New York Edition, Vol. XVI; first magazine publication in Scribner’s Monthly, November 1877; first book publication in Daisy Miller (English edition, 1879).
The title suggests the influence of ‘Three Meetings’ by Ivan Turgenev (1818–83), the Russian novelist and short story writer whom James admired perhaps above all others.
1. any assembly: In the first published version (1877 and 1879) of the tale, this event was described as ‘a conversazione’, but, while revising, James seems to recognize that such a term is inappropriate to ‘the depths of New England’.
2. North Verona: A more playfully ironic place name than the heavy-handed ‘Grimwinter’ of the first published version. The European Verona is in Northern Italy.
3. Her eyes were perhaps just too round and too inveterately surprised: An improvement on the first published version’s somewhat unfortunate ‘She had a soft, surprised eye…’
4. ‘ruche’: A frill of ribbon or lace, used to ornament some part of a dress or hat.
5. a person launched and afloat but conscious of rocking a little: A metaphor, not found in the first published version, suggesting that in her imagination Caroline Spencer has already set sail for Europe.
6. the Castle of Chillon: The castle, begun in the ninth or tenth century and given its present form in the thirteenth century, is one of Switzerland’s most famous pieces of architecture and a popular tourist attraction.
7. Bonnivard, about whom Byron wrote: George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788–1824) wrote, in 1816, ‘The Prisoner of Chillon’ and a ‘Sonnet on Chillon’. François de Bonnivard (c. 1493–1570) has mythic status as a patriot, republican and victim of tyranny. Prior of St Victor’s in Geneva, he supported the people of Geneva in their revolt against the Duke of Savoy and was imprisoned twice – in 1519 for two years, and from 1530 to 1536 – in the Castle of Chillon. The iron ring to which he is supposed to have been fettered is still shown to visitors. He was liberated by the Bernese. Byron’s sonnet ends:
Chillon! thy prison is a holy place,
And thy sad floor an altar – for ’twas trod,
Until his very steps have left a trace
Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod
By Bonnivard! – May none these marks efface!
For they appeal from tyranny to God.
8. twenty-two months and a half: In thus revising the first published version’s ‘twenty-three months’, James makes Caroline Spencer even more eagerly precise.
9. thirst-fever: Significantly, in James’s early novel Roderick Hudson (1875), the eponymous young American artist, yearning for Europe, creates a sculpture of a ‘naked youth drinking from a gourd’, entitled Thirst. See Roderick Hudson, ed. Geoffrey Moore and Patricia Crick (Penguin Books: Harmondsworth, 1986), p. 59.
10. ‘“Everything” is saying much… our confident dream’: This important paragraph is largely new to the New York Edition. The first published version reads simply:
‘I understand your case,’ I rejoined. ‘You have the native American passion – the passion for the picturesque. With us, I think, it is primordial – antecedent to experience. Experience comes and only shows us something we have dreamt of.’
11. dame de comptoir: Barmaid (French, as are the translations below, unless otherwise indicated).
12. letter of credit: Letter written from one banker to another, requesting that the bearer be credited with specific sums of money. The term is used metaphorically here but events soon render the term harshly literal.
13. circular notes: Letters of credit used by travellers.
14. In my cousin’s pocket: James’s precise revision of the first published version’s ‘My cousin has them’ augments the ironic chill here.
15. a beautifully fluted cap: White, pleated head-dress, part of traditional dress in Normandy.
16. the ancient fortress… Francis the First… small Castle of Saint Angelo: Le Havre was founded, as a port and harbour, in 1517 by Francis I of France (1494–1547). The Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome was built in AD 135–9 as a dynastic tomb and converted to a fortress in the fifth century. The design is essentially a circle surrounded by a square.
17. slouch hat: Soft felt hat with a wide flexible brim, described later in the tale as a sombrero.
18. Rue Bonaparte: On the bohemian Left Bank in Paris, the site of the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts, established in 1816.
19. a Raphaelesque or Byronic attire: I.e. the bohemian attire typical of the artist. The Italian Renaissance painter Raphael (1483–1520) and the Scottish poet Byron are offered here as typical artists.
20. Je suis fou de la peinture: I am crazy about painting.
21. auberge: Inn.
22. Salle-a`-Manger: Dining room.
23. She was a beautiful young widow: Many of the details of the supposed Countess’s past – or what Caroline Spencer has been led to believe that past to be – are new to the New York Edition.
24. grande dame: Great lady.
25. the Levant: The countries of the Eastern Mediterranean.
26. ‘carry-all’: American version of carriole – a light, four-wheeled carriage, drawn by one horse and capable of carrying several people.
27. a shabby Parisian quatrième: A fourth-floor apartment, the grander apartments being on lower floors.
28. a` la chinoise: After the Chinese style, gathered in a knot.
29. le sourire agréable: The New York Edition puts into French what in the first published version is described as ‘an agreeable smile’.
30. C’est bien: That’s good.
31. such parti-coloured flannels: An addition in the New York Edition, suggesting the motley of the fool or clown.
32. tant bien que mal: In the first published version, ‘after a fashion’.
33. sans me vanter: Without bragging.
34. La belle découverte…la beêtise meême: What a discovery… stupidity itself.
35. me fait languir: Makes me yearn (for Paris).
36. Vous avez de la chance: You are lucky.
37. hein…sous ce beau ciel: Eh… in that beautiful place; literally under that beautiful sky.
38. hélas: Alas.
39. On en a de toutes les sortes: One can have all kinds of that (experience).
40. my épreuve – elles m’en ont données, des heures, des heures: My ordeal (or trial) – I’ve had hours and hours of it.
41. comme cela se fait: As is proper; as is done.
42. C’est une fille charmante… fine: She’s a charming girl… colloquially, cognac or brandy.
43. mon amoureux… il me fait une cour acharnée: My lover or sweetheart… he’s madly in love with me.
44. je ne sais quelle dévergondée: I don’t know what kind of shameless, abandoned woman.
45. my inward sense of the Countess’s probable past: The details of the narrator’s speculation are an addition in the New York Edition, matching the addition earlier of the fuller account which Caroline Spencer had been given of the Countess’s background.
46. parages: Parts.
New York Edition, Vol. XVIII; first magazine publication as ‘Daisy Miller: A Study’ in Cornhill Magazine, June and July 1878; first book publication as Daisy Miller: A Study (1879); rewritten as a play Daisy Miller: A Comedy in Three Acts (1883). Unlike the prose versions of the story, the play ends with Daisy recovered and anticipating marriage to Winterbourne in America.
1. Vevey: The chief town of the Canton of Valais. It lies on Lake Geneva and began to develop into a major tourist attraction in the nineteenth century.
2. Newport and Saratoga: Newport, Rhode Island, a fashionable resort; Saratoga Springs, New York, another fashionable spa resort. A few lines later James names the Ocean House and Congress Hall, hotels in Newport and Saratoga Springs, respectively.
3. Trois Couronnes: The Three Crowns – still a luxury hotel in Vevey.
4. the Dent du Midi… the Castle of Chillon: The Dent du Midi is a famous peak (3300 metres), south of Lake Geneva. For the Castle of Chillon, see ‘Four Meetings’, note 6.
5. the little capital of Calvinism: Geneva. Jean Calvin (1509–64), the French theologian, fled from Paris to Geneva, making it the centre of Reformed Protestantism in the sixteenth century.
6. the grey old ‘Academy’: The University of Geneva, formerly an Academy founded by Calvin in 1559 to train Reformed theologians.
7. alpenstock: A long iron-pointed staff, for use in mountain climbing.
8. the Simplon: One of the main Alpine passes between Switzerland and Italy, and the shortest route between the Valais and northern Italy. Travellers went by horse-drawn coach, the road having been constructed, on Napoleon’s orders, between 1801 and 1805. (A railway tunnel was not opened until the twentieth century.)
