualifications

God's creature is one. He makes man, not men. His true creature is unitary and infinite, revealing himself, indeed, in every finite form, but compromised by none. By Henry James God Creature Man Men Infinite

It is, I think, an indisputable fact that Americans are, as Americans, the most self- conscious people in the world, and the most addicted to the belief that the other nations are in a conspiracy to under-value them. By Henry James Americans Conscious World Indisputable Fact

She's the latest freshest fruit of our great American evolution. She's the self-made girl!( ... )Well, to begin with, the self-made girl's a new feature. That, however, you know. In the second place she isn't self-made at all. We all help to make her, we take such an interest in her. By Henry James American Selfmade Evolution Girl Latest

I was a screen I was their protector. The more I saw, the less they would. By Henry James Protector Screen

Mrs. Penniman always, even in conversation, italicised her personal pronouns. By Henry James Penniman Mrs Conversation Italicised Pronouns

It's exactly the thing that I'm reduced to doing for myself. It seems to rescue a little, you see, from the wreck of hopes and ambitions, the refuse-heap of disappointments and failures, my one presentable little scrap of an identity. By Henry James Thing Reduced Ambitions Failures Identity

The Baroness found it amusing to go to tea; she dressed as if for dinner. The tea-table offered an anomalous and picturesque repast; and on leaving it they all sat and talked in the large piazza, or wandered about the garden in the starlight. By Henry James Baroness Tea Dinner Found Amusing

She found herself, for the first moment, looking at the mysterious portrait through tears. Perhaps it was her tears that made it just then so strange and fair ... the face of a young woman, all splendidly drawn, down to the hands, and splendidly dressed ... And she was dead, dead, dead By Henry James Moment Dead Tears Found Mysterious

diverted him from the maternal side. If he did happen just now to be at home my solicitude would of course seem officious; for in his many wanderings - I believed By Henry James Diverted Side Maternal Officious Wanderings

One has not the alternative of speaking of London as a whole, for the simple reason that there is no such thing as the whole of it. It is immeasurable - embracing arms never meet. Rather it is a collection of many wholes, and of which of them is it most important to speak? By Henry James London Alternative Speaking Simple Reason

Europe was best described, to his mind, as an elaborate engine for dissociating the confined American from that indispensable knowledge, and was accordingly only rendered bearable by these occasional stations of relief, traps for the arrest of wandering western airs. By Henry James American Europe Mind Knowledge Relief

There's no way to do that, Miss Archer. I won't say that if you refuse me you'll kill me; I shall not die of it. But I shall do worse; I shall live to no purpose. By Henry James Miss Archer Refuse Kill Die

It is indeed immensely picturesque. I can fancy sitting all a summer's day watching its shadows shorten and lengthen again, and drawing a delicious contrast between the world's duration and the feeble span of individual experience. There is something in Stonehenge almost reassuring; and if you are disposed to feel that life is rather a superficial matter, and that we soon get to the bottom of things, the immemorial gray pillars may serve to remind you of the enormous background of time. By Henry James Picturesque Immensely Stonehenge Experience Fancy

I'm not in my first youth - I can do what I choose - I belong quite to the independent class. I've neither father nor mother; I'm poor and of a serious disposition; I'm not pretty. I therefore am not bound to be timid and conventional; indeed I can't afford such luxuries. Besides, I try to judge things for myself; to judge wrong, I think, is more honourable than not to judge at all. I don't wish to be a mere sheep in the flock; I wish to choose my fate and know something of human affairs beyond what other people think it compatible with propriety to tell me. By Henry James Judge Youth Class Belong Independent

Italy, all the same, had spoiled a great many people; he was even fatuous enough to believe at times that he himself might have been a better man if he had spent less of his life there. By Henry James Italy People Spoiled Great Fatuous

Quote of the day: Quote of the day: We work in the dark - we do what we can - we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.[info][add][mail][note]Henry James (1843 - 1916) By Henry James Quote Day Dark Work Give

It's not my fate to give up--I know it can't be. By Henry James Fate Give

He was a dim secondary social success and all with people who had truly not an idea of him. It was all mere surface sound, this murmur of their welcome, this popping of their corks just as his gestures of response were the extravagant shadows, emphatic in proportion as they meant little, of some game of 'ombres chinoises' [French: "shadow play"]. By Henry James Dim Secondary Social Success People

It was grey windless weather, and the bell of the little old church that nestled in the hollow of the Sussex down sounded near and domestic. We were a straggling procession in the mild damp air - which, as always at that season, gave one the feeling that after the trees were bare there was more of it, a larger sky ... ("Sir Edmund Orme") By Henry James Sussex Weather Domestic Grey Windless

It is no wonder he wins every game. He has never done a thing in his life exept play games By Henry James Wins Game Games Thing Life

When I am wicked I am in high spirits. By Henry James Spirits Wicked High

She took refuge on the firm ground of fiction, through which indeed there curled the blue river of truth. By Henry James Fiction Truth Refuge Firm Ground

