There are pages of the book which, in the reading over, have seemed to make me see again the bristling13 curve of the wide Riva, the large colour-spots of the balconied houses and the repeated undulation of the little hunchbacked bridges, marked by the rise and drop again, with the wave, of foreshortened clicking pedestrians14. The Venetian footfall and the Venetian cry — all talk there, wherever uttered, having the pitch of a call across the water — come in once more at the window, renewing one’s old impression of the delighted senses and the divided, frustrated15 mind. How can places that speak IN GENERAL so to the imagination not give it, at the moment, the particular thing it wants? I recollect16 again and again, in beautiful places, dropping into that wonderment. The real truth is, I think, that they express, under this appeal, only too much — more than, in the given case, one has use for; so that one finds one’s self working less congruously, after all, so far as the surrounding picture is concerned, than in presence of the moderate and the neutral, to which we may lend something of the light of our vision. Such a place as Venice is too proud for such charities; Venice doesn’t borrow, she but all magnificently gives. We profit by that enormously, but to do so we must either be quite off duty or be on it in her service alone. Such, and so rueful, are these reminiscences; though on the whole, no doubt, one’s book, and one’s “literary effort” at large, were to be the better for them. Strangely fertilising, in the long run, does a wasted effort of attention often prove. It all depends on HOW the attention has been cheated, has been squandered17. There are high-handed insolent18 frauds, and there are insidious19 sneaking20 ones. And there is, I fear, even on the most designing artist’s part, always witless enough good faith, always anxious enough desire, to fail to guard him against their deceits.
Trying to recover here, for recognition, the germ of my idea, I see that it must have consisted not at all in any conceit21 of a “plot,” nefarious22 name, in any flash, upon the fancy, of a set of relations, or in any one of those situations that, by a logic23 of their own, immediately fall, for the fabulist, into movement, into a march or a rush, a patter of quick steps; but altogether in the sense of a single character, the character and aspect of a particular engaging young woman, to which all the usual elements of a “subject,” certainly of a setting, were to need to be super added. Quite as interesting as the young woman herself at her best, do I find, I must again repeat, this projection24 of memory upon the whole matter of the growth, in one’s imagination, of some such apology for a motive25. These are the fascinations26 of the fabulist’s art, these lurking27 forces of expansion, these necessities of upspringing in the seed, these beautiful determinations, on the part of the idea entertained, to grow as tall as possible, to push into the light and the air and thickly flower there; and, quite as much, these fine possibilities of recovering, from some good standpoint on the ground gained, the intimate history of the business — of retracing28 and reconstructing its steps and stages. I have always fondly remembered a remark that I heard fall years ago from the lips of Ivan Turgenieff in regard to his own experience of the usual origin of the fictive picture. It began for him almost always with the vision of some person or persons, who hovered29 before him, soliciting30 him, as the active or passive figure, interesting him and appealing to him just as they were and by what they were. He saw them, in that fashion, as disponibles, saw them subject to the chances, the complications of existence, and saw them vividly, but then had to find for them the right relations, those that would most bring them out; to imagine, to invent and select and piece together the situations most useful and favourable31 to the sense of the creatures themselves, the complications they would be most likely to produce and to feel.
“To arrive at these things is to arrive at my story,” he said, “and that’s the way I look for it. The result is that I’m often accused of not having ‘story’ enough. I seem to myself to have as much as I need — to show my people, to exhibit their relations with each other; for that is all my measure. If I watch them long enough I see them come together, I see them PLACED, I see them engaged in this or that act and in this or that difficulty. How they look and move and speak and behave, always in the setting I have found for them, is my account of them — of which I dare say, alas32, que cela manque souvent d’architecture. But I would rather, I think, have too little architecture than too much — when there’s danger of its interfering33 with my measure of the truth. The French of course like more of it than I give — having by their own genius such a hand for it; and indeed one must give all one can. As for the origin of one’s wind-blown germs themselves, who shall say, as you ask, where THEY come from? We have to go too far back, too far behind, to say. Isn’t it all we can say that they come from every quarter of heaven, that they are THERE at almost any turn of the road? They accumulate, and we are always picking them over, selecting among them. They are the breath of life — by which I mean that life, in its own way, breathes them upon us. They are so, in a manner prescribed and imposed — floated into our minds by the current of life. That reduces to imbecility the vain critic’s quarrel, so often, with one’s subject, when he hasn’t the wit to accept it. Will he point out then which other it should properly have been? — his office being, essentially34 to point out. Il en serait bien embarrasse. Ah, when he points out what I’ve done or failed to do with it, that’s another matter: there he’s on his ground. I give him up my ‘sarchitecture,’” my distinguished35 friend concluded, “as much as he will.”