9. Schenectady: Town in upstate New York; an important centre for industry and business.
10. He don’t like Europe: In the first published versions Daisy says ‘He doesn’t like Europe.’ This is one of many changes in the New York Edition which make Daisy’s speech – and that of her brother – less grammatically ‘correct’, more demotic. This is also seen, for example, in their repeated declarations that they are going ‘t’Italy’ in contrast to the earlier text’s ‘to Italy’ and in the change from Daisy’s assertion a little later in the conversation, ‘There isn’t any society’, to her ‘There ain’t any society’ recorded here. The New York Edition also adds Daisy’s colloquial exclamations – ‘oh pshaw’ and ‘My!’
11. the cars: I.e. railway carriages.
12. arrière-pensée: Hidden, ulterior motive (French, as are the translations below, unless otherwise indicated).
13. courier: In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, parties travelling on the Continent typically employed couriers, servants who made all the arrangements for the journey.
14. her natural elegance: The first published version records that Daisy has ‘the tournure of a princess’, ‘tournure’ meaning ‘bearing’ or ‘figure’. The New York Edition revision restores the democratic and American in descriptions of Daisy, and does not allow Winterbourne to assimilate her to European models.
15. in large puffs: A hairstyle achieved by rolling the ends of the hair to form puffs. Such a style was fashionable at the time in Paris.
16. Homburg: Bad Homburg, a fashionable spa town north of Frankfurt am Main in Germany.
17. constatations: Findings, statements of fact.
18. comme il faut: Proper, correct.
19. the common table: The New York Edition’s revision of the first published version’s ‘table d’hôte’ appropriately translates the French into Daisy’s American idiom. The more expensive alternative to eating at set times at the public table d’hôte was to have meals served in one’s rooms, as the exclusive Mrs Costello clearly does.
20. Mr Frederick Forsyth Winterbourne: Only in the New York Edition does Winterbourne attain to this full and formal name. In the first edition Daisy introduces him merely as ‘Mr Winterbourne’.
21. city at the other end of the lake: I.e. Geneva.
22. oubliettes: Dungeons, with an opening only at the top, into which prisoners were thrown and – as the name implies (little places of forgetting) – forgotten.
23. the unhappy Bonnivard: See ‘Four Meetings’, note 7.
24. intime: Intimate, familiar.
25. that pretty novel of Cherbuliez’s – ‘Paule Méré’: Swiss-born French novelist Charles Victor Cherbuliez (1822–99), author of Paule Méré (1864), which has a close relationship to ‘Daisy Miller’: its unconventional but innocent heroine is vilified by Geneva society, thus destroying any hopes of a relationship with the novel’s hero. She dies of a broken heart. It is thus ironic that Mrs Costello thinks of this novel as ‘pretty’.
26. Via Gregoriana: Near the Spanish Steps, this street, particularly from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, provided lodgings for the wealthier visitors to Rome.
27. the infant Hannibal: Hannibal (247–182 bc ), Carthaginian general and – the point of the comparison here – Rome’s great enemy. He was militarily active by the age of nineteen and was following in the footsteps of his father, Hamilcar Barca (c. 270–228 bc ), who long campaigned against the Romans.
28. Zürich: Scenic city, the largest in Switzerland, and perhaps for that reason an apposite choice for an otherwise unlikely comparison with Rome.
29. his rough ends to his words: In The Question of Our Speech (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1905), Henry James lamented ‘our national vocal sound… is slovenly… Nothing is commoner than to see throughout our country, young persons of either sex… whose utterance can only be indicated by pronouncing it destitute of any approach to an emission of the consonant. It becomes thus a mere slobber of disconnected vowel sounds’ (p. 25).
30. the Pincio: Named after the Pinci family, who had a garden there in the fourth century, this hill was laid out as a garden, with walks and avenues, during the Napoleonic occupation (1809–14). The promenade, designed by Guiseppe Valadier and opened to the public in 1828, is celebrated for its view over Rome.
31. the fever: Malaria or perniciosa or ‘Roman fever’, so-called because, prior to drainage and the embankment of the Tiber, and the use of quinine, malaria was particularly prevalent in Rome, especially in the summer months, months which visitors, prior to the twentieth century, tended to avoid.
32. that place in front, where you look at the view: The terrace of Piazzale Napoleone I in the Pincio, famous for its view, particularly at dusk.
33. penny-a-liner: Hack or second-rate journalist, not on a newspaper’s permanent staff but paid a penny a line.
34. amoroso: Lover, sweetheart (Italian).
35. the revolving train: I.e. of carriages driving round the Pincio.
36. victoria: Low four-wheeled carriage for two with a folding hood.
37. true… your truth: In the first published version the talk is of Mrs Walker’s desire to be ‘earnest’ and of her ‘earnestness’.
38. the wall of Rome… the beautiful Villa Borghese: The Aurelian Wall, built by the Emperor Aurelian and constructed a d 271–5, encompassed the seven hills of Rome and was intended as protection against barbarian invasion. The section referred to here which marks the south-west boundary of the Villa Borghese, follows an irregular line and is called the crooked wall (Muro Torto). The Villa Borghese is the largest park in Rome, created by Cardinal Scipio Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V, in the early seventeenth century.
39. Elle s’affiche, la malheureuse: She’s making a spectacle of herself, poor girl.
40. my friend in need: Alluding to the proverb ‘A friend in need is a friend indeed.’
41. as he might have done all the kingdoms of the earth: A simile new to the New York Edition, and a good example of the later James’s often cavalier appropriation of allusion. The reference is to the Devil’s temptation of Christ in the wilderness by offering Him ‘all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them’ (Matthew 4:8).
42. Saint Peter’s: St Peter’s Basilica, in the Vatican City, the largest church in the world.
43. the Corso: The main street of central Rome, named after horse races organized by Pope Paul II in the fifteenth century, and lined by Renaissance palaces. It was the fashionable place to be seen: from the eighteenth century, it was the custom for a lady to be seen there with her faithful admirer.
44. barber’s block: Wooden head on which wigs were displayed.
45. romps on from day to day, from hour to hour, as they did in the Golden Age: Cf. Shakespeare’s As You Like It I. i. 107–9, speaking of Duke Senior: ‘They say young gentlemen flock to him every day, and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world.’
46. scarcely went on all fours: Did not suit in all particulars; was incoherent. Mrs Costello’s finding the Golden Age vulgar suggests her expression has become somewhat entangled and contradictory.
47. cavaliere avvocato: A minor official, literally a gentleman lawyer (Italian).
48. marchese: Marquis (Italian).
49. qui se passe ses fantaisies: Who pleases herself; does what she likes.
50. the Doria Palace: The Palazzo Doria Pamphili, famous for the art collection in its Picture Gallery, which includes the portrait of Pope Innocent X by the Spanish painter Velasquez (1599–1660). A ‘cabinet’ is a room.
51. du meilleur monde: Of the best society.
52. the Palace of the Caesars: The archaeological site on the Palatine Hill, home of the ancient emperors.
53. the Caelian Hill: Or Coelian Hill, one of the seven hills of Rome.
54. the Arch of Constantine… the Forum: One of the largest of Rome’s surviving triumphal arches, built in a d 315 to commemorate Constantine’s triumph over his rival Maxentius’s troops in a d 312. The Forum is the ruins of the centre of ancient Rome.
55. the Colosseum: The largest Roman amphitheatre in the world, begun by Vespasian, the first of the Flavian emperors, in ad 72 and completed by his son in ad 80. A rounded oval, with tiers of stepped seating, it was a place of public entertainment where spectacles included races, gladiators’ duels, and gladiators fighting wild animals. It is not certain that Christians were martyred here, but the story has widespread currency and the building was consecrated in the eighteenth century.
56. Byron’s famous lines out of ‘Manfred’:(1817) III. iv. 9–11, 27–41:
upon such a night
I stood within the Coliseum’s wall,
’Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome;…
But the gladiators’ bloody Circus stands,
A noble wreck in ruinous perfection,
While Caesar’s chambers, and the Augustan halls,
Grovel on earth in indistinct decay. –
And thou didst shine, thou rolling Moon, upon
All this, and cast a wide and tender light,
Which softened down the hoar austerity
Of rugged desolation, and filled up,
As ’twere anew, the gaps of centuries;
Leaving that beautiful which still was so,
And making that which was not – till the place
Became religion, and the heart ran o’er
With silent worship of the Great of old, –
The dead, but sceptred Sovereigns, who still rule
Our spirits from their urns.