Madame de Cintre's face had, to Newman's eye, a range of expression as delightfully vast as the wind-streaked, cloud-flecked distance on a Western prairie. But her mother's white, intense, respectable countenance, with its formal gaze, and its circumscribed smile, suggested a document signed and sealed; a thing of parchment, ink, and ruled lines. By Henry James Cintre Newman Western Madame Eye

Muddle of farewells before we put off; we talked a little about the boat, our fellow-passengers and our prospects, and then I said: "I think you mentioned last night a name I know - that of Mr. Porterfield." "Oh no I didn't! By Henry James Porterfield Muddle Boat Prospects Farewells

He's the victim of a critical age; he has ceased to believe in himself and he doesn't know what to believe in. By Henry James Age Victim Critical Ceased

The critical sense is so far from frequent that it is absolutely rare, and the possession of the cluster of qualities that minister to it is one of the highest distinctions ... In this light one sees the critic as the real helper of the artist, a torchbearing outrider, the interpreter, the brother ... Just in proportion as he is sentient and restless, just in proportion as he reacts and reciprocates and penetrates, is the critic a valuable instrument. By Henry James Rare Distinctions Critical Sense Frequent

I call it relief, though it was only the relief that a snap brings to a strain or the burst of a thunderstorm to a day of suffocation. It was at least change, and it came with a rush. By Henry James Relief Suffocation Call Snap Brings

He said at another time that she had no heart; and he added in a moment that she had given it all away - in small pieces, like a frosted wedding-cake. By Henry James Heart Pieces Weddingcake Time Added

Prettiness is terribly vulgar nowadays, and it is not every one that knows just the sort of ugliness that has chic. By Henry James Prettiness Nowadays Chic Terribly Vulgar

I am 'sort of' haunted by the conviction that the divine William is the biggest and most successful fraud ever practiced on a patient world. By Henry James William Sort Haunted World Conviction

He was an awkward mixture of strong moral impulse and restless aesthetic curiosity, and yet he would have made a most ineffective reformer and a very indifferent artist. It seemed to him that the glow of happiness must be found either in action, of some immensely solid kind, on behalf of an idea, or in producing a masterpiece in one of the arts. By Henry James Curiosity Artist Awkward Mixture Strong

Madame Merle was very appreciative; she liked almost everything, including the English rain. "There is always a little of it, and never too much at once," she said; "and it never wets you, and it always smells good. By Henry James Merle English Madame Appreciative Including

To say that she had a book is to say that her solitude did not press upon her; for her love of knowledge had a fertilizing quality and her imagination was strong. There was at this time, however, a want of lightness in her situation, which the arrival of an unexpected visitor did much to dispel. By Henry James Strong Book Solitude Press Love

It dispelled, on the spot - something, to the elder woman's ear, in the sad, sweet sound of it - any ghost of any need of explaining. The sense was constant for her that their relation might have been afloat, like some island of the south, in a great warm sea that represented, for every conceivable chance, a margin, an outer sphere, of general emotion; and the effect of the occurrence of anything in particular was to make the sea submerge the island, the margin flood the text. The great wave now for a moment swept over. 'I'll go anywhere else in the world you like. By Henry James Dispelled Spot Ear Sad Sweet

Adjectives are the sugar of literature and adverbs the salt. By Henry James Adjectives Salt Sugar Literature Adverbs

To live only to suffer - only to feel the injury of life repeated and enlarged - it seemed to her she was too valuable, too capable, for that. Then she wondered if it were vain and stupid to think so well of herself. When had it even been a guarantee to be valuable? Wasn't all history full of the destruction of precious things? Wasn't it much more probable that if one were fine one would suffer? By Henry James Valuable Enlarged Capable Live Feel

Americans will eat garbage provided you sprinkle it liberally with ketchup. By Henry James Americans Ketchup Eat Garbage Provided

His absence from her for so many weeks had had such an effect upon him that his demands, his desires had grown; and only the night before, as his ship steamed, beneath summer stars, in sight of the Irish coast, he had felt all the force of his particular necessity. He By Henry James Irish Demands Grown Steamed Beneath

If we pretend to respect the artist at all we must allow him his freedom of choice , in the face, in particular cases, of innumerable presumptions that the choice will not fructify. By Henry James Choice Face Cases Fructify Pretend

Which of my two critics was I to believe? I didn't worry about it and very soon made up my mind they were both idiots. By Henry James Critics Idiots Worry Made Mind

[T]his expressed only a little of what she felt. The rest was that she had never been loved before. She had believed it, but this was different; this was the hot wind of the desert, at the approach of which the others dropped dead, like mere sweet airs of the garden. It wrapped her about; it lifted her off her feet, while the very taste of it, as of something potent, acrid and strange, forced open her set teeth. By Henry James Felt Expressed Rest Loved Desert

My sole wish is to frustrate as utterly as possible the post-mortem exploiter. By Henry James Exploiter Sole Frustrate Utterly Postmortem

Under all his culture, his cleverness, his amenity, under his good-nature, his facility, his knowledge of life, his egotism lay hidden like a serpent in a bank of flowers. By Henry James Culture Cleverness Amenity Goodnature Facility

