...Henry James The Aspern Papers by Henry James The text is that of the first American book edition, Macmillan and Co., 1888. I I had taken Mrs. Prest in... ... two shy, mysterious and, as it was somehow supposed, scarcely respectable Americans (they were be- 4 The Aspern Papers lieved to have lost in their ... ...one to the house to offer assistance, so that if there were suffering (and American suffering), she should at least not have it on her conscience. The... ...ten on it in Italian the words, “Could you very kindly see a gentleman, an American, for a moment?” The little maid was not hostile, and I re- flected... ...ring at me, and I exclaimed, “You don’t mean to say you are also by chance American?” “I don’t know; we used to be.” “Used to be? Surely you haven’t c... ... read him,” she quietly re- plied. 44 The Aspern Papers “He is my poet of poets—I know him almost by heart.” For an instant Miss Tita hesitated; then... ...n quite open to me to think you rather inhuman.” “Inhuman? That’s what the poets used to call the women a hundred years ago. Don’t try that; you won’t... ...ter ones than myself: the great writers mainly— the great philosophers and poets of the past; those who are dead and gone and can’t speak for themselv... ...t becomes of the work I just mentioned, that of the great philosophers and poets? It is all vain words if there is nothing to measure it by.” “You tal...

...ing that they would like to lick the Russians, or to get the better of the Americans in a matter of fisheries or frontiers. But he invented a pseudo-p... ... said you came to see me, you know. Have you met Miss Boncassen yet?’ ‘The American beauty? No. Is she here?’ ‘Yes; and she particularly wants to be ... ... standing there amidst a crowd, and to Miss Boncassen. Mr Boncassen was an American who had lately arrived in England with the object of carrying out ... ...ry pursuits in which he was engaged within the British Mu- seum. He was an American who had nothing to do with politics and nothing to do with trade. ... ... without that look of slimness which is common to girls, and especially to American girls. That her figure was perfect the reader may believe my word,... ...with any others of the party. Perhaps she liked to talk about Scandinavian poets, of whom, Mr Boncassen was so fond. Perhaps she 347 Anthony Trollope...

... as we perforce lived, in Europe, and being, as we perforce were, leisured Americans, which is as much as to say that we were un-American, we were thr... ...e said about a very similar posi- tion—she was a little too well-bred, too American, to talk about mine—that it was a case of perfectly open riding an... ...ing and the woman could just act on the spur of the moment. She said it in American of course, but that was the sense of it. I think her actual words ... ...us warrior, remonstrated some more about the courtesy that is due to great poets. But I suppose La Louve was the more ferocious of the two. Anyhow, th... ...ry where the watches come from. He had a factory there which, in our queer American way, would change its functions almost from year to year. For nine... ...rushed, conscious of being rather small amongst the long English, the lank Americans, the rotund Germans, and the obese Russian Jewesses, I should sta...

...- nies to twirl it by steam. Glare is a leading error in the philosophy of American house- hold decoration—an error easily recognised as deduced from ... ...- tween a London populace and that of the most frequented 35 V olume Five American city. A second turn brought us into a square, bril- liantly lighte... ... 39 V olume Five velop my morals:—that is the secret. By and by the “North American Quarterly Humdrum” will make them ashamed of their stupidity. In t... ...ough and through with a Paixhan bomb, or knocked him in the head with the “Poets and Poetry of America,” he could hardly have been more discomfited th... ...iddon replied at great length, in phonetics; and but for the deficiency of American printing-offices in hieroglyphical type, it would afford me much p... ...pose will be to cite for consideration, some few of those minor English or American poems which best suit my own taste, or which, upon my own fancy, h... ...blest—and, speaking of Fancy—one of the most singularly fanciful of modern poets, was Thomas Hood. His “Fair Ines” had always for me an inexpressible ... ... cite only a very brief specimen. I call him, and think him the noblest of poets, not because the impressions he produces are at all times the most pr... ...ed that at least one-third of the affection with which we regard the elder poets of Great Britain should be-attributed to what is, in itself, a thing ...