For Byron, see ‘Four Meetings’, note 7.
57. great cross in the centre: Commemorating the Christian martyrs.
58. perniciosa: Roman fever; malaria (Italian). (See note 31.)
59. some pills: Possibly quinine.
60. the little Protestant cemetery: Testaccio Cemetery, at the foot of the Pyramid of Caius Cestius, south of the Aventine, is the first cemetery granted by the popes for non-Catholic Italians and foreigners. It is the burial place of Keats and Shelley.
61. she did what she liked: A revision particular to the New York edition. Earlier editions read ‘she wanted to go’.
New York Edition, Vol. XIV; first magazine publication in Atlantic Monthly, April 1879; first book publication in Washington Square (1881).
1. Pension Beaurepas: Boarding House of the Good Meal (French, as are all translations below).
2. a letter addressed by… Stendhal to his sister: Stendhal (pseudonym of Henri Beyle) (1783–1842), French novelist and author of Le Rouge and le Noir (1830) and La Chartreuse de Parme (1839), carried out an extensive correspondence with his sister, Pauline. In a letter to her of August 1804, Stendhal makes the proposal James describes.
3. Balzac’s ‘Père Goriot’… ‘pension bourgeoise… autres’… Madame Vauquer, née de Conflans: Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), French realist novelist and author of Le Père Goriot (Old Goriot) (1834), set in Madame Vauquer’s boarding-house in Paris. James quotes the sign outside the Maison-Vauquer, literally ‘lodging house for both sexes and others’.
4. place: Square.
5. the ‘offices’: Pantry; servants’ quarters.
6. J’en ai vus de toutes les couleurs: I have seen every sort of them (French, as are the translations below, unless otherwise indicated).
7. heads: Headings, but punning on human heads.
8. Je trouve que c’est déplacé: I think it is out of place, inappropriate or in bad taste.
9. pot-au-feu: Stew.
10. chez moi: To my establishment.
11. tout compris: All inclusive; bed and full board.
12. au sérieux: Seriously.
13. priestess of the tripod: The priestess at the Shrine of Apollo in Delphi seated herself on a tripod, a three-legged stand, to deliver oracles.
14. French tongue… flourish by Lake Leman: Lake Geneva – otherwise known as Lake Leman – is in the western French-speaking part of Switzerland.
15. the Academy, the nursing mother of the present University: See ‘Daisy Miller’, note 6.
16. ‘manquait d’agréments’: Lacked charm; lacked pleasures.
17. M. Pigeonneau: Literally ‘a little or young pigeon’, an appropriate name given his physical appearance.
18. cabinet de lecture: Library; or, perhaps, bookcase.
19. Galignani: Daily English-language Paris newspaper founded by William Galignani (1798–1882), an Englishman who became a naturalized French citizen.
20. this big breakfast: Mr Ruck’s jokes tend to rather laboured translations, here of déjeuner (lunch) and petit déjeuner (breakfast).
21. transported: The character here is joking with the notion of transportation, the deportation of criminals, as a form of punishment.
22. the cars: Streetcars or carriages.
23. pensionnaires: Boarders.
24. those framed ‘capillary’ tributes to the dead: Compare ‘Fordham Castle’ where Mrs Magaw’s/Vanderplank’s hairstyle is also compared to the ‘work’ – flowers, leaves and tendrils – on mortuary sculpture.
25. Miss Ruck… well out in the open: Having made her social debut (used exclusively of young ladies), unlike Aurora Church (introduced in section IV), who wants to ‘come out’ in New York.
26. the jewellers’ windows: Switzerland is traditionally famous for its clocks, watches and jewellery.
27. New York Herald: This famous newspaper, founded in 1835 by James Gordon Bennett, marked the beginnings of modern journalism. It quickly became known for aggressively pursuing news stories.
28. the Rhône: The Rhône flows out of Lake Geneva at Geneva, dividing the city.
29. Salon des Etrangers: Reading room for the use of foreign visitors, providing newspapers, etc.
30. Rue du Rhône: The main shopping street on the south side of the river.
31. a tournure de princesse: A princess’s bearing or figure.
32. for my beaux yeux… Je vous recommande la maman: For my sake; for love of me… I recommend the mother to you.
33. a femme superbe…Ne vous y fiez pas:a femme superbe: A grand-looking woman;fraîcheur: bloom, freshness;dans l’intimité: in private; in intimate circumstances;Ne vous y fiez pas: Don’t you believe it.
34. Toute menue: Tiny.
35. Vous dites cela d’un ton: You say that in such a tone or in such a way.
36. ma&tresse de salon: Hostess of fashionable social and intellectual gatherings.
37. concurrente: Competitor (in business).
38. make me des histoires… vous allez voir cela: Make a fuss to me… you see if she doesn’t.
39. pour-boire: Tip.
40. from Basel: In the German-speaking part of Switzerland.
41. si vous me manquez: If you let me down.
42. octavo: Usually a small book, since the paper has been folded into eight leaves (16 pages).
43. feête de nuit: Evening party or celebration, with lights.
44. l’aimable transfuge: The lovely deserter (from the other pension).
45. ç a veut dire ‘église,’ n’est-ce-pas: That means ‘church’, doesn’t it.
46. Appenzell: Pre-Alpine region in eastern Switzerland, south of Lake Constance, its highest point being Mt Säntis (2504 metres). (Appenzell is also a town in this region.)
47. She ants to go to America: Aurora Church gets her wish, with comic consequences, in the epistolary tale ‘The Point of View’, first published in theCentury Magazine, December 1882, and included in New York Edition, Vol. XIV.
48. Dresden: City in Eastern Saxony, Germany, once a scenic and cultural centre.
49. Dalmatian: Native of a Slav region in western Yugoslavia, on the Adriatic coast. The joke here presumably refers to the Dalmatian dog and flirtatiously promises dog-like devotion.
50. tired of Europe… tired of life: A variation of ‘No, sir, when a man is tired of London he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford’, one of the most famous sayings of Dr Johnson (1709–84), in James Boswell’sLife of Samuel Johnson (1791).
51. C’est mon reêve: It’s my dream.
52. Piacenza: City in northern Italy, capital of Piacenza Province.
53. my jeunesse – my belle jeunesse: My youth – my beautiful youth.
54. Nous n’avons pas le sou: We haven’t a penny.
55. Avranches: Town in Normandy, northern France.
56. Excusez du peu: Forgive me.
57. fauteuil: Armchair.
58. de fortes études: Serious studies.
59. Sturm und Drang: Storm and stress (German), usually used to refer to German Romanticism.
60. vous m’en voulez: What do you expect of me?
61. the Hôtel de Ville: The Town Hall (built fifteenth–seventeenth centuries).
62. manuscripts of poor Servetus, the antagonist and victim… of the dire Calvin: Miguel Serveto or Servetus (1511–53), Spanish physician and theologian who was arrested while attending church in Geneva, convicted of heresy and blasphemy by the Calvinist government of Geneva, and burned at the stake. He had begun a correspondence with Calvin in 1545.
63. tapis de lit: Bedspread.
64. Mon Dieu…c’est un de ces maman, comme vous en avez, qui promènent leur fille: My God… She’s one of those mothers who tries to marry her daughter off (literally, who promenades or shows off her daughter).
65. a mari sérieux: An important husband.
66. gros bonnet: Bigwig.
67. fine mouche: Sly one.
68. courir les champs: To play the field; have a good time.
69. Allons donc: Come along! Nonsense!
70. pour la partie: To make up the match.
71. the Treille: The Promenade de la Treille, south-west of the Hôtel de Ville, is a walk, reached through a pillared gateway or archway, with views of Mont Salève and the Jura.
72. the ville basse: The Lower Town, lying between the old town and the south bank of the Rhône.
73. the cathedral: The Cathedral of St Peter, dating from the twelfth century.
