Originally placed on display, Thursday, November 5, 2020. Copied from the original, Thursday morning, April 15, 2021.
A life drawing class full of female art students or, as Henry James might have seen it, ruthless young businesswomen in the making: Detail from “In the Studio” by Marie Bashkirtseff, 1881. Dnipro State Art Museum, Dnipro, Ukraine. Via Wikipedia.
Today is the novelist Henry James’ birthday. He’d have been 178 years old. There are some who would say that’s how long it takes to read one of his novels. There are some, as, indeed, James himself might rejoin, who should, as it were, restrain their opinions, or, to be precise, keep their yaps shut. At any rate, as it is, to say plainly, I don’t have much to say about James off the top of my head this morning. Today is also the 156th anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination, and I have much to say about Lincoln, and am at work saying it. Meanwhile, I’m reposting this one from back in November when I was reading James’ third novel “The American”, which, as it happens, reads like a breeze. James didn’t develop his more discursive later style until late in his long career. In the end he got windy. But in his youth and middle age he was generally breezy. Like here:
November 5, 2020:
This scene from Henry James’ early novel, “The American”, can serve as a reminder that James, at least in the first half of his career, was a comic novelist in the same way Dickens was. He could be as heavy-handed in naming his characters as Dickens, as well. The hero of the novel, the American of the title, a young but precociously successful businessman, is named Christopher Newman. At any rate, here’s Newman, on his first trip to Paris, determined to educate himself on matters of art, and ending up being educated on the subject of women artists as businesswomen. My favorite line is the one in which Newman remembers what he’s been informed about not “confounding the merit of the artist with that of [her] work”, which he then immediately proceeds to do. The artist's name is Claire Noemie, and, as you can guess, she turns out to be the romantic heroine and to have a terrible secret. James could be as melodramatic as Dickens too:
We [the narrator narrates] have approached him, perhaps, at a not especially favorable moment; he is by no means sitting for his portrait. But listless as he lounges there, rather baffled on the æsthetic question, and guilty of the damning fault (as we have lately discovered it to be) of confounding the merit of the artist with that of his work (for he admires the squinting Madonna of the young lady with the boyish coiffure, because he thinks the young lady herself uncommonly taking), he is a sufficiently promising acquaintance. Decision, salubrity, jocosity, prosperity, seem to hover within his call; he is evidently a practical man, but the idea in his case, has undefined and mysterious boundaries, which invite the imagination to bestir itself on his behalf.
As the little copyist proceeded with her work, she sent every now and then a responsive glance toward her admirer. The cultivation of the fine arts appeared to necessitate, to her mind, a great deal of by-play, a great standing off with folded arms and head drooping from side to side, stroking of a dimpled chin with a dimpled hand, sighing and frowning and patting of the foot, fumbling in disordered tresses for wandering hair-pins. These performances were accompanied by a restless glance, which lingered longer than elsewhere upon the gentleman we have described. At last he rose abruptly, put on his hat, and approached the young lady. He placed himself before her picture and looked at it for some moments, during which she pretended to be quite unconscious of his inspection. Then, addressing her with the single word which constituted the strength of his French vocabulary, and holding up one finger in a manner which appeared to him to illuminate his meaning, “Combien?” he abruptly demanded.
The artist stared a moment, gave a little pout, shrugged her shoulders, put down her palette and brushes, and stood rubbing her hands.
“How much?” said our friend, in English. “Combien?”
“Monsieur wishes to buy it?” asked the young lady in French.
“Very pretty, splendide. Combien?” repeated the American.
“It pleases monsieur, my little picture? It’s a very beautiful subject,” said the young lady.
“The Madonna, yes; I am not a Catholic, but I want to buy it. Combien? Write it here.” And he took a pencil from his pocket and showed her the fly-leaf of his guide-book. She stood looking at him and scratching her chin with the pencil. “Is it not for sale?” he asked. And as she still stood reflecting, and looking at him with an eye which, in spite of her desire to treat this avidity of patronage as a very old story, betrayed an almost touching incredulity, he was afraid he had offended her. She was simply trying to look indifferent, and wondering how far she might go. “I haven’t made a mistake—pas insulté, no?” her interlocutor continued. “Don’t you understand a little English?”
The young lady’s aptitude for playing a part at short notice was remarkable. She fixed him with her conscious, perceptive eye and asked him if he spoke no French. Then, “Donnez!” she said briefly, and took the open guide-book. In the upper corner of the fly-leaf she traced a number, in a minute and extremely neat hand. Then she handed back the book and took up her palette again.
Our friend read the number: “2,000 francs.” He said nothing for a time, but stood looking at the picture, while the copyist began actively to dabble with her paint. “For a copy, isn’t that a good deal?” he asked at last. “Pas beaucoup?”
The young lady raised her eyes from her palette, scanned him from head to foot, and alighted with admirable sagacity upon exactly the right answer. “Yes, it’s a good deal. But my copy has remarkable qualities, it is worth nothing less.”
---from “The American” by Henry James.
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