...hat country. The first step he took was to enter into an alliance with his American neighbours, and this is the only treaty between those people and t... ...in his native country, went back to Penn- sylvania. His own people and the Americans received him with tears of joy, as though he had been a father wh... ...eople differ from them in opinion; in which they too much resemble the bad poets, who used to declare publicly that Boileau spake irreverently of Loui... ...rom all the critiques put together which have been made on those two great poets. I have ventured to translate some passages of the most cel- ebrated ... ... have ventured to translate some passages of the most cel- ebrated English poets, and shall now give you one from Shakspeare. Pardon the blemishes of ... ...esire you always to remember that the versions I give you from the English poets are written with freedom and lati- tude, and that the restraint of ou... ...; my only design in this letter being to display the genius of the English poets, and therefore I shall continue in the same view. The celebrated Mr. ...

...nd finally developed into the University of Pennsylvania; and he founded an “American The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin 3 Philosophical Society”... ...ned he received a place only second to that of Washington as the champion of American indepen The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin 4 dence. He die... ...tton Mather in his church history of that country, entitled Magnalia Christi Americana, as ‘a godly, learned Englishman,” if I remember the words righ... ...t become eminent in it, and make his for tune by it, alleging that the best poets must, when they first began to write, make as many faults as he did... ...hands. They wondered to see, from this and several instances, that the Water American, as they called me, was stronger than them selves, who drank st... ...company being increased to one hundred: this was the mother of all the North American subscription libraries, now so numer ous. It is become a great ...

... involuntarily we always read as superior be- ings. Universal history, the poets, the romancers, do not in their stateliest pictures, —in the sacerdot... ...ails of that stately apologue. Apollo kept the flocks of Admetus, said the poets. When the gods come among men, they are not known. Jesus was not; Soc... ...- mance, the issue is an exact allegory. Hence Plato said 22 Essays that “poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.”... ...s you have lived. A man shall be the Temple of Fame. He shall walk, as the poets have described that goddess, in a robe painted all over with wonderfu... ... idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascination for all educated Americans. They who made England, Italy, or Greece venerable in the imagina... ...r of thought and quaint expression are as near to us as to any, and if the American artist will study with hope and love the precise thing to be done ... ...s he looked out of this window, when he looked out of that,—whip him.” Our American character is marked by a more than average delight in accurate per... ...avior were as easily marked in the society of their age as color is in our American population. When any Rodrigo, Pedro or Valerio enters, though he b... ... Punic, in Roman houses, only that we may wiselier see French, English and American houses and modes of living. In like manner we see literature best ...

...ch abused Concord River with the most famous in history. “Sure there are poets which did never dream Upon Parnassus, nor did taste the stream ... ...taste the stream Of Helicon; we therefore may suppose Those made not poets, but the poets those.” 11 HenryDavidThoreau The Mississippi, the Gan... ...y sometimes see the curious circular nests of the Lamprey Eel, Petromyzon Americanus, the American Stone Sucker, as large as a cart wheel, a foot or ... ...bosom. It was such a season, in short, as that in which one of our Concord poets sailed on its stream, and sung its quiet glories. “There is an inwa... ...” There are other, savager, and more primeval aspects of na ture than our poets have sung. It is only white man’s poetry. Homer and Ossian even can n... ...d, and referring him to some new ge nealogy. “Son of——and——. He aided the Americans to gain their independence, instructed mankind in economy, and dr... ...moral grandeur and sub limity akin to those of his own Scriptures. T o an American reader, who, by the advantage of his posi tion, can see over that... ...red Alexander Henry’s Adventures here, as a sort of classic among books of American travel. It contains scenery and rough sketching of men and inciden... ...; the relic of a twilight antediluvian age which yet inhabits these bright American rivers with us Yankees. There is something vener able in this mel...