74. Chamouni: Chamonix, the resort at the foot of the French Alps, close to Mont Blanc.
75. Grindelwald and Zermatt: Respectively, the glacier village in the Bernese Oberland, resort and favourite base of climbers; and the mountain village and resort in the Valais.
76. kind o’ foots up: Mounts up (i.e. bills and expenses).
77. the English Garden: The Jardin Anglais, east of the Pont du Mont-Blanc on the south side of the Lake.
78. Oh la belle rencontre, nos aimables convives: Oh what a happy meeting – our lovely fellow-guests.
79. Allons, en marche: Let’s walk.
80. En morale: Morally.
81. elle s’y perd… je n’en suis pas folle: She can’t make head or tail of it… I’m not crazy about her.
82. maître de piano: Piano teacher.
83. his digne épouse: His worthy wife.
84. de leur pays: Of their country.
85. the femme comme il faut: The proper lady.
86. a closed one: An enclosed carriage or a carriage with its hood up and thus more private than an open carriage – contrasting with, and rebuking by implication, Aurora’s public display.
87. Que voulez vous, monsieur: What are you saying, sir?
88. chaise aà porteurs: Sedan chair.
89. the Mer de Glace: Glacier.
90. Wall Street: The financial and business district, home of the New York Stock Exchange.
91. nourriture: Food, nourishment.
92. éprouvée: Tried.
93. the El Dorado: The ideal place, the golden city; originally the name given to the fabulous city supposed to be on the Amazon.
94. au fond: At bottom.
95. nous fait la révérence: Is taking her leave of us; literally bowing (farewell) to us.
96. elle fait ses paquets: She’s packing.
97. his adieux to ces dames: His farewells to these ladies.
98. Je crois que cette…femme austère:Je crois que cette race se perd: I think that breed is dying out;Ce sera une femme d’esprit: She will be a lively woman; a spirited woman;potelée: plump;femme austère: Stern or puritanical woman.
99. indices: Signs or indications.
100. femme de Rubens, celle-la`: She’s a woman out of a Rubens painting, that one. The Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) is renowned for his paintings of fleshy, generously proportioned female nudes.
New York Edition, Vol. XV; first magazine publication in Universal Review, July and August 1888; first book publication in The Lesson of the Master (1892).
1. in India: In the latter nineteenth century, part of the British Empire.
2. the reign of Queen Anne: 1702–14.
3. Manchester Square: Secluded square, built about 1770–88, in Marylebone, London.
4. Piccadilly: The large thoroughfare bordered by Mayfair and Green Park, home to the Royal Academy, and at the centre of the fashionable West End.
5. confrère: Colleague; fellow artist (French, as are the translations below).
6. the City: The business and banking district of London.
7. Cannes: Fashionable resort in the south of France.
8. Il s’attache à ses pas: He follows her everywhere; he sticks closely to her.
9. his personal ‘type’: Light allusion to then current theories of phrenology, and notions of ‘types’, which had their origins in evolutionary theory and allowed character to be inferred from physical characteristics.
10. dog-cart: Carriage with two transverse seats back-to-back.
11. car: I.e. Triumphal chariot.
12. his psychology a` fleur de peau: His superficial psychology; presumably referring to thin characterization in St George’s later works.
13. the fine Gainsborough: The English painter Thomas Gainsborough (1727–88) is celebrated for his portraits and landscapes.
14. St George and the Dragon: Jokey reference to the legend of St George of England slaying the dragon, here casting Henry St George’s wife as the dragon.
15. danglers: Hangers-on.
16. mot: Witticism; joke.
17. crewels: Embroidery.
18. bright habiliments: I.e. colourful smoking jackets.
19. the very rustle of the laurel: I.e. the laurel wreath, a symbol honouring excellence in poetry and literature.
20. Euston: Euston Railway Station in north London.
21. Cela s’est passé comme ça: It happened like that.
22. jamais de la vie: Never; out of the question.
23.hygiene: Programme for good health and well-being.
24. to ‘have’ something: I.e. a drink, a ‘night-cap’.
25. victoria: Low four-wheeled carriage for two with a folding hood.
26. brougham… a closed carriage: Light, closed four-wheeled horse-drawn carriage. Mrs St George’s delicate health prevents open-air travel.
27. Bond Street: Fashionable street in Mayfair.
28. a young artist in ‘black-and-white’: An artist using pen and ink, rather than paint. Earlier editors suggest that this refers more specifically to the manner of Aubrey Beardsley (1872–98) but the text pre-dates him.
29. a père de famille: The father of a family; a married man who can therefore escort young ladies to functions without social impropriety.
30. mornes: Gloomy; dreary; cheerless.
31. the Park: Hyde Park, the large park across Park Lane from Mayfair and extending west.
32. moeurs: Habits.
33. the Row: Rotten Row, in Hyde Park, the sand-track for horse riders.
34. hansom: Light two-wheeled covered carriage, the driver sitting above and behind, usually hired rather than privately owned.
35. C’est d’un trouvé: He’s a real find.
36. ‘season’: The part of the year, May until July, when the Court and fashionable society are in town.
37. duenna: Older lady tagging along as chaperone.
38. the ‘fast’ girl: Forward; disregarding of the social proprieties constraining unmarried women.
39. Comment donc: What (emphatic).
40. Marble Arch: Designed by Nash in 1828, this arch has stood at the north-east corner of Hyde Park since 1851, and formed an entrance to the Park until 1908.
41. the Serpentine: An artificial lake of forty-one acres stretching across the centre of both Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens – the latter initially the private gardens of Kensington Palace, but by this time also a public park.
42. linkmen’s: Men employed to carry torches to light the way for pedestrians, before street lighting.
43. il ne manquerait plus que ça: That’s the last straw.
44. carton-pierre: Papier maêché, made to imitate stone or bronze.
45. Lincrusta-Walton: Special type of thick embossed wallpaper, named after its maker, Mr Walton, the patentee of linoleum.
46. brummagem: Worthless or inferior articles made in imitation of better ones. The word derives from the local dialect version of ‘Birmingham’, the city once known for its production of cheap trinkets, imitation jewellery, etc.
47. Harrow… Oxford… Sandhurst: Respectively the famous public (i.e. independent) school, the famous university and the famous military academy.
48. n’en parlons plus: Let’s say no more about it.
49.Ennismore Gardens: Fashionable address in Kensington.
50. touched a thousand things… turned into gold: Alluding to the legend of King Midas, who requested of the gods that everything he touched might be turned to gold, and who was granted his wish with unfortunate consequences.
51. the towers of Chillon: See ‘Four Meetings’, note 6.
52. Clarens: Resort near Montreux in Switzerland.
New York Edition, Vol. XI; first magazine publication in Longman’s Magazine, March and April 1891; first book publication in The Lesson of the Master (1892).
1. gants de Suède: Kid gloves (French, as are the translations below, unless otherwise indicated).
2. Friday… superstitious: Some Christians regard Friday, being the day of the Crucifixion, as an unlucky day.
3. served on green cloth: Ulick is either playing billiards or gambling, both such tables being usually covered in green cloth.
4. déjeuner: See ‘The Pension Beaurepas’, note 20.
5. maccaroni: The Moreens live, not on pasta, but on a macaronic language – an eclectic mixture of diverse languages, jokingly described by Morgan below, playing on ‘ultramarine’, as ‘Ultramoreen’.
6. borné: (Educationally) limited or narrow.
7. a fourth floor in a third-rate avenue…portier: Not a good address, grander accommodation being usually on the lower floors… porter or door-keeper.
8. the Invalides and Notre Dame, the Conciergerie: The Hôtel des Invalides, military museum and burial place of Napoleon; Notre Dame, cathedral on the Ile de la Cité in the middle of the River Seine; the Conciergerie, originally part of the royal palace on the Ile de la Cité, most famous for its use as a prison during the French Revolution.
9. indifferent to his appearance as a German philosopher: I.e. because the German philosopher’s mind is typically on higher, transcendental and meta physical things.