So this beautiful genius, and I recall with comfort the gratitude36 I drew from his reference to the intensity37 of suggestion that may reside in the stray figure, the unattached character, the image en disponibilite. It gave me higher warrant than I seemed then to have met for just that blest habit of one’s own imagination, the trick of investing some conceived or encountered individual, some brace38 or group of individuals, with the germinal property and authority. I was myself so much more antecedently conscious of my figures than of their setting — a too preliminary, a preferential interest in which struck me as in general such a putting of the cart before the horse. I might envy, though I couldn’t emulate39, the imaginative writer so constituted as to see his fable40 first and to make out its agents afterwards. I could think so little of any fable that didn’t need its agents positively41 to launch it; I could think so little of any situation that didn’t depend for its interest on the nature of the persons situated42, and thereby43 on their way of taking it. There are methods of so-called presentation, I believe among novelists who have appeared to flourish — that offer the situation as indifferent to that support; but I have not lost the sense of the value for me, at the time, of the admirable Russian’s testimony44 to my not needing, all superstitiously45, to try and perform any such gymnastic. Other echoes from the same source linger with me, I confess, as unfadingly — if it be not all indeed one much-embracing echo. It was impossible after that not to read, for one’s uses, high lucidity47 into the tormented48 and disfigured and bemuddled question of the objective value, and even quite into that of the critical appreciation49, of “subject” in the novel.
One had had from an early time, for that matter, the instinct of the right estimate of such values and of its reducing to the inane50 the dull dispute over the “immoral” subject and the moral. Recognising so promptly51 the one measure of the worth of a given subject, the question about it that, rightly answered, disposes of all others — is it valid52, in a word, is it genuine, is it sincere, the result of some direct impression or perception of life? — I had found small edification, mostly, in a critical pretension53 that had neglected from the first all delimitation of ground and all definition of terms. The air of my earlier time shows, to memory, as darkened, all round, with that vanity — unless the difference to-day be just in one’s own final impatience55, the lapse56 of one’s attention. There is, I think, no more nutritive or suggestive truth in this connexion than that of the perfect dependence57 of the “moral” sense of a work of art on the amount of felt life concerned in producing it. The question comes back thus, obviously, to the kind and the degree of the artist’s prime sensibility, which is the soil out of which his subject springs. The quality and capacity of that soil, its ability to “grow” with due freshness and straightness any vision of life, represents, strongly or weakly, the projected morality. That element is but another name for the more or less close connexion of the subject with some mark made on the intelligence, with some sincere experience. By which, at the same time, of course, one is far from contending that this enveloping58 air of the artist’s humanity — which gives the last touch to the worth of the work — is not a widely and wondrously59 varying element; being on one occasion a rich and magnificent medium and on another a comparatively poor and ungenerous one. Here we get exactly the high price of the novel as a literary form — its power not only, while preserving that form with closeness, to range through all the differences of the individual relation to its general subject-matter, all the varieties of outlook on life, of disposition60 to reflect and project, created by conditions that are never the same from man to man (or, so far as that goes, from man to woman), but positively to appear more true to its character in proportion as it strains, or tends to burst, with a latent extravagance, its mould.
The house of fiction has in short not one window, but a million — a number of possible windows not to be reckoned, rather; every one of which has been pierced, or is still pierceable, in its vast front, by the need of the individual vision and by the pressure of the individual will. These apertures62, of dissimilar shape and size, hang so, all together, over the human scene that we might have expected of them a greater sameness of report than we find. They are but windows at the best, mere10 holes in a dead wall, disconnected, perched aloft; they are not hinged doors opening straight upon life. But they have this mark of their own that at each of them stands a figure with a pair of eyes, or at least with a field-glass, which forms, again and again, for observation, a unique instrument, insuring to the person making use of it an impression distinct from every other. He and his neighbours are watching the same show, but one seeing more where the other sees less, one seeing black where the other sees white, one seeing big where the other sees small, one seeing coarse where the other sees fine. And so on, and so on; there is fortunately no saying on what, for the particular pair of eyes, the window may NOT open; “fortunately” by reason, precisely63, of this incalculability of range. The spreading field, the human scene, is the “choice of subject”; the pierced aperture61, either broad or balconied or slit-like and low-browed, is the “literary form”; but they are, singly or together, as nothing without the posted presence of the watcher — without, in other words, the consciousness of the artist. Tell me what the artist is, and I will tell you of what he has BEEN conscious. Thereby I shall express to you at once his boundless64 freedom and his “moral” reference.
