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Country Houses by James, Etc.
“The Gentler View,” Harper’s Weekly (April 16, 1910) : 27
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      The shame of not knowing where one prefers going for the summer rapidly undermines all self-respect. To be entirely without a preference is a state to confess to with confusion. Just amiable, calm friendship for all Europe, but not a leaning in any one direction which will settle one’s summer, make up one’s mind, and establish one as a person of character. It is a condition of mind which would leave one sitting on the end of the dock dangling one’s legs in a lethargy of indecision, until winter came and sent one scuttling toward home. If any one could conscientiously say that there was a single spot in all Europe one could afford to miss, that spot would be struck from the list and one’s choice rendered so much easier. But with every inch of ground having its individual claim on one’s attention, the inability to see more than two places a month — one being of a leisurely nature — and the strong desire for absolute impartiality which governs one’s every act, what, it is asked, what is there to do except sit on the end of the pier and see if some outgoing steamer does not catch one’s fancy? The color of its funnel, the buttons of its stewards, surely there will be something to supply one with a whim, an inclination in a given direction. The color of its funnel, the buttons of its stewards, surely there will be something to supply one with a whim, an inclination in a given direction. With a rush we exclaim, “What, you, too, loathe Germany?” and are repulsed, made lonely, and aware of our opponent’s limitations by her lenient, “Oh no, not loathe it precisely.”
— ex “Sympathetic Antagonisms, Etc.” (19090925) One used to have a prejudice against Germany, but that has passed away. At one time one read a history of Venice and felt that it should be put to use before the acquired facts settled themselves to the undisturbed depths of one’s mind, but agreeable ignorance on the subject of Venice having been regained, one’s position lacks all alleviations.
      Slowly making its way across the expanse of one’s openmindedness there comes an idea; when it gets within hailing distance, it is seen to be unexpectedly, endearingly familiar. It is an old desire and still a dominant one. It is, in fact, precisely what one wants to do this summer and the only thing one will be happy in doing — to make a round of visits in English country houses written by Henry James. That would be perfection, and its unattainableness renders one forever discontent. One would not have to be introduced to the guests — they are all known from long ago. They are the perfect guests, the guests forming the intangible, enthralling situation which is exactly what you have travelled so far to feel the thrill of. It is the thoroughness of your initiation that makes your injury at being uninvited keen enough to keep you from going elsewhere. James has put you so almost indiscreetly in the know that you are perhaps exiled for the danger it would be to have you about; and the boredom of an unhappy exile accumulates until you feel there are no lengths of Jamesqueness you would not go to if you were once permitted to arrive between tea and dinner, which is the only hour any genuine James character ever permits himself to enter the story. there are no lengths of Jamesqueness you would not go to if you were once permitted to arrive between tea and dinner, which is the only hour any genuine James character ever permits himself to enter the story.
      You would have no difficulty in finding the houses. You know their lawns, their ways, their atmosphere, aromas, and mistresses. It is just a matter of their having the gallantry to exist when you get there, and the casualness which is a part of their charm makes you rather doubt if they would take the trouble. Yet if you boarded any train from any London station, arriving anywhere in the neighborhood of half after six, there would be at least a half-dozen of those casual, cryptic, worldly dears scattered through the first-class compartments; and if one followed at their heels, the houses to which they were going could hardly let them in and make an exception of you. It might be that, on declaring oneself as no less a person than the gentle reader, all doors would be flung wide open, and one would be shown to the best wainscoted bedroom in the oldest wing of the house. If they were not as mannerly as this, one could threaten to cease reading them. That would quickly bring one an extraordinarily good seat at dinner between the Prince and, say, Mr. James himself.

      That modern development, the woman of affairs, has so confused competency and aggressiveness that, though her manner convinces you she can do something, you have an idea that her achievement will be to fell you to the ground. As Pugilism does not seem to you nearly related to the business in hand, you regret the methods her presence suggests; for to make yourself at all understood, much less respected by her, you feel that you will presently be obliged to walk up and down her prostrate form shouting out the affair on which you came to consult her. This mode of procedure keeps things at such a very high pressure. One does not really close a door more effectively for banging it; and, “Well, well, well,” ejaculated gruffly, with a flounce that shakes the furniture, rather hurries one from the point than brings one to it. Of course we realize that these ladies are running the world, and that a great deal of work accumulated during the centuries before they saw fit to take it in hand; but, at the same time, if the Commissioners of Health actually intend to suppress unnecessary, nerve-racking noises, and to curb misdirected harmful energy, we suggest that these ladies be the first to be removed from the midst of a wholly exhausted public. When crispness verges into briskness, and from that develops speed that carries one past all human considerations, such as courtesy, weighed judgment, comprehension of more than one side of the question under discussion When crispness verges into briskness, and from that develops speed that carries one past all human considerations, such as courtesy, weighed judgment, comprehension of more than one side of the question under discussion, and ends in a perpetually runaway caricature, with rasping voice and heavy, trampling tread, one invariably feels that a mistake has been made somewhere, and that competency need not of necessity make one grotesquely businesslike.

      If one goes in for self-reform — and it is one of the employments which recommend themselves most strongly, as there is small danger of its not lasting a life-time — one has the happy realization that one has given to every known virtue at least one day’s adherence and discovered within oneself every known vice. It gives a sense of fulness at the end of a long life. There has been nothing spare about one’s view of oneself. Revising, as a real self-reformer does, his character after every play, book, and acquaintance, he keeps if nothing else a sense of flexibility of having at least a limber soul. There being so many influences, it is quite unnecessary that one should ever repeat a reform. In fact, if one expects anywhere nearly to make the rounds, it is almost out of the question to return to a thing if it has not, so to speak, taken the first time. We forswore sloth as represented by lying abed quite three years ago. If we are found at this late day still peaceably nibbling toast and propped up with pillows at an hour too reprehensible to mention, it is to be regretted; but that failing had its turn of stern admonition, and if nothing came of it the press of other reforms is to be blamed, not we who so earnestly try to be better. It might be said that there was a lack of finality about these reforms, but the feeling of the matter’s being settled forever is one of the chief charms in reforming. One is so staunchly sure that from now on all will be different. but the feeling of the matter’s being settled forever is one of the chief charms in reforming. One is so staunchly sure that from now on all will be different. It is this very sureness that induces us to dismiss the subject from our mind and to go on so blithely to something else. Consequently, the shock of hearing from a friend that she does not feel one to have changed radically in the last ten years is so unbearable that one is bound to explain it away; and the solution found is that, no one knowing one’s black depravity with the awful certainty with which it is known to oneself, no one else can say how they came or how long one has had the many virtues that at present grace one’s character.
 

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