...ween it and me. It reminded me of the creations of the old epic and dramatic poets, of Atlas, Vulcan, the Cyclops, and Prometheus. Such was Caucasus a... ...w? He lives three thousand years deep into time, an age not yet described by poets. Can you well go further back in history than this? Ay! ay! — for t... ...of our domains before the dew was off, and found that the ground hemlock, or American yew, was the prevailing under shrub. We breakfasted on tea, hard... ...ds, and convinced me that the Indian was not the invention of historians and poets. It was a purely wild and primitive American sound, as much as the ... ...ot the invention of historians and poets. It was a purely wild and primitive American sound, as much as the barking of a chickaree, and I could not un... ...f Maine, foreigners are not allowed to kill moose there at any season; white Americans can 84 The Maine Woods kill them only at a particular season, ... ...decidedly and refreshingly different from those of any of the upstart Native American party whom I have seen. He was no darker than many old white men... ...is which chiefly has in spired, and will continue to inspire, the strains of poets, such as compose the mass of any literature. Our woods are sylvan, ... ...t right have you to celebrate the virtues of the man you murdered? The Anglo American can indeed cut down, and grub up all this waving forest, and mak...

...s difficulties, and in Paoli, the Corsican patriot; but when I came to the American War, I took my part, like a child as I was (until set right by my ... ...ame year in which I began Latin, I made my first commencement in the Greek poets with the Iliad. After I had made some progress in this, my father put... ...r their influence. There have certainly been, even in our own age, greater poets than Wordsworth; but poetry of deeper and loftier feeling could not h... ...than by the measure of what he had done for me. Compared with the greatest poets, he may be said to be the poet of unpoetical natures, possessed of qu... ...cultivation. This cultivation Wordsworth is much more fitted to give, than poets who are intrinsically far more poets than he. It so fell out that the... ...n of centralization. The powerful philosophic analysis which he applied to American and to French experience, led him to attach the utmost importance ... ...he most elaborate is entitled Elements of Individualism: and a remarkable American, Mr. Warren, had framed a System of Society, on the foundation of ... ...f public affairs had become extremely critical, by the commencement of the American civil war. My strongest feelings were engaged in this struggle, wh... ...gs lasted, there was no chance of a hearing for anything favourable to the American cause; and, more over, I agreed with those who thought the act un...

...ng, and he talked slowly with an into- nation which on some people, mainly Americans, had, I believe, a jarring effect. But not on me. What- ever he s... ..., very simply, the heights of in- spired vision. He wrote before the great American language was born, and he wrote as well as any novelist of his tim... ...y poetry. Meantime, unblushing, unseen, and often unheard, the guile- less poets have gone on singing in a sweet strain. How they dare do the impossib... ...in wrote The Loves of the Plants and a scoffer The Loves of the Triangles, poets have been sup- posed to be indecorously blind to the progress of scie... ...ell where they were. His eldest son was about the decks somewhere. “We are Americans,” he remarked weightily, but in a rather peculiar tone. He spoke ... ...he cried under his breath. “The first German light! Hurrah!” And those two American citizens shook hands on it with the greatest fervour, while I turn... ... at last the per- mission to travel to Vienna. Once there, the wing of the American Eagle was extended over our uneasy heads. We cannot be sufficientl...

... history, and religion, but of the growth and liberties of art. Of the two Americans, Whitman and Thoreau, each is the type of some- thing not so much... ...ght them forth, an author would require a large habit of life among modern Americans. As for Yoshida, I have already disclaimed respon- sibility; it w... ...ndignation against the zeal of a Whig clergyman, he writes: “I daresay the American Congress in 1776 will be allowed to be as able and as enlightened ... ...vid medium for all that had to do with social life. Hence, whenever Scotch poets left their laborious imitations of bad English verses, and fell back ... ...hrase of one tough verse of the original; and for those who know the Greek poets only by paraphrase, this has the very quality they are accustomed to ... ...ream so deep and easy that I will venture to call him the best of humorous poets. He turns about in the midst to utter a noble sentiment or a trenchan... ...calls “Feudal Literature” could have little living action on the tumult of American democracy; what he calls the “Lit- erature of Wo,” meaning the who... ...nhere in the life of the present; which was to be, first, human, and next, American; which was to be brave and cheerful as per con- tract; to give cul... ...e poetry, but he flatters himself he has done something towards making the poets. His notion of the poetic function is ambitious, and coin- cides roug...