All this is a long way round, however, for my word about my dim first move toward “The Portrait,” which was exactly my grasp of a single character — an acquisition I had made, moreover, after a fashion not here to be retraced65. Enough that I was, as seemed to me, in complete possession of it, that I had been so for a long time, that this had made it familiar and yet had not blurred66 its charm, and that, all urgently, all tormentingly67, I saw it in motion and, so to speak, in transit68. This amounts to saying that I saw it as bent69 upon its fate — some fate or other; which, among the possibilities, being precisely the question. Thus I had my vivid individual — vivid, so strangely, in spite of being still at large, not confined by the conditions, not engaged in the tangle70, to which we look for much of the impress that constitutes an identity. If the apparition71 was still all to be placed how came it to be vivid? — since we puzzle such quantities out, mostly, just by the business of placing them. One could answer such a question beautifully, doubtless, if one could do so subtle, if not so monstrous72, a thing as to write the history of the growth of one’s imagination. One would describe then what, at a given time, had extraordinarily73 happened to it, and one would so, for instance, be in a position to tell, with an approach to clearness, how, under favour of occasion, it had been able to take over (take over straight from life) such and such a constituted, animated74 figure or form. The figure has to that extent, as you see, BEEN placed — placed in the imagination that detains it, preserves, protects, enjoys it, conscious of its presence in the dusky, crowded, heterogeneous75 back-shop of the mind very much as a wary76 dealer77 in precious odds78 and ends, competent to make an “advance” on rare objects confided79 to him, is conscious of the rare little “piece” left in deposit by the reduced, mysterious lady of title or the speculative80 amateur, and which is already there to disclose its merit afresh as soon as a key shall have clicked in a cupboard-door.
That may he, I recognise, a somewhat superfine analogy for the particular “value” I here speak of, the image of the young feminine nature that I had had for so considerable a time all curiously81 at my disposal; but it appears to fond memory quite to fit the fact — with the recall, in addition, of my pious82 desire but to place my treasure right. I quite remind myself thus of the dealer resigned not to “realise,” resigned to keeping the precious object locked up indefinitely rather than commit it, at no matter what price, to vulgar hands. For there ARE dealers83 in these forms and figures and treasures capable of that refinement84. The point is, however, that this single small corner-stone, the conception of a certain young woman affronting85 her destiny, had begun with being all my outfit87 for the large building of “The Portrait of a Lady.” It came to be a square and spacious88 house — or has at least seemed so to me in this going over it again; but, such as it is, it had to be put up round my young woman while she stood there in perfect isolation89. That is to me, artistically91 speaking, the circumstance of interest; for I have lost myself once more, I confess, in the curiosity of analysing the structure. By what process of logical accretion92 was this slight “personality,” the mere slim shade of an intelligent but presumptuous93 girl, to find itself endowed with the high attributes of a Subject? — and indeed by what thinness, at the best, would such a subject not be vitiated? Millions of presumptuous girls, intelligent or not intelligent, daily affront86 their destiny, and what is it open to their destiny to be, at the most, that we should make an ado about it? The novel is of its very nature an “ado,” an ado about something, and the larger the form it takes the greater of course the ado. Therefore, consciously, that was what one was in for — for positively organising an ado about Isabel Archer94.
One looked it well in the face, I seem to remember, this extravagance; and with the effect precisely of recognising the charm of the problem. Challenge any such problem with any intelligence, and you immediately see how full it is of substance; the wonder being, all the while, as we look at the world, how absolutely, how inordinately95, the Isabel Archers96, and even much smaller female fry, insist on mattering. George Eliot has admirably noted97 it —“In these frail98 vessels100 is borne onward101 through the ages the treasure of human affection.” In “Romeo and Juliet” Juliet has to be important, just as, in “Adam Bede” and “The Mill on the Floss” and “Middlemarch” and “Daniel Deronda,” Hetty Sorrel and Maggie Tulliver and Rosamond Vincy and Gwendolen Harleth have to be; with that much of firm ground, that much of bracing46 air, at the disposal all the while of their feet and their lungs. They are typical, none the less, of a class difficult, in the individual case, to make a centre of interest; so difficult in fact that many an expert painter, as for instance Dickens and Walter Scott, as for instance even, in the main, so subtle a hand as that of R. L. Stevenson, has preferred to leave the task unattempted. There are in fact writers as to whom we make out that their refuge from this is to assume it to be not worth their attempting; by which pusillanimity102 in truth their honour is scantly103 saved. It is never an attestation104 of a value, or even of our imperfect sense of one, it is never a tribute to any truth at all, that we shall represent that value badly. It never makes up, artistically, for an artist’s dim feeling about a thing that he shall “do” the thing as ill as possible. There are better ways than that, the best of all of which is to begin with less stupidity.