I had not gone to bed; I sat reading by a couple of candles. There was a roomful of old books at Bly - last-century fiction, some of it, which, to the extent of a distinctly deprecated renown, but never to so much as that of a stray specimen, had reached the sequestered home and appealed to the unavowed curiosity of my youth. By Henry James Bed Candles Sat Reading Couple

When I read a novel my imagination starts off at a gallop and leaves the narrator hidden in a cloud of dust; I have to come jogging twenty miles back to the denouement. By Henry James Dust Denouement Read Imagination Starts

doubtless not singular that the ladies from Merrimac Avenue By Henry James Avenue Merrimac Doubtless Singular Ladies

Decided?" his mother continued with no scant irony. "He hasn't yet made up his mind, and we sail at ten o'clock!" "What does it matter when my things are put up?" the young man said. "There's no crowd at this moment; there will be cabins to spare. I'm waiting for a telegram - that will settle it. I just walked up to the club to see if it was come - they'll send it there because By Henry James Decided Irony Mother Continued Scant

I am blackly bored when they are at large and at work; but somehow I am still more blackly bored when they are shut up in Holloway and we are deprived of them. By Henry James Bored Blackly Holloway Work Large

Fear, unfortunately, is a very big thing, and there's a great variety of kinds. By Henry James Fear Thing Kinds Big Great

In a play, certainly, the subject is of more importance than in any other work of art. Infelicity, triviality, vagueness of subject, may be outweighed in a poem, a novel, or a picture, by charm of manner, by ingenuity of execution; but in a drama the subject is of the essence of the work-it is the work. If it is feeble, the work can have no force; if it is shapeless, the work must be amorphous. By Henry James Subject Work Play Art Importance

There was a dumb misery about him that irritated her; there was a manly staying of his hand that made her heart beat faster. She felt her agitation rising, and she said to herself that she was angry in the way a woman is angry when she has been in the wrong. By Henry James Faster Dumb Misery Irritated Manly

Er smile, which was her pretty feature, was never so pretty as when her sprightly phrase had a scratch lurking in it. By Henry James Smile Feature Pretty Sprightly Phrase

It was the truth, vivid and monstrous, that all the while he had waited the wait was itself his portion. By Henry James Truth Vivid Monstrous Portion Waited

He gave me a look, but in the dusk I couldn't make out very well what it conveyed. Then he bent over his mother, kissing her. "My news isn't particularly satisfactory. I'm going for you." "Oh you humbug!" she replied. But she was of course delighted. CHAPTER By Henry James Conveyed Gave Dusk Make Chapter

The chance had come - it was an extraordinary one - on the day she first met Densher; and it was to the girl's lasting honour that she knew on the spot what she was in the presence of. By Henry James Densher Chance Extraordinary Day Met

A swift carriage, of a dark night, rattling with four horses over roads that one can't seethat's my idea of happiness. By Henry James Carriage Night Rattling Happiness Swift

Even iron sometimes melts. By Henry James Melts Iron

I never was what I should be. By Henry James

Wasn't history full of the destruction of precious things? By Henry James Things History Full Destruction Precious

Her real offense was having a mind of her own. By Henry James Real Offense Mind

If you look for grand examples of anything from me, I shall disappoint you. By Henry James Grand Disappoint

I'm a perfectly equipped failure. ( ... ) 'Thank goodness you're a failure- it's why I so distinguish you! Anything else to-day is too hideous. Look about you- look at the successes. Would you be one, on your honour? By Henry James Failure Perfectly Equipped Goodness Distinguish

All roads lead to Rome, and there were times when it might have struck us that almost every branch of study or subject of conversation skirted forbidden ground. By Henry James Rome Ground Roads Lead Times

He has depths of silence - which he breaks only at the longest intervals by a remark. And when the remark comes it's always something he has seen or felt for himself - never a bit banal. That would be what one might have feared and what would kill me. But never. She By Henry James Silence Remark Depths Breaks Longest

Is that another sort of joke?" asked the old man. "You've no excuse for being bored anywhere. When I was your age I had never heard of such a thing. By Henry James Joke Asked Man Sort Thing

People talk about the conscience, but it seems to me one must just bring it up to a certain point and leave it there. You can let your conscience alone if you're nice to the second housemaid. By Henry James People Conscience Talk Bring Point

[A happy ending is] a distribution at the last of prizes, pensions, husbands, wives babies, millions, appended paragraphs, and cheerful remarks. By Henry James Pensions Husbands Millions Prizes Wives

Everything he wanted was comprised moreover in a single boonthe common unattainable art of taking things as they came. He appeared to himself to have given his best years to an active appreciation of the way they didn't come; but perhapsas they would seemingly here be things quite otherthis long ache might at last drop to rest. By Henry James Things Wanted Comprised Single Boonthe

Typical frivolous always ended by sacrificing to vulgar pleasures. She By Henry James Typical Pleasures Frivolous Ended Sacrificing

In American, the gentlemen obey the ladies. By Henry James American Ladies Gentlemen Obey

Her face was not young, but it was simple; it was not fresh, but it was mild. She had large eyes which were not bright, and a great deal of hair which was not 'dressed,' and long fine hands which werepossiblynot clean. By Henry James Young Simple Fresh Mild Face

