Henry James: The Portrait of a Lady, The Bostonians, The Tragic Muse & Daisy Miller (4 Books in One Edition). Henry Foss James
variation. His father was dead and his bonne dismissed, but the young man still conformed to the spirit of their teaching — he never went to the edge of the lake. There was still something agreeable to the nostrils about him and something not offensive to nobler organs. He was a very gentle and gracious youth, with what are called cultivated tastes — an acquaintance with old china, with good wine, with the bindings of books, with the Almanach de Gotha, with the best shops, the best hotels, the hours of railway-trains. He could order a dinner almost as well as Mr. Luce, and it was probable that as his experience accumulated he would be a worthy successor to that gentleman, whose rather grim politics he also advocated in a soft and innocent voice. He had some charming rooms in Paris, decorated with old Spanish altar-lace, the envy of his female friends, who declared that his chimney-piece was better draped than the high shoulders of many a duchess. He usually, however, spent a part of every winter at Pau, and had once passed a couple of months in the United States.
He took a great interest in Isabel and remembered perfectly the walk at Neufchatel, when she would persist in going so near the edge. He seemed to recognise this same tendency in the subversive enquiry that I quoted a moment ago, and set himself to answer our heroine’s question with greater urbanity than it perhaps deserved. “What does it lead to, Miss Archer? Why Paris leads everywhere. You can’t go anywhere unless you come here first. Every one that comes to Europe has got to pass through. You don’t mean it in that sense so much? You mean what good it does you? Well, how can you penetrate futurity? How can you tell what lies ahead? If it’s a pleasant road I don’t care where it leads. I like the road, Miss Archer; I like the dear old asphalte. You can’t get tired of it — you can’t if you try. You think you would, but you wouldn’t; there’s always something new and fresh. Take the Hotel Drouot, now; they sometimes have three and four sales a week. Where can you get such things as you can here? In spite of all they say I maintain they’re cheaper too, if you know the right places. I know plenty of places, but I keep them to myself. I’ll tell you, if you like, as a particular favour; only you mustn’t tell any one else. Don’t you go anywhere without asking me first; I want you to promise me that. As a general thing avoid the Boulevards; there’s very little to be done on the Boulevards. Speaking conscientiously — sans blague — I don’t believe any one knows Paris better than I. You and Mrs. Touchett must come and breakfast with me some day, and I’ll show you my things; je ne vous dis que ca! There has been a great deal of talk about London of late; it’s the fashion to cry up London. But there’s nothing in it — you can’t do anything in London. No Louis Quinze — nothing of the First Empire; nothing but their eternal Queen Anne. It’s good for one’s bed-room, Queen Anne — for one’s washing-room; but it isn’t proper for a salon. Do I spend my life at the auctioneer’s?” Mr. Rosier pursued in answer to another question of Isabel’s. “Oh no; I haven’t the means. I wish I had. You think I’m a mere trifler; I can tell by the expression of your face — you’ve got a wonderfully expressive face. I hope you don’t mind my saying that; I mean it as a kind of warning. You think I ought to do something, and so do I, so long as you leave it vague. But when you come to the point you see you have to stop. I can’t go home and be a shopkeeper. You think I’m very well fitted? Ah, Miss Archer, you overrate me. I can buy very well, but I can’t sell; you should see when I sometimes try to get rid of my things. It takes much more ability to make other people buy than to buy yourself. When I think how clever they must be, the people who make ME buy! Ah no; I couldn’t be a shopkeeper. I can’t be a doctor; it’s a repulsive business. I can’t be a clergyman; I haven’t got convictions. And then I can’t pronounce the names right in the Bible. They’re very difficult, in the Old Testament particularly. I can’t be a lawyer; I don’t understand — how do you call it?— the American procedure. Is there anything else? There’s nothing for a gentleman in America. I should like to be a diplomatist; but American diplomacy — that’s not for gentlemen either. I’m sure if you had seen the last min —”
Henrietta Stackpole, who was often with her friend when Mr. Rosier, coming to pay his compliments late in the afternoon, expressed himself after the fashion I have sketched, usually interrupted the young man at this point and read him a lecture on the duties of the American citizen. She thought him most unnatural; he was worse than poor Ralph Touchett. Henrietta, however, was at this time more than ever addicted to fine criticism, for her conscience had been freshly alarmed as regards Isabel. She had not congratulated this young lady on her augmentations and begged to be excused from doing so.
“If Mr. Touchett had consulted me about leaving you the money,” she frankly asserted, “I’d have said to him ‘Never!”
“I see,” Isabel had answered. “You think it will prove a curse in disguise. Perhaps it will.”
“Leave it to some one you care less for — that’s what I should have said.”
“To yourself for instance?” Isabel suggested jocosely. And then, “Do you really believe it will ruin me?” she asked in quite another tone.
“I hope it won’t ruin you; but it will certainly confirm your dangerous tendencies.”
“Do you mean the love of luxury — of extravagance?”
“No, no,” said Henrietta; “I mean your exposure on the moral side. I approve of luxury; I think we ought to be as elegant as possible. Look at the luxury of our western cities; I’ve seen nothing over here to compare with it. I hope you’ll never become grossly sensual; but I’m not afraid of that. The peril for you is that you live too much in the world of your own dreams. You’re not enough in contact with reality — with the toiling, striving, suffering, I may even say sinning, world that surrounds you. You’re too fastidious; you’ve too many graceful illusions. Your newly-acquired thousands will shut you up more and more to the society of a few selfish and heartless people who will be interested in keeping them up.”
Isabel’s eyes expanded as she gazed at this lurid scene. “What are my illusions?” she asked. “I try so hard not to have any.”
“Well,” said Henrietta, “you think you can lead a romantic life, that you can live by pleasing yourself and pleasing others. You’ll find you’re mistaken. Whatever life you lead you must put your soul in it — to make any sort of success of 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 important — you must often displease others. You must always be ready for that — you must never shrink from it. That doesn’t suit you at all — you’re too fond of admiration, you like to be thought well of. You think we can escape disagreeable duties by taking romantic views — that’s your great illusion, my dear. But we can’t. You must be prepared on many occasions in life to please no one at all — not even yourself.”
Isabel shook her head sadly; she looked troubled and frightened. “This, for you, Henrietta,” she said, “must be one of those occasions!”
It was certainly true that Miss Stackpole, during her visit to Paris, which had been professionally more remunerative than her English sojourn, had not been living in the world of dreams. Mr. Bantling, who had now returned to England, was her companion for the first four weeks of her stay; and about Mr. Bantling there was nothing dreamy. Isabel learned from her friend that the two had led a life of great personal intimacy and that this had been a peculiar advantage to Henrietta, owing to the gentleman’s remarkable knowledge of Paris. He had explained everything, shown her everything, been her constant guide and interpreter. They had breakfasted together, dined together, gone to the theatre together, supped together, really in a manner quite lived together. He was a true friend, Henrietta more than once assured our heroine; and she had never supposed that she could like any Englishman so well. Isabel could not have told you why, but she found something that ministered to mirth in the alliance the correspondent of the Interviewer had struck with Lady Pensil’s brother; her amusement moreover subsisted in face of the fact that she thought it a credit to each of them. Isabel couldn’t rid herself of a suspicion that they were playing somehow at cross-purposes — that the simplicity of each had been entrapped. But this simplicity was on either side none the less honourable. It was as graceful