It may be answered meanwhile, in regard to Shakespeare’s and to George Eliot’s testimony, that their concession106 to the “importance” of their Juliets and Cleopatras and Portias (even with Portia as the very type and model of the young person intelligent and presumptuous) and to that of their Hettys and Maggies and Rosamonds and Gwendolens, suffers the abatement107 that these slimnesses are, when figuring as the main props108 of the theme, never suffered to be sole ministers of its appeal, but have their inadequacy109 eked110 out with comic relief and underplots, as the playwrights111 say, when not with murders and battles and the great mutations of the world. If they are shown as “mattering” as much as they could possibly pretend to, the proof of it is in a hundred other persons, made of much stouter112 stuff; and each involved moreover in a hundred relations which matter to THEM concomitantly with that one. Cleopatra matters, beyond bounds, to Antony, but his colleagues, his antagonists113, the state of Rome and the impending114 battle also prodigiously115 matter; Portia matters to Antonio, and to Shylock, and to the Prince of Morocco, to the fifty aspiring116 princes, but for these gentry117 there are other lively concerns; for Antonio, notably118, there are Shylock and Bassanio and his lost ventures and the extremity119 of his predicament. This extremity indeed, by the same token, matters to Portia — though its doing so becomes of interest all by the fact that Portia matters to US. That she does so, at any rate, and that almost everything comes round to it again, supports my contention120 as to this fine example of the value recognised in the mere young thing. (I say “mere” young thing because I guess that even Shakespeare, preoccupied121 mainly though he may have been with the passions of princes, would scarce have pretended to found the best of his appeal for her on her high social position.) It is an example exactly of the deep difficulty braved — the difficulty of making George Eliot’s “frail vessel99,” if not the all-in-all for our attention, at least the clearest of the call.
Now to see deep difficulty braved is at any time, for the really addicted122 artist, to feel almost even as a pang123 the beautiful incentive124, and to feel it verily in such sort as to wish the danger intensified125. The difficulty most worth tackling can only be for him, in these conditions, the greatest the case permits of. So I remember feeling here (in presence, always, that is, of the particular uncertainty126 of my ground), that there would be one way better than another — oh, ever so much better than any other! — of making it fight out its battle. The frail vessel, that charged with George Eliot’s “treasure,” and thereby of such importance to those who curiously approach it, has likewise possibilities of importance to itself, possibilities which permit of treatment and in fact peculiarly require it from the moment they are considered at all. There is always the escape from any close account of the weak agent of such spells by using as a bridge for evasion127, for retreat and flight, the view of her relation to those surrounding her. Make it predominantly a view of THEIR relation and the trick is played: you give the general sense of her effect, and you give it, so far as the raising on it of a superstructure goes, with the maximum of ease. Well, I recall perfectly128 how little, in my now quite established connexion, the maximum of ease appealed to me, and how I seemed to get rid of it by an honest transposition of the weights in the two scales. “Place the centre of the subject in the young woman’s own consciousness,” I said to myself, “and you get as interesting and as beautiful a difficulty as you could wish. Stick to THAT— for the centre; put the heaviest weight into THAT scale, which will be so largely the scale of her relation to herself. Make her only interested enough, at the same time, in the things that are not herself, and this relation needn’t fear to be too limited. Place meanwhile in the other scale the lighter129 weight (which is usually the one that tips the balance of interest): press least hard, in short, on the consciousness of your heroine’s satellites, especially the male; make it an interest contributive only to the greater one. See, at all events, what can be done in this way. What better field could there be for a due ingenuity130? The girl hovers131, inextinguishable, as a charming creature, and the job will be to translate her into the highest terms of that formula, and as nearly as possible moreover into ALL of them. To depend upon her and her little concerns wholly to see you through will necessitate132, remember, your really ‘doing’ her.”