[ ... ] under the guise of caring only for intrinsic values Osmond lived exclusively for the world. Far from being its master as he pretended to be, he was its very humble servant, and the degree of its attention was his only measure of success. He lived with his eye on it from morning till night, and the world was so stupid it never suspected the trick. Everything he did was pose - pose so subtly considered that if one were not on the lookout one mistook it for impulse. Ralph had never met a man who lived so much in the land of consideration. By Henry James Osmond Lived World Guise Caring

It's beyond everything. Nothing at all that I know touches it.""For sheer terror?" I remember asking.He seemed to say it was not so simple as that; to be really at a loss how to qualify it. He passed his hand over his eyes, made a little wincing grimace. "For dreadful - dreadfulness!""Oh, how delicious!" cried one of the women. By Henry James Terror Dreadfulness Touches Sheer Eyes

Besides, he was a philosopher; he smoked a good many cigars over his disappointment, and in thefulness of time he got used to it. By Henry James Philosopher Disappointment Smoked Good Cigars

I seemed to float not into clearness, but into a darker obscure, and within a minute there had come to me out of my very pity the appalling alarm of his perhaps being innocent. It was for the instant confounding and bottomless, for if he were innocent, what then on earth was I? By Henry James Innocent Clearness Obscure Float Darker

A novel is in its broadest definition a personal, a direct impression of life: that, to begin with, constitutes its value, which is greater or less according to the intensity of the impression" - from "The Art of Fiction By Henry James Fiction Art Impression Personal Life

Houses were dark in the August night and the perspective of Beacon Street, with its double chain of lamps, By Henry James Street August Beacon Houses Lamps

the sudden hour that had transformed his life, the hour of his perceiving with a mute inward gasp akin to the low moan of apprehensive passion that a world was left him to conquer and that he might conquer it if he tried. It By Henry James Hour Conquer Life Sudden Transformed

It doesn't matter what you do in particular, so long as you have had your life. By Henry James Life Matter Long

... a prudent archer has always a second bowstring By Henry James Bowstring Prudent Archer

Madame Merle had once said that, in her belief, when a friendship ceased to grow, it immediately began to decline - there was no point of equilibrium between liking a person more and liking him less. By Henry James Merle Madame Belief Grow Decline

On 10 August 1914, five days after war was declared, Henry James, in a letter to a friend, expressed his revulsion at the prospect of war, and articulated the illusion that had preceded it: 'Black and hideous to me is the tragedy that gathers, and I'm sick beyond cure to have lived on to see it. You and I, the ornaments of our generation, should have been spared the wreck of our beliefs that through the long years we had seen civilization grow and the worst become impossible. By Henry James August Henry James Black War

The terrace and the whole place, the lawn and the garden beyond it, all I could see of the park, were empty with a great emptiness. By Henry James Place Park Emptiness Terrace Lawn

For all I know,he may be a prince in disguise; he rather looks like one, by the way- like a prince who has abdicated in a fit of magnanimity, and has been in a state of disgust ever since. By Henry James Prince Disguise Magnanimity Knowhe Abdicated

Life being all inclusion and confusion, and art being all discrimination and selection, the latter, in search of the hard latent value with which it alone is concerned, sniffs round the mass as instinctively and unerringly as a dog suspicious of some buried bone. By Henry James Life Confusion Selection Concerned Sniffs

I might show it to you, but you'd never see it. The privilege isn't given to every one; it's not enviable. It has never been seen by a young, happy, innocent person like you. You must have suffered first, have suffered greatly, have gained some miserable knowledge. In that way your eyes are opened to it. By Henry James Show Suffered Enviable Happy Privilege

THEY have the manners to be silent, and you, trusted as you are, the baseness to speak! By Henry James Silent Trusted Speak Manners Baseness

He knew there were disappointments that lasted as long as life. By Henry James Life Knew Disappointments Lasted Long

Though I couldn't make out what she was talking of I was terribly frightened; the absence of a clue gave such a range to one's imagination.("Sir Edmund Orme") By Henry James Sir Orme Edmund Frightened Imagination

The visible world is but man turned inside out that he may be revealed to himself. By Henry James Visible World Man Turned Inside

Every one asks me what I 'think' of everything," said Spencer Brydon; "and I make answer as I can - begging or dodging the question, putting them off with any nonsense. It wouldn't matter to any of them really," he went on, "for, even were it possible to meet in that stand-and-deliver way so silly a demand on so big a subject, my 'thoughts' would still be almost altogether about something that concerns only myself. By Henry James Brydon Spencer Begging Question Putting

Every good story is of course both a picture and an idea, and the more they are interfused the better. By Henry James Idea Good Story Picture Interfused

The light of his plural pronoun was sufficiently reflected in his companion's face as he again met it; and he completed his demonstration. By Henry James Demonstration Light Plural Pronoun Sufficiently

She had always observed that she got on better with clever women than silly ones like herself; the silly ones could never understand her wisdom; whereas the clever ones - the really clever ones - always understood her silliness. By Henry James Clever Silly Wisdom Silliness Observed