10. the Jardin des Plantes…Louvre: The botanical gardens… One of the world’s largest museums and galleries, to which Henry James himself made an influential and memorable visit as a child in the company of a tutor. See Henry James,A Small Boy and Others (London: Macmillan, 1913), ch. XXV.
11. calorifère: Central heating.
12. on the quays: There are still open-air bookstalls along the Seine.
13. immondes: Disgusting, ignoble.
14. to filer meant to cut sticks: Which, in turn, means to leave, to depart.
15. hauteur: haughtiness.
16. a phoenix: The fabulous bird, there being only one of its kind. Mrs Moreen’s implication here is that Pemberton is not special, nor specially gifted, and that hence his sacrifices, in staying with Morgan, are not that great.
17. n’en parlons plus: Let’s speak no more about it.
18. modeste aisance: Modest means, i.e. comfortably well off.
19. monde chic: Fashionable society.
20. as Jews at the doors of clothing-shops: A simile intent on registering the Moreens’ greediness and an instance of casual and cruelly unthinking anti-semitism which shows that the imaginatively generous James was, in some respects at least, very much of his time.
21. the Bible Society: The American Bible Society, established in 1816 with headquarters in New York, is committed to the translation, publication and worldwide distribution of the Bible.
22. tutoyer: To use, in the case of French,tu (second person singular) and its attendant forms rather than vous (plural); to speak familiarly.
23. ‘sweet sea-city’: There may be an unidentified allusion here. However, it is also possible that the narrative is merely quoting the term used for Venice by the Moreens, speaking their very odd private family language.
24. the workaday world: Echo of As You Like It, I. iii. 12: ‘O, how full of briers is this working-day world.’
25. the Grand Canal: The main canal in Venice.
26. Saint Mark’s: Famous square in Venice, location of the Ducal Palace and St Mark’s Basilica.
27. sala…scagliola floor: Hall… a gypsum-and-glue imitation of ornamental stone (Italian).
28. the Piazza: St Mark’s Square.
29. three louis: A golden coin; in modern usage 20 francs – i.e. Mrs Moreen wants 60 francs in all.
30. c’est trop fort: That’s too much, too great a sum.
31. du train dont vous allez: Where are you coming from? Where did you get that from?
32. Dites toujours: Go on! say it!
33. an homme fait: A made man.
34. Balliol: A college of Oxford University.
35. Volapuk: Artificial language, largely composed of diverse European languages, invented in 1879 by a German priest, Johann Schleyer.
36. the quarter of the Champs Elysees: On the right bank, one of the grandest, most opulent areas of central Paris.
37. velvety entresols… burnt pastilles: Expensively draped mezzanine floors… small cones of fragrant paste, burnt to scent a room.
38. n’est-ce pas, chéri: Isn’t that right, dear?
39. in high feather: In exuberant spirits, joyous.
40. making up a ‘boy’s book’: Creating an adventure story.
41. Palais Royal… Chevet’s wonderful succulent window: The Palais Royal, bequeathed by Cardinal Richelieu (1585–1642) to Louis XIII, dates from the 1630s, and is located on the Rue St-Honoré, north of the Louvre. The Palais Royal contained (and continues to contain) gardens and galleries of shops – including, one infers, Chevet’s shop selling ‘succulent’ foodstuffs. Oddly, Des Esseintes, the anti-hero of the decadent novel Against Nature (A rebours)(1884) by Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848–1907), buys a tortoise from Chevet’s shop and has its shell studded with diamonds (ch. 4). The galleries or arcades provide shelter in inclement weather and in the past have been heated in winter.
42. sauve qui peut: Headlong panic or rout; case of each man for himself.
43. Bois de Boulogne: Large wood just west of central Paris, landscaped into an upper-class playground by Baron Haussmann in the 1850s.
44. Comme vous-y-allez: That’s coming it a bit; how you exaggerate.
New York Edition, Vol. XVIII; first magazine publication in Black and White, April 1892; first book publication in The Real Thing (1893).
1. a moist sponge passed over a ‘sunk’ piece of painting: An inadequately prepared surface can lead to the sinking in of oil paint and a loss of colour. A moist sponge can temporarily restore the picture’s appearance.
2. lappets: Loose folds or flaps on a garment.
3. covers: Area of woods and undergrowth in which game is reared for shooting.
4. Kilburn: Suburb in north London.
5. ‘Rutland Ramsay’: There is a curious anticipatory relation here between this grand edition and James’s own New York Edition (1907–9), not least because of the similarity in title here to the first volume of James’s edition – the early novel Roderick Hudson. (Ironically the New York Edition was to make use of the work of a photographer.)
6. quoi: What! (exclamatory) (French, as are the translations below, unless otherwise indicated).
7. Maida Vale: District in London north of Paddington.
8. especially for the h: Speakers with London or cockney accents tend not to pronounce the h at the beginning of words. See also ‘In the Cage’, note 4.
9. the Cheapside: Fictitious magazine, with an interesting title, analogous to those magazines in which James published his own tales and novels.
10. his occupation was gone: A glance, typical of James’s fleeting allusiveness, at Shakespeare’s Othello, in which Othello, believing Desdemona unfaithful and therefore lost to him, declares ‘Othello’s occupation’s gone’ (III. iii. 362).
11. Raphael and Leonardo: For Raphael, see ‘Four Meetings’, note 19. Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), Both are Italian Renaissance artists whose figures are immediately recognizable.
12. beêtement: Stupidly, foolishly.
13. profils perdus: Literally, lost profiles; poses where she is turning away.
14. the City: The business and banking district of London.
15. Saint Peter’s: See ‘Daisy Miller’, note 42.
16. the young Dante spellbound by the young Beatrice: The great Italian poet (1265–1321), author of The Divine Comedy. The beautiful Beatrice appears in his verse as his muse.
17. sentiment de la pose: A real feeling for posing.
18. lazzarone: Italian vagrant or idler (originally associated with Naples) (Italian).
19. a public school: I.e. an independent private school.
20. Ce sont des gens qu’il faut mettre a` la porte: They are people one must show the door; must get rid of.
21. coloro che sanno: those who know. In Dante’sInferno, IV. 131 Aristotle is described as ‘maestro di color che sano’ – ‘master of those who know’ (Italian).
22. crush-hat: Hat, with a spring which can be collapsed, rendering the hat flat; an opera hat.
New York Edition, Vol. XVI; first magazine publication in Illustrated London News, September 1892; first book publication in The Real Thing (1893).
1. hansom: See ‘The Lesson of the Master’, note 34.
2. the lady I had taken down: I.e. the lady I had accompanied in to the dining room.
3. the neighbourhood of Primrose Hill: To the north of Regent’s Park, around the park of Primrose Hill. Greville Fane’s increasing difficulties have caused her to move from Montpellier Square (note 6) where the narrator had first known her.
4. the House: House of Commons. (Sir Baldwin is a Member of Parliament.)
5. a document not to ‘serve’: A document not to fulfil a public function (as a legal document is ‘served’); not to be printed publicly in a newspaper as an obituary article.
6. Montpellier Square; which helped me to see how dissociated her imagination was from her character: Superior address near Kensington Gardens, and a very respectable one, remote from Greville Fane’s ‘dreadful’ pictures of life.
7. from Doncaster to Bucharest: A very odd pairing of places, perhaps suggestive of Greville Fane’s cavalier attitude to fictional plausibility in her efforts to cover all of Europe.
8. resembled Balzac… her favourite historical characters were Lucien de Rubempré and the Vidame de Pamiers: The improbable comparison is with Balzac (see ‘The Pension Beaurepas’, note 3). In his Illusions perdues (1837–43), Lucien Chardon is the young poet who takes his mother’s name, de Rubempré, and sets off to win fame in Paris. There he finds a corrupt literary world where advancement depends on money and a willingness to deride genius and puff trash. The Vidame de Pamiers appears as a minor character in such lesser known works by Balzac as La Duchesse de Langeais (1834) and Ferragus (1835).