So far I reasoned, and it took nothing less than that technical rigour, I now easily see, to inspire me with the right confidence for erecting133 on such a plot of ground the neat and careful and proportioned pile of bricks that arches over it and that was thus to form, constructionally speaking, a literary monument. Such is the aspect that to-day “The Portrait” wears for me: a structure reared with an “architectural” competence134, as Turgenieff would have said, that makes it, to the author’s own sense, the most proportioned of his productions after “The Ambassadors” which was to follow it so many years later and which has, no doubt, a superior roundness. On one thing I was determined135; that, though I should clearly have to pile brick upon brick for the creation of an interest, I would leave no pretext136 for saying that anything is out of line, scale or perspective. I would build large — in fine embossed vaults137 and painted arches, as who should say, and yet never let it appear that the chequered pavement, the ground under the reader’s feet, fails to stretch at every point to the base of the walls. That precautionary spirit, on re-perusal of the book, is the old note that most touches me: it testifies so, for my own ear, to the anxiety of my provision for the reader’s amusement. I felt, in view of the possible limitations of my subject, that no such provision could be excessive, and the development of the latter was simply the general form of that earnest quest. And I find indeed that this is the only account I can give myself of the evolution of the fable it is all under the head thus named that I conceive the needful accretion as having taken place, the right complications as having started. It was naturally of the essence that the young woman should be herself complex; that was rudimentary — or was at any rate the light in which Isabel Archer had originally dawned. It went, however, but a certain way, and other lights, contending, conflicting lights, and of as many different colours, if possible, as the rockets, the Roman candles and Catherine-wheels of a “pyrotechnic display,” would be employable to attest105 that she was. I had, no doubt, a groping instinct for the right complications, since I am quite unable to track the footsteps of those that constitute, as the case stands, the general situation exhibited. They are there, for what they are worth, and as numerous as might be; but my memory, I confess, is a blank as to how and whence they came.
I seem to myself to have waked up one morning in possession of them — of Ralph Touchett and his parents, of Madame Merle, of Gilbert Osmond and his daughter and his sister, of Lord Warburton, Caspar Goodwood and Miss Stackpole, the definite array of contributions to Isabel Archer’s history. I recognised them, I knew them, they were the numbered pieces of my puzzle, the concrete terms of my “plot.” It was as if they had simply, by an impulse of their own, floated into my ken54, and all in response to my primary question: “Well, what will she DO?” Their answer seemed to be that if I would trust them they would show me; on which, with an urgent appeal to them to make it at least as interesting as they could, I trusted them. They were like the group of attendants and entertainers who come down by train when people in the country give a party; they represented the contract for carrying the party on. That was an excellent relation with them — a possible one even with so broken a reed (from her slightness of cohesion) as Henrietta Stackpole. It is a familiar truth to the novelist, at the strenuous138 hour, that, as certain elements in any work are of the essence, so others are only of the form; that as this or that character, this or that disposition of the material, belongs to the subject directly, so to speak, so this or that other belongs to it but indirectly139 — belongs intimately to the treatment. This is a truth, however, of which he rarely gets the benefit — since it could be assured to him, really, but by criticism based upon perception, criticism which is too little of this world. He must not think of benefits, moreover, I freely recognise, for that way dishonour140 lies: he has, that is, but one to think of — the benefit, whatever it may be, involved in his having cast a spell upon the simpler, the very simplest, forms of attention. This is all he is entitled to; he is entitled to nothing, he is bound to admit, that can come to him, from the reader, as a result on the latter’s part of any act of reflexion or discrimination. He may ENJOY this finer tribute — that is another affair, but on condition only of taking it as a gratuity141 “thrown in,” a mere miraculous142 windfall, the fruit of a tree he may not pretend to have shaken. Against reflexion, against discrimination, in his interest, all earth and air conspire143; wherefore it is that, as I say, he must in many a case have schooled himself, from the first, to work but for a “living wage.” The living wage is the reader’s grant of the least possible quantity of attention required for consciousness of a “spell.” The occasional charming “tip” is an act of his intelligence over and beyond this, a golden apple, for the writer’s lap, straight from the wind-stirred tree. The artist may of course, in wanton moods, dream of some Paradise (for art) where the direct appeal to the intelligence might be legalised; for to such extravagances as these his yearning mind can scarce hope ever completely to close itself. The most he can do is to remember they ARE extravagances.