Asked. "Here he comes, he'll tell you for himself much better than I can pretend to." Jasper Nettlepoint at that moment joined us, dressed in white flannel and carrying a large fan. "Well, my dear, have you decided?" his By Henry James Asked Nettlepoint Jasper Dressed Fan

It's a complex fate, being an American, and one of the responsibilities it entails is fighting against a superstitious valuation of Europe. By Henry James American Europe Fate Complex Responsibilities

Criticism talks a good deal of nonsense, but even its nonsense is a useful force. It keeps the question of art before the world, insists upon its importance. By Henry James Criticism Force Nonsense Talks Good

I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of an artistic process. By Henry James Process Substitute Force Beauty Artistic

Though it might have its momentary alarms, paternity is not an exciting vocation. By Henry James Alarms Paternity Vocation Momentary Exciting

Obstacles are those frightening things you see when you take you eyes off your goal. By Henry James Obstacles Goal Frightening Things Eyes

An Englishman's never so natural as when he's holding his tongue By Henry James Englishman Tongue Natural Holding

Her chief dread in life, at this period of her development, was that she would appear narrow minded; what she feared next afterwards was that she should be so. By Henry James Life Development Minded Chief Dread

He would rather seem stupid any day than fatuous, and By Henry James Fatuous Stupid Day

She was keeping her head for a reason, for a cause; and the labour of this detachment, with the labour of her forcing the pitch of it down, held them together in the steel hoop of an intimacy compared with which artless passion would have been but a beating of the air. Her By Henry James Labour Reason Detachment Held Air

Life had met him so, half-way, and had turned round so to walk with him, placing a hand in his arm and fondly leaving him to choose the pace. By Henry James Halfway Life Placing Pace Met

Her reputation for reading a great deal hung about her like the cloudy envelope of a goddess in an epic. By Henry James Epic Reputation Reading Great Deal

The practice of "reviewing" ... in general has nothing in common with the art of criticism. By Henry James Reviewing Practice Criticism General Common

There's no more usual basis of union than mutual misunderstanding. By Henry James Misunderstanding Usual Basis Union Mutual

She was afraid,' said Mrs. Bread, very confidently; 'she has always been afraid, or at least for a long time. That was the real trouble, sir. She was like a fair peach, I may say, with just one little speck. She had one little sad spot. You pushed her into the sunshine, sir, and it almost disappeared. Then they pulled her back into the shade and in a moment it began to spread. Before we knew it she was gone. She was a delicate creature. By Henry James Afraid Bread Mrs Sir Confidently

Sorrow comes in great waves ... but rolls over us, and though it may almost smother us, it leaves us. And we know that if it is strong, we are stronger, inasmuch as it passes and we remain. By Henry James Sorrow Waves Great Rolls Smother

I never really have believed in the existence of friendship in big societies - in great towns and great crowds. It's a plant that takes time and space and air; and London society is a huge "squash", as we elegantly call it - an elbowing, pushing, perspiring, chattering mob. By Henry James Great Societies Crowds Believed Existence

The Brighton air used of old to make plain girls pretty and pretty girls prettier still - I don't know whether it works the spell now.("Sir Edmund Orme") By Henry James Sir Orme Brighton Edmund Now

The perfection of her success, decidedly, was like some strange shore to which she had been noiselessly ferried and where, with a start, she found herself quaking at the thought that the boat might have put off again and left her. The By Henry James Decidedly Success Start Perfection Strange

But you must remember that justice to a lovely being is after all a florid sort of sentiment. By Henry James Sentiment Remember Justice Lovely Florid

Poor Catherine's dignity was not aggressive; it never sat in state; but if you pushed far enough you could find it. Her father had pushed very far. By Henry James Catherine Poor Aggressive State Pushed

The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be ... By Henry James Christmas Eve Round Fire Sufficiently

Am I solemn? I had an idea I was grinning from ear to ear." "You look as if you were taking me to a prayer-meeting or a funeral. If that's a grin your ears are very near together." "Should you like me to dance a hornpipe on the deck?" "Pray do, and I'll carry round your hat. It'll pay the expenses of our journey. By Henry James Solemn Ear Pray Idea Grinning

What we often take to be the new is simply the old under some novel form. By Henry James Form Simply

Her imagination was by habit ridiculously active; when the door was not open it jumped out the window. By Henry James Active Window Imagination Habit Ridiculously

She [was] ... one of those convenient types who don't keep you explaining minds with doors as numerous as the many-tongued clusters of confessionals at St. Peters. By Henry James Peters Convenient Types Explaining Minds

We must for dear life make our own counter-realities. By Henry James Counterrealities Dear Life Make

To read between the lines was easier than to follow the text, By Henry James Text Read Lines Easier Follow

No themes are so human as those that reflect for us, out of the confusion of life, the close connection of bliss and bale, of the things that help with the things that hurt, so dangling before us forever that bright hard medal, of so strange an alloy, one face of which is somebody's right and ease and the other somebody's pain and wrong. By Henry James Things Life Bale Hurt Medal

- his indescribable little air of knowing nothing in the world but love. By Henry James Love Indescribable Air Knowing World

