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[Illustration: H. James]
Stories by American Authors V.
By Henry James.
By F.D. Millet.
By Park Benjamin.
By George Arnold.
By E.P. Mitchell.
1884
BY Henry James.[1]
"And I—what I seem to my friend, you see—
What I soon shall seem to his love, you guess.
What I seem to myself, do you ask of me?
No hero, I confess."
A Light Woman.—Browning's Men and Women.
April 4, 1857.—I have changed my sky without changing my mind. I resumethese old notes in a new world. I hardly know of what use they are; butit's easier to stick to the habit than to drop it. I have been at homenow a week—at home, forsooth! And yet, after all, it is home. I amdejected, I am bored, I am blue. How can a man be more at home thanthat? Nevertheless, I am the citizen of a great country, and for thatmatter, of a great city. I walked to-day some ten miles or so alongBroadway, and on the whole I don't blush for my native land. We are acapable race and a good-looking withal; and I don't see why weshouldn't prosper as well as another. This, by the way, ought to be avery encouraging reflection. A capable fellow and a good-looking withal;I don't see why he shouldn't die a millionaire. At all events he must dosomething. When a man has, at thirty-two, a net income of considerablyless than nothing, he can scarcely hope to overtake a fortune before hehimself is overtaken by age and philosophy—two deplorable obstructions.I am afraid that one of them has already planted itself in my path. Whatam I? What do I wish? Whither do I tend? What do I believe? I amconstantly beset by these impertinent whisperings. Formerly it wasenough that I was Maximus Austin; that I was endowed with a cheerfulmind and a good digestion; that one day or another, when I had come tothe end, I should return to America and begin at the beginning; that,meanwhile, existence was sweet in—in the Rue Tronchet. But now! Has thesweetness really passed out of life? Have I eaten the plums and leftnothing but the bread and milk and corn-starch, or whatever the horribleconcoction is?—I had it to-day for dinner. Pleasure, at least, Iimagine—pleasure pure and simple, pleasure crude, brutal andvulgar—this poor flimsy delusion has lost all its charm. I shall neveragain care for certain things—and indeed for certain persons. Of suchthings, of such persons, I firmly maintain, however, that I was never anenthusiastic votary. It would be more to my credit, I suppose, if I hadbeen. More would be forgiven me if I had loved a little more, if intoall my folly and egotism I had put a little more naïveté andsincerity. Well, I did the best I could, I was at once too bad and toogood for it all. At present, it's far enough off; I have put the seabetween us; I am stranded. I sit high and dry, scanning the horizon fora friendly sail, or waiting for a high tide to set me afloat. The waveof pleasure has deposited me here in the sand. Shall I owe my rescue tothe wave of pain? At moments I feel a kind of longing to expiate mystupid little sins. I see, as through a glass, darkly, the beauty o