...n was peculiarly happy in mentioning how many of the sons of Pembroke were poets; adding, with a smile of sportive triumph, ‘Sir, we are a nest of sin... ... afterwards enriched the life of his unhappy companion, and those of other Poets. He told Sir Joshua Reynolds, that one night in particular, when Sava... ...bean; Mr. Shiels, who we shall hereafter see partly wrote the Lives of the Poets to which the name of Cibber is affixed; Mr. Stewart, son of Mr. Georg... ...ss; and it has been thought that some choice sentences in the Lives of the Poets were sup- plied by him. Peyton, when reduced to penury, had frequent ... ...iga- tion, by transmitting to me copies of two letters from Dr. Johnson to American gentlemen. On Saturday, April 3, the day after my arrival in Londo... ...as to the justice and wisdom of the conduct of Great-Britain to- wards the American colonies, while I at the same time requested that he would enable ... ...tled, Taxation no Tyranny; an answer to the Resolutions and Address of the American Congress. He had long before indulged most unfavourable sentiments... ...not but be very obnoxious to Johnson, for he was not only a patriot but an American. He was afterwards minister from the United States at the court of... ...lancholy; and I mentioned to him a saying which somebody had related of an American savage, who, when an European was expatiating on all the advantage...

...ly, of course, on the “picture book” quality that contemporary English and American prose appears more and more destined, by the conditions of publica... ...fields of light, as that between verse and prose. The circumstance that the poets then, and the more charming ones, have in a number of instances, with... ... to reach its maximum, no doubt, over many of the sorry businesses of “The American,” for instance, where, given the elements and the essence, the lon... ...tion of several shorter pieces. Inevitably, in such a case as that of “The American,” and scarce less indeed in those of “The Portrait of a Lady” and ... ...to his new arrangement had yet had from him—was that he was practising his American in order to converse properly, on equal terms as it were, with Mr.... ...o, it’s his way. It belongs to him.” But she had wondered still. “It’s the American way. That’s all.” “Exactly—it’s all. It’s all I say! It fits him—so...

...hless man is but a general villain or funny monster, a subject rejected of poets, taking no hue in the flat chronicle of history: but a faithless woma... ...acific Islands, but they will soon be snapped up by the European and North American Govern- ments, and a single one of them does not offer space. It w... ...e smoked this identical pipe. She acknowledged the merits of my whisky, as poets do hearing fine verses, never clapping hands, but with the expressive... ...time.’ ‘I have been in America.’ ‘We are not exactly on the pattern of the Americans.’ Philip hinted a bow. He praised the Republican people. ‘Yes, bu... ...ntil he was caught by the masterly playing of a sonata by the chief of the poets of sound. He was caught by it, but he took the close of the introduc-... ... when she traced them! and it’s a moot point: as it is whether some of our poets have meaning and are not composers of zebra. ‘No one knows but them a... ...o Art. Why should we not learn to excel in Art? We excelled in Poetry. Our Poets were cited: not that there was a notion that poems would pay as an ex...

...e shall hereafter see) to an analogous conclusion with regard to the South American ostrich, the females of which are parasitical, if I may so express... ...t from their habits. The Saurophagus sulphuratus is typi- cal of the great American tribe of tyrant-flycatchers. In its structure it closely approache... ...Bra- zil, nothing struck him more forcibly than the splendour of the South American vegetation con- trasted with that of South Africa, together with t... ...elan, certainly three, and probably five species of rhinoceros; and on the American side, two tapirs, the guanaco, three deer, the vicuna, peccari, ca... ...the wild plains of Northern Patagonia: and first for the largest, or South American ostrich. The ordinary hab- its of the ostrich are familiar to ever... ...the valley of Quillota. The country was exceedingly pleasant; just such as poets would call pastoral: green open lawns, sepa- rated by small valleys w... ...austless delight of anticipating the long wished-for day of return. If, as poets say, life is a dream, I am sure in a voyage these are the visions whi...