His secretary of many years' standing, Theodora Bosanquet, was struck by this persistent aspect of the Jamesian sensibility: 'When he walked out of the refuge of his study and into the world and looked about him, he saw a place of torment, where creatures of prey perpetually thrust their claws into the quivering flesh of the doomed, defenceless children of light.' Yet By Henry James Theodora Bosanquet Jamesian Standing Sensibility

You were reserved for my future By Henry James Future Reserved

The American girl isn't ANY girl; she's a remarkable specimen in a remarkable species. By Henry James American Remarkable Species Girl Specimen

She often appeared at my chambers to talk over his lapses; for if, as she declared, she had washed her hands of him, she had carefully preserved the water of this ablution, which she handed about for analysis. By Henry James Lapses Declared Ablution Analysis Appeared

It's time to start living the life you've imagined. By Henry James Imagined Time Start Living Life

I remember the whole beginning as a succession of flights and drops, a little seesaw of the right throbs and wrong. By Henry James Drops Wrong Remember Beginning Succession

She was a plain-faced old woman, without graces and without any great elegance, but with an extreme respect for her own motives. She was usually prepared to explain these - when the explanation was asked as a favour; and in such a case they proved totally different from those that had been attributed to her By Henry James Woman Elegance Motives Plainfaced Graces

It wouldn't have been failure to be bankrupt, dishonoured, pilloried, hanged; it was failure not to be anything. By Henry James Dishonoured Pilloried Hanged Bankrupt Failure

If this was love, love had been overrated. By Henry James Overrated Love

Under the long and discurtained ordeal of the morrow's dawn, that By Henry James Dawn Long Discurtained Ordeal Morrow

I thought with joy of the morrow, By Henry James Morrow Thought Joy

Nevertheless, he had offered her a home under his own roof, which Lavinia accepted with the alacrity of a woman who had spent the ten years of her married life in the town of Poughkeepsie. By Henry James Poughkeepsie Lavinia Roof Offered Home

We work in the dark - we do what we can - we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art. By Henry James Dark Work Give Passion Task

There is only one recipe - to care a great deal for the cookery. By Henry James Recipe Cookery Care Great Deal

A man who pretends to understand women is bad manners. For him to really to understand them is bad morals. By Henry James Manners Understand Bad Man Pretends

To kill a human being is, after all, the least injury you can do him. By Henry James Kill Human Injury

I hate American simplicity. I glory in the piling up of complications of every sort. If I could pronounce the name James in any different or more elaborate way I should be in favour of doing it. By Henry James American Simplicity Hate James Sort

Miss Chancellor would have been much happier if the movements she was interested in could have been carried on only by people she liked,and if revolutions, somehow, didn't always have to begin with one's selfwith internal convulsions,sacrifices,executions. By Henry James Chancellor Miss Revolutions Internal Happier

She had always been fond of history, and here [in Rome] was history in the stones of the street and the atoms of the sunshine. By Henry James Rome History Sunshine Fond Stones

It was the way the autumn day looked into the high windows as it waned; the way the red light, breaking at the close from under a low sombre sky, reached out in a long shaft and played over old wainscots, old tapestry, old gold, old colour. By Henry James Waned Light Breaking Sky Reached

Ten o'clock!" "What does it matter when my things are put up?" the young man said. "There's no crowd at this moment; there will be cabins to spare. I'm waiting for a telegram - that will settle By Henry James Ten Oclock Moment Spare Matter

Be one on whom nothing is lost. By Henry James Lost

Art is a point of view, and a genius way of looking at things. By Henry James Art View Things Point Genius

This was immense, and they thus took final possession of it. They By Henry James Immense Final Possession

One is oneself a fine consequence. By Henry James Consequence Oneself Fine

There are two kinds of taste in the appreciation of imaginative literature: the taste for emotions of surprise and the taste for emotions of recognition. By Henry James Taste Emotions Literature Recognition Kinds

We trust to novels to train us in the practice of great indignations and great generositie. By Henry James Generositie Great Trust Train Practice

Why indeed should we perpetually be thinking whether things are good for us, as if we were patients lying in a hospital? By Henry James Hospital Perpetually Thinking Things Good

She had an immense curiosity about life, and was constantly staring and wondering. By Henry James Life Wondering Immense Curiosity Constantly

He was allying himself to science, for what was science but the absence of prejudice backed by the presence of money? His life would be full of machinery, which was the antidote to superstition ... By Henry James Science Money Allying Absence Prejudice

I don't see what harm there is in my wishing not to tie myself. I don't want to begin life by marrying. There are other things a woman can do. By Henry James Harm Wishing Tie Marrying Begin

He had long decided that abundant laughter should be the embellishment of the remainder of his days. By Henry James Days Long Decided Abundant Laughter

Mrs. Almond lived much farther up town, in an embryonic street with a high number - a region where the extension of the city began to assume a theoretic air, where poplars grew beside the pavement (when there was one), and mingled their shade with the steep roofs of desultory Dutch houses, and where pigs and chickens disported themselves in the gutter. These elements of rural picturesqueness have now wholly departed from New York street scenery; but they were to be found within the memory of middle-aged persons, in quarters which now would blush to be reminded of them. By Henry James Almond Dutch Mrs Town Number