9. she meant to train up her boy to follow it: The ‘germ’ of this story is recorded in James’s notebooks:
I heard some time ago, that Anthony Trollope has a theory that a boy might be brought up to be a novelist as to any other trade. He brought up – or attempted to bring up – his own son on this principle, and the young man became a sheep-farmer, in Australia. The other day Miss Thackeray (Mrs Ritchie) [novelist-daughter of William Makepeace Thackeray] said to me that she and her husband meant to bring their little daughter in that way. It hereupon occurred to me (as it has occurred before) that one might make a little story upon this… (The Complete Notebooks of Henry James, ed. Leon Edel and Lyall H. Powers (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 9; also pp. 48–9)
10. come out: See ‘The Pension Beaurepas’, note 25.
11. Essex: The county to the north-east of London.
12. like Desdemona, wished heaven had made her such a man: Quoting Othello, I. iii. 161–2, which records Desdemona’s admiration of Othello.
13. the story of Madame George Sand’s early rebellion: George Sand was the pseudonym of the French novelist Amandine Aurore Lucile, Baronne Dudevant (1804–76). Her irregular life and habits – including the wearing of trousers – and her many love affairs shocked Paris society.
14. gagne-pain: Livelihood (French, as are the translations below).
15. the price of pension: I.e. the costs of boarding-houses.
16. femme du monde: Society lady.
17. Rhadamanthus: In Greek mythology, one of the three judges of the underworld.
18. premiers frais: Foremost expenses.
19. Eton and Oxford: Respectively the famous public (i.e. private) school and the famous university.
20. Cheapside: See ‘The Real Thing’, note 9.
21. City: See ‘The Real Thing’ note 14.
22. embonpoint: Portliness, stoutness.
23. Flaubert… Dickens… Thackeray: A roll-call of great nineteenth-century and, in this context, significantly, male novelists. For Flaubert, see ‘The Death of the Lion’, note 22. English novelists Charles Dickens (1812–70) and William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–63).
24. vieux jeu: Old-fashioned.
25. feuilletons: Serialized novels.
26. Peckham and Hackney: Suburbs of London, remote from the fashionable society of the West End.
27. Brighton: Resort on the south coast made fashionable by the Prince of Wales in the late eighteenth century, and with a reputation – relevant here since Leolin is researching in Brighton how far a novelist may ‘go’ – as a place to conduct dubious love affairs and amorous liaisons. See also ‘The Death of the Lion’, note 3.
28. trouvailles: Finds; discoveries.
29. dog-cart: See ‘The Lesson of the Master’, note 10.
30. three new volumes: In the nineteenth century many novels were published in three volumes.
31. the Academy soirée: The Royal Academy, which holds annually an exhibition of recent paintings, etc.
32.‘devil’: Junior legal counsel who does work for his leader.
33.‘Baby’s Tub’: Perhaps a sardonic glance at Sir John Everett Millais’s painting, ‘Bubbles’, used to advertise Pears’ soap. The painting, originally entitled ‘A Child’s World’, first appeared at the Grosvenor Gallery in London in 1886.
New York Edition, Vol. XVI; first magazine publication in Scribner’s Magazine, May 1893; first book publication in Terminations (1895).
1. Bournemouth: Resort on the English south coast.
2. the Island: The Isle of Wight.
3. ‘just out’: Just published.
4. the catchpenny binding…the circulating library: The book has a cheap but eye-catching cover. The circulating library was a commercial establishment lending books, particularly popular novels, to borrowers for a fee. The most famous was opened in London in 1842 by Charles Edward Mudie.
5.‘The Middle Years’: Ironically the third volume of James’s autobiography, named by James and unfinished at his death, is The Middle Years (London: Collins, 1917).
6. passed the sponge over colour: As a painter blurs or weakens watercolours in his painting.
7. diligence vincit omnia: Diligence conquers all (Latin). More usually the proverbial ‘love conquers all’ –amor vincit omnia– occurring in Virgil’s Eclogues X, 69.
8. Qui dort dine: To sleep is to dine (French, as are the translations below).
9. bergère: Shepherdess.
10. the new psychology: Presumably hypnosis.
11. a ‘type’: See ‘The Lesson of the Master’, note 9.
12. Bath-chair: Invalid’s wheelchair, usually with a hood.
13. intrigante: Plotter or schemer.
New York Edition, Vol. XV; first magazine publication in The Yellow Book, April 1894; first book publication in Terminations (1895).
1. on a ‘staff ’: In contrast to the more precarious existence of the freelance journalist.
2. ‘holiday-number’: Special, usually enlarged, celebratory edition.
3. Brighton… Mrs Bounder: Brighton is a resort on the south coast of England. One part of its reputation being for the louche, it is an appropriate setting for the suggestively named Mrs Bounder and what would then be regarded as the scandal of divorce. See also ‘Greville Fane’, note 27.
4. Venus rising from the sea: The mythological goddess of love and beauty was, according to some accounts, born from the foam of the sea.
5. passe encore: Well and good (French, as are the translations below).
6. The Tatler: Magazine devoted to upper-class social chit-chat.
7. having ‘a man in the house’: Bailiffs and brokers would have one of their men take up residence in a debtor’s house to prevent sale of the debtor’s goods or the disappearance of the debtor.
8. the larger latitude: I.e. the degree of explicitness about sexual conduct.
9. ‘heads’: Headings (for his magazine articles) but with an ironic suggestion that Mr Morrow is collecting writers’ heads.
10. Fleet Street: In central London, then home to, and synonymous with, the newspaper industry.
11. the king of the beasts: The (literary) lion.
12. he circulated in person to a measure that the libraries might well have envied: Alluding to commercial circulating libraries: see ‘The Middle Years’, note 4.
13. the lions sit down… with the lambs: Alluding to the prophecies of Isaiah 11:6–7; and a terrible joke considering what may be on such dinner menus.
14. Sloane Street: Fashionable street in Knightsbridge.
15. a barouche and a smart hansom: A barouche is a four-wheeled carriage with a driver’s seat in front, two double seats inside facing each other and a folding hood; A hansom is a light two-wheeled covered carriage, the driver sitting above and behind. Unlike the privately owned barouche, a hansom is usually hired.
16. couldn’t have worried George Washington and Friedrich Schiller and Hannah More: Respectively the first American president (1732–99), the German poet and dramatist (1759–1805) and the English religious writer (1745–1833) – all by the time of this tale long since dead.
17. the Arabian Nights: The ancient and fantastic Oriental tales.
18. Albemarle Street: In Mayfair, off Piccadilly.
19. seeking him in his works even as God in nature: A glance at Natural Theology, the philosophy that the nature of God may be inferred from observation of His creation, the natural world.
20. ‘specials’: Special editions of magazines and journals.
21. Vandyke: Sir Anthony Van Dyck (1599–1641), Flemish-born English painter, celebrated for his court portraits.
22. Gustave Flaubert’s doleful refrain about the hatred of literature: Gustave Flaubert (1821–80), French novelist and author of Madame Bovary (1857). The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations cites Stendhal’s letter to Louise Colet, 14 June 1853: ‘You can calculate the worth of a man by the number of his enemies, and the importance of a work of art by the harm that is spoken of it.’
23. valet de place: Tour guide.
24. a big building contracted for under a forfeit: I.e. the contract specifies a financial penalty if the building is not complete on time, and hence the building is being worked on all the time by builders working in relays.
25. custode: Keeper, custodian.
26. the cold Valhalla of her memory: The hall in Scandinavian mythology where the souls of heroes spent eternity, and hence, by extension, any burial place of the great.
27. priceless Sèvres: Fine porcelain made at the French state factory at Sèvres, near Paris.
28. brougham: See ‘The Lesson of the Master’, note 26.
29. ‘So are they all honourable men’: Quoting Antony’s funeral speech in Julius Caesar, III. ii. 84.
30. The Family Budget: Fictitious journal which would have been devoted to recipes, matters of household management, etc.
31. Le roy est mort – vive le roy: Proverbial; the [old] king is dead – long live the [new] king.
32. inédit: Unpublished work.
33. confrère: Colleague; fellow writer.