All of which is perhaps but a gracefully144 devious145 way of saying that Henrietta Stackpole was a good example, in “The Portrait,” of the truth to which I just adverted146 — as good an example as I could name were it not that Maria Gostrey, in “The Ambassadors,” then in the bosom147 of time, may be mentioned as a better. Each of these persons is but wheels to the coach; neither belongs to the body of that vehicle, or is for a moment accommodated with a seat inside. There the subject alone is ensconced, in the form of its “hero and heroine,” and of the privileged high officials, say, who ride with the king and queen. There are reasons why one would have liked this to be felt, as in general one would like almost anything to be felt, in one’s work, that one has one’s self contributively felt. We have seen, however, how idle is that pretension, which I should be sorry to make too much of. Maria Gostrey and Miss Stackpole then are cases, each, of the light ficelle, not of the true agent; they may run beside the coach “for all they are worth,” they may cling to it till they are out of breath (as poor Miss Stackpole all so visibly does), but neither, all the while, so much as gets her foot on the step, neither ceases for a moment to tread the dusty road. Put it even that they are like the fishwives who helped to bring back to Paris from Versailles, on that most ominous148 day of the first half of the French Revolution, the carriage of the royal family. The only thing is that I may well be asked, I acknowledge, why then, in the present fiction, I have suffered Henrietta (of whom we have indubitably too much) so officiously, so strangely, so almost inexplicably149, to pervade150. I will presently say what I can for that anomaly — and in the most conciliatory fashion.
A point I wish still more to make is that if my relation of confidence with the actors in my drama who WERE, unlike Miss Stackpole, true agents, was an excellent one to have arrived at, there still remained my relation with the reader, which was another affair altogether and as to which I felt no one to be trusted but myself. That solicitude151 was to be accordingly expressed in the artful patience with which, as I have said, I piled brick upon brick. The bricks, for the whole counting-over — putting for bricks little touches and inventions and enhancements by the way — affect me in truth as well-nigh innumerable and as ever so scrupulously152 fitted together and packed-in. It is an effect of detail, of the minutest; though, if one were in this connexion to say all, one would express the hope that the general, the ampler air of the modest monument still survives. I do at least seem to catch the key to a part of this abundance of small anxious, ingenious illustration as I recollect putting my finger, in my young woman’s interest, on the most obvious of her predicates. “What will she ‘do’? Why, the first thing she’ll do will be to come to Europe; which in fact will form, and all inevitably153, no small part of her principal adventure. Coming to Europe is even for the ‘frail vessels,’ in this wonderful age, a mild adventure; but what is truer than that on one side — the side of their independence of flood and field, of the moving accident, of battle and murder and sudden death — her adventures are to be mild? Without her sense of them, her sense FOR them, as one may say, they are next to nothing at all; but isn’t the beauty and the difficulty just in showing their mystic conversion154 by that sense, conversion into the stuff of drama or, even more delightful155 word still, of ‘story’?” It was all as clear, my contention, as a silver bell. Two very good instances, I think, of this effect of conversion, two cases of the rare chemistry, are the pages in which Isabel, coming into the drawing-room at Gardencourt, coming in from a wet walk or whatever, that rainy afternoon, finds Madame Merle in possession of the place, Madame Merle seated, all absorbed but all serene156, at the piano, and deeply recognises, in the striking of such an hour, in the presence there, among the gathering157 shades, of this personage, of whom a moment before she had never so much as heard, a turning-point in her life. It is dreadful to have too much, for any artistic90 demonstration158, to dot one’s i’s and insist on one’s intentions, and I am not eager to do it now; but the question here was that of producing the maximum of intensity with the minimum of strain.
The interest was to be raised to its pitch and yet the elements to be kept in their key; so that, should the whole thing duly impress, I might show what an “exciting” inward life may do for the person leading it even while it remains159 perfectly normal. And I cannot think of a more consistent application of that ideal unless it be in the long statement, just beyond the middle of the book, of my young woman’s extraordinary meditative160 vigil on the occasion that was to become for her such a landmark161. Reduced to its essence, it is but the vigil of searching criticism; but it throws the action further forward that twenty “incidents” might have done. It was designed to have all the vivacity162 of incidents and all the economy of picture. She sits up, by her dying fire, far into the night, under the spell of recognitions on which she finds the last sharpness suddenly wait. It is a representation simply of her motionlessly SEEING, and an attempt withal to make the mere still lucidity of her act as “interesting” as the surprise of a caravan163 or the identification of a pirate. It represents, for that matter, one of the identifications dear to the novelist, and even indispensable to him; but it all goes on without her being approached by another person and without her leaving her chair. It is obviously the best thing in the book, but it is only a supreme164 illustration of the general plan. As to Henrietta, my apology for whom I just left incomplete, she exemplifies, I fear, in her superabundance, not an element of my plan, but only an excess of my zeal165. So early was to begin my tendency to OVERTREAT, rather than undertreat (when there was choice or danger) my subject. (Many members of my craft, I gather, are far from agreeing with me, but I have always held overtreating the minor166 disservice.) “Treating” that of “The Portrait” amounted to never forgetting, by any lapse, that the thing was under a special obligation to be amusing. There was the danger of the noted “thinness”— which was to be averted167, tooth and nail, by cultivation168 of the lively. That is at least how I see it to-day. Henrietta must have been at that time a part of my wonderful notion of the lively. And then there was another matter. I had, within the few preceding years, come to live in London, and the “international” light lay, in those days, to my sense, thick and rich upon the scene. It was the light in which so much of the picture hung. But that IS another matter. There is really too much to say.