His physiognomy had an air of requesting your attention, which it rewarded or not, according to the charm you found in a blue eye of remarkable fixedness and a jaw of somewhat angular mold, which is supposed to bespeak resolution. By Henry James Attention Mold Resolution Physiognomy Air

The real offense, as she ultimately perceived, was in having a mind of her own at all. By Henry James Offense Perceived Real Ultimately Mind

Still, who could say what men ever were looking for? They looked for what they found; they knew what pleased them only when they saw it. By Henry James Men Found Looked Knew Pleased

A solitary maple on a woodside flames in single scarlet, recalls nothing so much as the daughter of a noble house dressed for a fancy ball, with the whole family gathered around to admire her before she goes. By Henry James Scarlet Recalls Ball Solitary Maple

Happy you poets who can be present and so present by a simple flicker of your genius, and not, like the clumsier race, have to laya train and pile up faggots that may not after prove in the least combustible! By Henry James Present Happy Genius Race Combustible

Mr. Longdon gave a headshake that was both sad and sharp. "It's all wrong. But YOU'RE all right!" he added in a different tone as he walked hastily away. By Henry James Longdon Sharp Gave Headshake Sad

We were alone with the quiet day, and his little heart, dispossessed, had stopped. By Henry James Dispossessed Day Heart Stopped Quiet

She envied the security of valuable 'pieces' which change by no hair's breadth, only grow in value, while their owners lose inch by inch youth, happiness, beauty[.] By Henry James Happiness Beauty Valuable Pieces Breadth

More charming than that over there, you know! She made me very welcome, but her son had told her about the Patagonia, for which she was sorry, as this would mean a longer voyage. She was a poor creature in any boat and mainly confined to her By Henry James Charming Patagonia Voyage Made Son

Definite settlement of the question. From the deck, where I merely turned round and looked, I saw the light of another summer By Henry James Definite Question Settlement Deck Looked

It was as if these depths, constantly bridged over by a structure that was firm enough in spite of its lightness and of its occasional oscillation in the somewhat vertiginous air, invited on occasion, in the interest of their nerves, a dropping of the plummet and a measurement of the abyss. A difference had been made moreover, once for all, by the fact that she had, all the while, not appeared to feel the need of rebutting his charge of an idea within her that she didn't dare express, uttered just before one of the fullest of their later discussions ended. By Henry James Depths Constantly Air Invited Occasion

I have a household of good books, and reading tends to take for me the place of experience - or rather to become itself experience concentrated. You will say this is a dull picture, but I cultivate dulness in a world grown too noisy. By Henry James Experience Books Concentrated Household Good

But James, as an artist, was deeply suspicious of what gave him pleasure, or indeed satisfaction. In his own complex sensibility, there was an ambiguity about most things, and this moved him towards subtlety when he approached character, drama, and scene, and nudged him towards many modifying subclauses when he wrote a sentence. Nothing came to him simply. By Henry James James Artist Pleasure Satisfaction Deeply

Always keep a window in the attic open; not just cracked: open. By Henry James Open Cracked Window Attic

True happiness, we are told, consists in getting out of one's self; but the point is not only to get out - you must stay out; and to stay out you must have some absorbing errand. By Henry James Stay True Happiness Told Consists

And the great advantage of being a literary woman, was that you could go everywhere and do everything. By Henry James Woman Great Advantage Literary

She couldn't have told you whether it was because she was afraid, or because such a voice in the darkness seemed of necessity a boon; but she listened to him as she had never listened before; his words dropped deep into her soul. By Henry James Listened Afraid Boon Soul Told

She was a woman who, between courses, could be graceful with her elbows on the table. By Henry James Table Woman Graceful Elbows

If Quint - on your remonstrance at the time you speak of - was a base menial, one of the things Miles said to you, I find myself guessing, was that you were another. By Henry James Quint Miles Menial Guessing Remonstrance

One can't judge till one's forty; before that we're too eager, too hard, too cruel, and in addition much too ignorant. By Henry James Forty Eager Hard Cruel Ignorant

Front, projected a glow upon the dusky vagueness of the Common, and as I passed it I heard in By Henry James Front Common Projected Glow Dusky

One might enumerate the items of high civilization, as it exists in other countries, which are absent from the texture of American life, until it should become a wonder to know what was left. By Henry James American Civilization Countries Life Left

It takes a great deal to make a successful American, but to make a happy Venetian takes only a handful of quick sensibility. The By Henry James Make American Venetian Sensibility Great

But the blots, Turkey," intimated I. "True,-but, with submission, sir, behold these hairs! I am getting old. Surely, sir, a blot or two of a warm afternoon is not to be severely urged against gray hairs. Old age-even if it blot the page-is honorable. With submission, sir, we both are getting old. By Henry James Turkey Sir True Intimated Submission

To her mind there was nothing of the infinite about Mrs. Penniman; Catherine saw her all at once, as it were, and was not dazzled by the apparition; whereas her father's great faculties seemed, as they stretched away, to lose themselves in a sort of luminous vagueness, which indicated, not that they stopped, but that Catherine's own mind ceased to follow them. By Henry James Catherine Penniman Mrs Mind Apparition