34. the Abbey: Westminster Abbey, traditional burial place, in Poets’ Corner, of many famous writers.
New York Edition, Vol. XV; first magazine publication in Cosmopolis, January and February 1896; first book publication in Embarrassments (1896).
1. the night-mail: The overnight train.
2. Kensington Square: A very fashionable address, close to Kensington Palace and Kensington Gardens.
3. Chelsea: A pleasant residential district in the west of London, extending along the north bank of the Thames.
4. some bedlamitical theory of the cryptic character of Shakespeare: Bedlam or Bethlehem hospital was, from the fifteenth century, a hospital for lunatics, and by the sixteenth century had become a term for the mad or crazy. Theories that Shakespeare’s works were written by someone else – such as Francis Bacon or the Earl of Oxford – were particularly popular at the end of the nineteenth century and continue today. Occasionally those theories have themselves had a cryptic character, discovering the true author within acrostics and anagrams.
5. Mr Snooks: Presumably a fictitious critic, although real critics who post-date ‘The Figure in the Carpet’ and who have argued for the Earl of Oxford as the author of Shakespeare’s plays have rejoiced in such names as Thomas J. Looney.
6. critical laurel: See ‘The Lesson of the Master’, note 19.
7. out-Herod: To out-shout. The allusion is to Hamlet, III. ii. 14 – ‘It out-Herods Herod’ – where Hamlet addresses the players and refers to the tradition of representing Herod as a ranting tyrant in the English Medieval and Early Modern theatre.
8. Monte Carlo: The most famous European gambling resort.
9. Vera incessu patuit dea: ‘By her gait the true goddess is made known’ (Latin), from Virgil’s Aeneid, I. 405.
10. the temple of Vishnu: Vishnu is the major god of Hinduism. The narrator is remarking that it is odd that Corvick’s discovery should have been made in India.
11. secousse: Shock (French, as are the translations below).
12. Rapallo, on the Genoese shore: In north-western Italy.
13. Aden: Major port in the Yemen, by the Red Sea and the Suez Canal; a main stopping place on the sea route between India and Europe.
14. Tellement envie de voir ta tête: I long to see your face.
15. hansom: Light two-wheeled covered carriage, the driver sitting above and behind, usually hired rather than privately owned.
16. a Cheltenham aunt: Cheltenham is a resort town in Gloucestershire, here associated with gentility and propriety.
17. Meran: Merano, a health resort in the Italian Alps.
18. trouvaille: Discovery.
19. Torquay: Seaside resort in Devon in the south-west of England.
20. dog-cart: See ‘The Lesson of the Master’, note 10.
21. that way madness lay: Alluding to King Lear, III. iv. 91: ‘O, that way madness lies’.
22. Vandyke or Velasquez: Sir Anthony Van Dyck (1599–1641), Flemish-born English painter, and Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (1599–1660), Spanish painter, both celebrated for their court portraits.
23. phrenological bust: Model for the instruction of phrenology, the study of the conformation of the skull as a supposed indicator of mental faculties and characteristics.
24. the numbers on his bumps: Extending the figure of the phrenological bust, where each section of the skull is differently numbered.
New York Edition, Vol. XI; no magazine publication; first book publication in In the Cage, (1898).
1. the ‘sounder’: Telegraphic device that converts electric code into sound, consisting of an electro-magnet, armature and lever fixed upon a base. The telegraph, as a means of sending messages quickly over long distances, evolved rapidly in the mid-nineteenth century. Although it involved many inventors and experimenters, its invention was credited to the American Samuel Finley Breese Morse (1791–1872). By the late 1890s, there were telegraph connections throughout the world, effected by means of submarine cables. Used by the government, the military and newspapers, the telegraph was also heavily used by business and for social purposes. Telegraphers were often women; in Britain ‘usually the daughters of clergymen, tradesmen and government clerks, and were typically between 18 and 30 years old and unmarried. Women were regarded as “admirable manipulators of the instruments”, well suited to telegraphy (since it wasn’t too strenuous) and they spent the quiet periods reading or knitting’ (Tom Standage,The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century’s Online Pioneers (1998; London: Phoenix, 1999), pp. 125–6). British private telegraph companies were nationalized as part of the Post Office (PO) in 1869. Telegrams were charged according to the number of words they involved (‘count words’) – an incentive for the sender to be brief and cryptic.
2. the poison of perpetual gas: The smell arising from the use of gas lighting.
3. the ‘Court Guide’: The directory of names and addresses of nobility, gentry and people in society (i.e. those presented at Court, before the sovereign). The shop is situated in Mayfair, London’s exclusive West End district.
4. more present, too present, h’s: Cockney and other London accents typically drop h at the beginning of words. An attempt to ‘correct’ this and to speak ‘properly’ can lead such speakers mistakenly to insert h’s where they should not occur.
5. the far N.W. district: Chalk Farm is situated north of Regent’s Park, and was then a suburban area away from the social centre of the West End.
6. the place where she borrowed novels… at a ha’penny a day: A circulating library: see ‘The Middle Years’, note 4.
7. sitting there in the stocks: A nice pun, combining the stock of the shop with the stocks in which petty offenders were once confined.
8. the season: See ‘The Lesson of the Master’, note 36.
9. the charming tale of ‘Picciola’: Novel (1843), popular in England, by Joseph Xavier Boniface or Saintine (1798–1865). Its various subtitles in translation are an interesting comment on ‘In the Cage’ –The Prisoner of Genestella, Captivity Captive, The Prison Flower.
10. the port of Juno: The deportment or bearing of Juno, wife and sister of Jupiter, queen of heaven.
11. Park Chambers: Unidentified, but clearly intended to suggest a Mayfair address near Hyde Park.
12. Eaton Square: Grand address in nearby Belgravia.
13. Olympian: Olympus was the home of the Greek gods.
14. slaveys… Buttonses: slaveys: Male servants or – less likely – hard-worked maids-ofall-work;Buttonses: Page or messenger boys, so called because of the profusion of buttons on the front of their uniform jackets. Buttons is a stock character in the pantomime Cinderella.
15. the Pink ’Un: The nickname may derive from the newspaper, printed on pink paper, devoted to sport, horse racing and betting details. The oddity of the profusion of names used by one sender of telegrams is not particular to this tale. Senders often had nicknames or telegraphic addresses, easier to remember and to send than full postal addresses. ‘More than 35,000 telegraphic addresses had been registered at the Post Office by 1889’ (Standage,The Victorian Internet, p. 162).
16. like a new Eden: Mrs Jordan’s paradise or Arcadia is – appropriately for a clergyman’s widow – a biblical one.
17. Morning Post: London daily paper (dating from 1772), and, especially between 1880 and 1900, the principal organ of the fashionable world.
18. Regent’s Park: The roughly circular park, laid out in 1812 as an aristocratic suburban garden and named after the Prince Regent. For these characters, it is conveniently situated between Mayfair and Chalk Farm.
19. in the Strand or thereabouts: The Strand is one of the main thoroughfares of central London, extending east from Trafalgar Square, and part of the theatre district.
20. Thompson or some funny American thing: Thompson is perhaps Alfred Thompson (d. 1895), creator of opera-bouffe such as Aladdin II and Linda of Chamouni; the reference to the ‘American thing’ may be, on James’s part, a wry glance at his own efforts in the theatre.
21. all Piccadilly: See ‘The Lesson of the Master’, note 4. A most desirable area for a grocer to have customers.
22‘spring meetings’: Horse racing meetings.
23. Wesleyn chapel: Methodist chapel, after the founder of Methodism, John Wesley (1703–91).
24. in the middle of the day to her own dinner: The difference in terminology accords with the precise characterization of class divisions in this tale: the upper classes have luncheon in the middle of the day, and dress for dinner in the evening.
25. Dover… Ostend… seven nine four nine six one: A ferry route links Dover, on the English south coast, with Ostend in Belgium. It was quite common to send telegrams in code – which the numbers here seem to represent.
26. Scotch moors: The grouse shooting season in Scotland begins on 12 August.
27. Eastbourne, Folkestone, Cromer, Scarborough, Whitby: Popular English seaside resorts, Eastbourne and Folkestone on the south coast and the rest on the east coast.