HENRY JAMES
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predecessors
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| n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 )；前辈；（被取代的）原有事物；前身 | |
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intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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wondrous
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| adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地 | |
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4
lagoon
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| n.泻湖，咸水湖 | |
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5
chatter
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| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
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6
vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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7
elicited
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| 引出，探出( elicit的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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8
abounds
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| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的第三人称单数 ) | |
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questionable
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| adj.可疑的，有问题的 | |
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10
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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11
lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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13
bristling
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| a.竖立的 | |
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14
pedestrians
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| n.步行者( pedestrian的名词复数 ) | |
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15
frustrated
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| adj.挫败的，失意的，泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧 | |
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16
recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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17
squandered
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| v.（指钱，财产等）浪费，乱花( squander的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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18
insolent
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| adj.傲慢的，无理的 | |
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19
insidious
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| adj.阴险的，隐匿的，暗中为害的，（疾病）不知不觉之间加剧 | |
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20
sneaking
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| a.秘密的，不公开的 | |
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21
conceit
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| n.自负，自高自大 | |
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22
nefarious
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| adj.恶毒的，极坏的 | |
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23
logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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24
projection
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| n.发射，计划，突出部分 | |
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25
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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26
fascinations
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| n.魅力( fascination的名词复数 )；有魅力的东西；迷恋；陶醉 | |
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27
lurking
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| 潜在 | |
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28
retracing
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| v.折回( retrace的现在分词 )；回忆；回顾；追溯 | |
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29
hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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30
soliciting
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| v.恳求( solicit的现在分词 )；（指娼妇）拉客；索求；征求 | |
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favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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32
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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33
interfering
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| adj. 妨碍的 动词interfere的现在分词 | |
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34
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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35
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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36
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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37
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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38
brace
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| n. 支柱,曲柄,大括号; v. 绷紧,顶住,(为困难或坏事)做准备 | |
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39
emulate
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| v.努力赶上或超越，与…竞争；效仿 | |
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40
fable
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| n.寓言；童话；神话 | |
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41
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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42
situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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43
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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44
testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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45
superstitiously
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| 被邪教所支配 | |
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46
bracing
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| adj.令人振奋的 | |
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47
lucidity
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| n.明朗，清晰，透明 | |
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48
tormented
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| 饱受折磨的 | |
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49
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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50
inane
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| adj.空虚的，愚蠢的，空洞的 | |
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51
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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52
valid
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| adj.有确实根据的；有效的；正当的，合法的 | |
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53
pretension
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| n.要求；自命，自称；自负 | |
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54
ken
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| n.视野，知识领域 | |
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55
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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56
lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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57
dependence
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| n.依靠，依赖；信任，信赖；隶属 | |
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58
enveloping
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的现在分词 ) | |
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59
wondrously
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| adv.惊奇地，非常，极其 | |
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60
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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61
aperture
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| n.孔，隙，窄的缺口 | |
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62
apertures
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| n.孔( aperture的名词复数 )；隙缝；（照相机的）光圈；孔径 | |
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63
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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64
boundless
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| adj.无限的；无边无际的；巨大的 | |
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65
retraced
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| v.折回( retrace的过去式和过去分词 )；回忆；回顾；追溯 | |
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66
blurred
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| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
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67
tormentingly
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| 使痛苦的，使苦恼的 | |
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68
transit
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| n.经过，运输；vt.穿越，旋转；vi.越过 | |
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69
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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70
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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71
apparition
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| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
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72
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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73
extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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74
animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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75
heterogeneous
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| adj.庞杂的；异类的 | |
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76
wary
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| adj.谨慎的，机警的，小心的 | |
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77
dealer
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| n.商人，贩子 | |
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78
odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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79
confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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80
speculative
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| adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的 | |
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81