...uary 1st: this morning I got January 3rd. Into the bargain with Marie, the American girl, who is grace itself, and comes leaping and dancing simply li... ...RS. SITWELL [MENTONE, JANUARY 1874.] … Last night I had a quarrel with the American on poli- tics. It is odd how it irritates you to hear certain poli... ... good and bright piece of work, and recognised a link of sympathy with the poets who ‘play in hostelries at euchre.’ – Believe me, dear sir, yours tru... ...rain ten to fourteen days’ journey; warranted extreme discomfort. The only American institution which has yet won my respect is the rain. One sees it ... ...ally, I regret to say, empty. Could your recommendation introduce me to an American publisher? My next book I should really try to get hold of here, a... ...ta in the West. I see I am in a grasping, dismal humour, and should, as we Americans put it, quit writing. In truth, I am so haunted by anxieties that...

...map. Con trast the physical condition of the Irish with that of the North American Indian, or the South Sea Islander, or any other savage race before... ...t perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whoop ing cough. A... ...rest and most memorable of the actions of men, date from such an hour. All poets and heroes, like Memnon, are the chil dren of Aurora, and emit their... ... such a pile we may hope to scale heaven at last. The works of the great poets have never yet been read by mankind, for only great poets can read th... ...unless it be in Milwaukee, as those splendid articles, English, French, or American prints, ginghams, muslins, etc., gathered from all quarters both o... ...nian. Wise midnight bags! It is no honest and blunt tu whit tu who of the poets, but, without jesting, a most solemn graveyard ditty, the mutual cons... ...althy, and wise? This foreign bird’s note is celebrated by the Walden 117 poets of all countries along with the notes of their native songsters. All ... ...o thin these trees, which are wont to grow up densely. The hares ( Lepus Americanus ) were very familiar. One had her form under my house all winter... ...nd not like the azure ether beyond. Some are dinning in our ears that we Americans, and moderns generally, are intellectual dwarfs compared Walden 2...

...the map. Contrast the physical condition of the Irish with that of the North American Indian, or the South Sea Islander, or any other savage race befo... ...; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough. A... ...airest and most memorable of the actions of men, date from such an hour. All poets and heroes, like Memnon, are the children of Aurora, and emit their... .... By such a pile we may hope to scale heaven at last. The works of the great poets have never yet been read by mankind, for only great poets can read ... ..., unless it be in Milwaukie, as those splendid articles, English, French, or American prints, ginghams, muslins, &c., gathered from all quarters both ... ...nsonian. Wise midnight hags! It is no honest and blunt tu whit tu who of the poets, but, without jesting, a most solemn graveyard ditty, the mutual co... ...ly healthy, wealthy, and wise? This foreign bird’s note is celebrated by the poets of all countries along with the notes of their native songsters. Al... ...der to thin these trees, which are wont to grow up densely. The hares (Lepus Americanus) were very familiar. One had her form under my house all winte... ...h, and not like the azure ether beyond. Some are dinning in our ears that we Americans, and moderns generally, are intellectual dwarfs compared with t...

...ust always be posterior to the improvement of that coun- try. In our North American colonies, the plantations have con- stantly followed either the se... ...d not rise to what it had been in 1755, till 1766, after the repeal of the American stamp act. In that and the following year, it greatly exceeded wha... ... increase too, so may likewise the capital of a great nation. In our North American and West Indian colonies, not only the wages of labour, but the in... ...me manner as that upon gold, or to give up working the greater part of the American mines which are now wrought. The gradual increase of the demand fo... ... be uncertain, whether, to the general market of Europe, the whole mass of American gold comes at a price nearer to the lowest for which it is possibl... ...letters. It may, perhaps, be worth while to remark, that, if we except the poets, a few orators, and a few historians, the far greater part of the oth...