We see our lives from our own point of view; that is the privilege of the weakest and humblest of us; By Henry James View Lives Point Privilege Weakest

It isn't a question of any beauty,' said Maggie; 'it's only a question of the quantity of truth.' 'Oh the quantity of truth!' the Prince richly though ambiguously murmured. By Henry James Question Maggie Truth Quantity Beauty

The women one meets - what are they but books one has already read? You're a library of the unknown, the uncut. Upon my word I've a subscription. By Henry James Meets Read Women Books Unknown

Experience is never limited, and it is never complete; it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spider-web of the finest silken threads suspended in the chamber of consciousness, and catching every air-borne particle in its tissue. By Henry James Experience Limited Complete Sensibility Consciousness

Mrs. Nettlepoint stared. "I couldn't do that." On which I was the more amused that I had to explain I was only amused. "What does it signify now?" "I thought you thought everything signified. You were so full," she cried, "of signification!" "Yes, but we're further out now, and somehow in mid-ocean everything becomes absolute." "What else can By Henry James Nettlepoint Mrs Stared Amused Thought

I'll piously gather up the crumbs of your feasts and make a meal of them," said Nora. "I'll let you know how they taste. By Henry James Nora Piously Gather Crumbs Feasts

If one is strong, one loves the more strongly. By Henry James Strong Strongly Loves

Most English talk is a quadrille in a sentry-box. By Henry James English Sentrybox Talk Quadrille

She has only one fault; too many ideas. By Henry James Fault Ideas

Changing the form of one's mission's almost as difficult as changing the shape of one's nose: there they are, each, in the middle of one's face and one's characterone has to begin too far back. By Henry James Changing Nose Back Form Mission

Every governmental institution has been a standing testimony to the harmonic destiny of society, a standing proof that the life of man is destined for peace and amity, instead of disorder and contention. By Henry James Standing Society Amity Contention Governmental

When Milly smiled it was a public event - when she didn't it was a chapter of history. They By Henry James Milly Event History Smiled Public

If he was not personally loud, however, he was deep, and during these closing days of the Roman May he knew a complacency that matched with slow irregular walks under the pines of the Villa Borghese, among the small sweet meadow-flowers and the mossy marbles. By Henry James Borghese Roman Villa Loud Deep

You can do a great many things if you are rich which would be severely criticised if you were poor By Henry James Poor Great Things Rich Severely

I think patriotism is like charity it begins at home. By Henry James Home Patriotism Charity Begins

The passion of love separated its victim terribly from everyone but the loved object. By Henry James Object Passion Love Separated Victim

Sometimes she went so far as to wish that she should find herself in a difficult position, so that she might have the pleasure of being as heroic as the occasion demanded. By Henry James Position Demanded Find Difficult Pleasure

There were always people to snatch at you, and it would never occur to them that they were eating you up. They did that without tasting. By Henry James People Snatch Occur Eating Tasting

I take up my own pen again - the pen of all my old unforgettable efforts and sacred struggles. To myself - today - I need say no more. Large and full and high the future still opens. It is now indeed that I may do the work of my life. And I will. By Henry James Pen Struggles Unforgettable Efforts Sacred

She's too personal - considering that she expects other people not to be. She walks in without knocking at the door.""Yes," Isabel admitted, "she doesn't sufficiently recognize the existence of knockers; and indeed I'm not sure that she doesn't think them rather a pretentious ornament. She thinks one's door should stand ajar. By Henry James Personal Expects People Isabel Door

Am I grave?', he asked. 'I had an idea I was grinning from ear to ear.''You look as if you were taking me to a funeral. If that's a grin, your ears are very near together. By Henry James Grave Asked Funeral Grin Idea

Make up to a good one and marry here, and your life will become much more interesting. By Henry James Make Interesting Good Marry Life

I hold any writer sufficiently justified who is himself in love with his theme. By Henry James Theme Hold Writer Sufficiently Justified

New York is appalling, fantastically charmless and elaborately dire. By Henry James York Appalling Fantastically Dire Charmless

She gave an envious thought to the happier lot of men, who are always free to plunge into the healing waters of action. By Henry James Men Action Gave Envious Thought

base menial?" "As By Henry James Base Menial

Nothing irritates me so as the flatness of people's imagination. By Henry James Imagination Irritates Flatness People

Women never dine alone. When they dine alone they don't dine. By Henry James Dine Women

secret of what passed between him and the strange girl who would have sacrificed her marriage to him on so short an acquaintance remains By Henry James Secret Remains Passed Strange Girl

He had sprung from a rigid Puritan stock, and had been brought up to think much more intently of the duties of this life than of its privileges and pleasures. By Henry James Puritan Stock Pleasures Sprung Rigid

His kiss was like white lightning, a flash that spread, and spread again, and stayed. By Henry James Lightning Stayed Spread Kiss White

Catherine, who was extremely modest, had no desire to shine, and on most social occasions, as they are called, you would have found her lurking in the background. By Henry James Catherine Modest Shine Occasions Called

Oxford lends sweetness to labour and dignity to leisure. By Henry James