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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82
pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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83
dealers
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| n.商人( dealer的名词复数 )；贩毒者；毒品贩子；发牌者 | |
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84
refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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85
affronting
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| v.勇敢地面对( affront的现在分词 )；相遇 | |
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86
affront
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| n./v.侮辱，触怒 | |
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87
outfit
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| n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装 | |
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88
spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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89
isolation
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| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
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90
artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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91
artistically
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| adv.艺术性地 | |
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92
accretion
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| n.自然的增长，增加物 | |
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93
presumptuous
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| adj.胆大妄为的，放肆的，冒昧的，冒失的 | |
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94
archer
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| n.射手，弓箭手 | |
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95
inordinately
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| adv.无度地，非常地 | |
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96
archers
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| n.弓箭手，射箭运动员( archer的名词复数 ) | |
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97
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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98
frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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99
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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100
vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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101
onward
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| adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先 | |
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102
pusillanimity
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| n.无气力，胆怯 | |
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103
scantly
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| 缺乏地，仅仅 | |
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104
attestation
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| n.证词 | |
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105
attest
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| vt.证明，证实；表明 | |
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106
concession
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| n.让步，妥协；特许(权) | |
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107
abatement
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| n.减(免)税，打折扣，冲销 | |
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108
props
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| 小道具； 支柱( prop的名词复数 )； 支持者； 道具； （橄榄球中的）支柱前锋 | |
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109
inadequacy
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| n.无法胜任，信心不足 | |
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110
eked
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| v.（靠节省用量）使…的供应持久( eke的过去式和过去分词 )；节约使用；竭力维持生计；勉强度日 | |
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111
playwrights
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| n.剧作家( playwright的名词复数 ) | |
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112
stouter
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| 粗壮的( stout的比较级 )； 结实的； 坚固的； 坚定的 | |
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113
antagonists
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| 对立[对抗] 者，对手，敌手( antagonist的名词复数 )； 对抗肌； 对抗药 | |
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114
impending
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| a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
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115
prodigiously
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| adv.异常地，惊人地，巨大地 | |
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116
aspiring
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| adj.有志气的；有抱负的；高耸的v.渴望；追求 | |
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117
gentry
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| n.绅士阶级，上层阶级 | |
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118
notably
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| adv.值得注意地，显著地，尤其地，特别地 | |
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119
extremity
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| n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度 | |
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120
contention
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| n.争论，争辩，论战；论点，主张 | |
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121
preoccupied
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| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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122
addicted
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| adj.沉溺于....的，对...上瘾的 | |
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123
pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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124
incentive
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| n.刺激；动力；鼓励；诱因；动机 | |
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125
intensified
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| v.（使）增强， （使）加剧( intensify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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126
uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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127
evasion
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| n.逃避，偷漏(税) | |
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128
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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129
lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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130
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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131
hovers
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| 鸟( hover的第三人称单数 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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132
necessitate
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| v.使成为必要，需要 | |
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133
erecting
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| v.使直立，竖起( erect的现在分词 )；建立 | |
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competence
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| n.能力，胜任，称职 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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pretext
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| n.借口，托词 | |
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vaults
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| n.拱顶( vault的名词复数 )；地下室；撑物跳高；墓穴 | |
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strenuous
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| adj.奋发的，使劲的；紧张的；热烈的，狂热的 | |
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indirectly
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| adv.间接地，不直接了当地 | |
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dishonour
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| n./vt.拒付（支票、汇票、票据等）；vt.凌辱，使丢脸；n.不名誉，耻辱，不光彩 | |
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gratuity
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| n.赏钱，小费 | |
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miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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conspire
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| v.密谋，（事件等）巧合，共同导致 | |
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gracefully
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| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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devious
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| adj.不坦率的，狡猾的；迂回的，曲折的 | |
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adverted
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| 引起注意（advert的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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inexplicably
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| adv.无法说明地，难以理解地，令人难以理解的是 | |
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pervade
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| v.弥漫，遍及，充满，渗透，漫延 | |
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solicitude
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| n.焦虑 | |
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scrupulously
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| adv.一丝不苟地；小心翼翼地，多顾虑地 | |
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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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conversion
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| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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meditative
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| adj.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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landmark
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| n.陆标，划时代的事，地界标 | |
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vivacity
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| n.快活，活泼，精神充沛 | |
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caravan
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| n.大蓬车；活动房屋 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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