28. as a Syndicate handles a Chinese or other Loan: Given China’s troubled history in the nineteenth century, loans to China were a considerable risk, to be handled cautiously.
29. Ramsgate against Bournemouth… Boulogne against Jersey: The first two are resorts on the English south coast, in Kent and in Dorset, while the latter two are in France and in the Channel Islands and hence more ambitious.
30. pot-hat: Bowler hat; low-crowned stiff felt hat.
31. the Park: I.e. Hyde Park. (See ‘The Lesson of the Master’, note 31.)
32. the Swanage boat: Swanage is a small seaside resort across Poole Bay from Bournemouth.
33. Saint Martin’s summer: A spell of fine weather late in the year.
34. Post-Office Guide: Directory of names, addresses, etc.
35. Victoria: I.e. Victoria Railway Station, London.
36. a French proverb according to which such a door, any door, had to be either open or shut: First found in de Brueys and Palaprat’s comedy,Le Grondeur (produced 1691). The general meaning is that the door must be one way or the other and thus, figuratively, that things must be clear-cut (Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable).
37. the City: See ‘The Real Thing’, note 14.
38. Maida Vale: District in London north of Paddington.
39. excessively ‘high’: High Anglican – as indicated by the chants and incense in the service, and contrasting with Mr Mudge’s Wesleyan chapel.
40. thick brown fog: Before the Clean Air Act was passed in 1956, London was notorious for its ‘pea soup’ fogs.
41. Saint Julian’s: No specific church has been identified.
New York Edition, Vol. XVII; first magazine publication in Collier’s Weekly, December 1899; first book publication in The Soft Side (1900).
1. no smoke without fire: Proverbial, meaning there is some foundation of truth in every rumour or story.
2. Mrs Doyne’s queenly weeds: The widow here in black, having not treated her husband well in his lifetime, owes something to Queen Gertrude in the greatest of all ghost stories,Hamlet, but ‘queenly’ may also glance at Queen Victoria, always in mourning for Prince Albert.
3. a Johnson and a Scott, with a Boswell and a Lockhart: The great writers, Dr Samuel Johnson (1709–84) and Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) and their biographers, respectively, James Boswell (1740–95) and John Gibson Lockhart (1794–1854).
4. Tottenham Court Road rugs: This road in central London is still a place of furniture dealers.
5. some ‘decadent’ coloured print, some poster of the newest school: After the manner of French poster artists of the late nineteenth century.
New York Edition, Vol. XVI; first publication in Century Magazine, December 1900; first book publication in The Better Sort (1903).
1. ‘dressing’: Dressing formally for dinner.
2. ‘The New Girl’: Unidentified and perhaps fictional, the title glancing at the emergence of the more liberated ‘New Woman’ in the late nineteenth century.
3. brougham: See ‘The Lesson of the Master’, note 26.
4. Nous n’irons… sont coupés: An old French nursery rhyme, adopted by Théodore de Banville (1823–91) for one of his poems: ‘We shall go no more to the woods/ The laurels are cut down.’
New York Edition, Vol. XVI; no magazine publication; first book publication in The Soft Side (1900).
1.‘special’: I.e. special train, in addition to trains ordinarily timetabled. In this case it is presumably laid on specifically for the funeral-goers.
2. chambers: Set of rooms shared by a group of barristers.
3. had thrown, as the saying was, the helve after the hatchet: Throwing away what remains because your losses have already been so great. The allusion is to the fable of the woodcutter who lost the head of his axe in the river and threw the handle in after it.
4. a circular urbi et orbi: Literally, sent to the city (i.e. Rome) and to the world. Usually it refers to the public blessing given by the Pope on the balcony of St Peter’s on great occasions.
5. her one evil hour: An echo of Paradise Lost by John Milton (1608–74), where Eve, tempted, eats the forbidden fruit:
So saying, her rash hand in evil hour
Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she ate:
Earth felt the wound… (IX. 780–82)
6. pour rire: Joke; sham (French).
7. the House: Presumably the House of Lords.
8. inédit: Unpublished work.
9. laurels: See ‘The Lesson of the Master’, note 19.
10. the kiss of Judas: Judas betrayed Christ with a kiss. See, for example, Matthew 26:46–9.
New York Edition, Vol. XVII; no magazine publication; first book publication in The Better Sort (1903).
1. the Palace of the Caesars… Pompeii: The Palace of the Caesars is the archaeological site on the Palatine Hill, home of the ancient emperors in Rome; Pompeii is the ancient city destroyed by the eruption of Mt Vesuvius in ad 79, and is south-east of Naples.
2. lazzarone with a stiletto: Neapolitan vagrant or vagabond with a dagger with a slender pointed blade (Italian).
3. fever: presumably malaria.
4. Sorrento, across the bay: The seaport and resort on the Bay of Naples, south of Naples.
5. the catastrophe: The final event or denouement, not necessarily a calamity.
6. National Gallery… South Kensington Museum: The National Gallery, one of the world’s greatest art galleries, moved to its present site in Trafalgar Square in 1838. The first South Kensington Museum, founded in 1856, included both Arts and Science; the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum have since superseded it in South Kensington.
7. her occupation was verily gone: Allusion to ‘Othello’s occupation’s gone’ (Othello III.
iii. 362). See also ‘The Real Thing’, note 10.
8. Dresden: Fine porcelain, highly regarded since the eighteenth century.
9. the Park: Hyde Park. See ‘The Lesson of the Master’, note 31.
10. the great grey London cemetery: Possibly Highgate Cemetery; consecrated in 1839, it quickly became a popular and fashionable place to be buried – and also a tourist attraction, the burial place of many eminent Victorians.
New York Edition, Vol. XVII; no magazine publication; first book publication in The Better Sort (1903).
1. the early home of the supreme poet, the Mecca of the English-speaking race: I.e. Stratford-upon-Avon, birthplace of Shakespeare, a figure of such importance that here he acquires quasi-religious status and a capital letter when referred to by pronouns – and cannot be directly named. Even His representatives – They – are deserving of reverential treatment.
2. a great green woodland… this transfigured world: Suggesting Shakespeare’s Forest of Arden in As You Like It, and one of this tale’s many teasing allusions to Shakespeare’s works.
3. cottage-piano: Small upright piano.
4. an old Bradshaw: The famous railway timetable begun by George Bradshaw (1801–53) in Manchester.
5. catch-penny publications: Cheap publications with showy, eye-catching covers.
6. genius loci: Spirit of the place; presiding deity (Latin).
7Patterns for dressmaking.
8. Casa Santa: The Holy House, used originally of the reputed house of the Virgin Mary at Nazareth.
9. the pound of flesh: Alluding to the terms of Antonio’s and Shylock’s bond in The Merchant of Venice.
10. like a thief at night: Alluding to 1 Thessalonians 5:2, part of James’s audacious and comic appropriation of biblical and Christian references in this tale.
11. Goethe’s at Weimar: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), German poet and dramatist, lived in Weimar from 1775 until his death and is buried in the ducal tomb there.
13. compris: Included in the price (French).
14. moreen: Coarse, stout woollen or woollen-and-cotton fabric, usually watered or embossed.
15. at Oxford: I.e. at Oxford University.
16. hornbook: Child’s primer, consisting typically of a sheet of parchment protected by a sheet of transparent horn.
17. singing… to a Boston audience: A Boston audience, in Puritan New England, was presumably notorious for being sophisticated and undemonstrative.
18. Consider it well: Echoing Lear on Poor Tom: ‘Consider him well’ (King Lear III. iv. 100).
19. Machiavellic: Referring to the Renaissance statesman and thinker Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527), whose thinking – represented in Shakespeare’s plays – included the doctrine that any means, however unscrupulous, may be justifiably employed by a ruler to maintain his power.
New York Edition, Vol. XVI; first published in Harper’s Magazine, December 1904; first book publication in New York Edition.
1. the entr’acte: The interval (French).
2. Peoria: Town in Illinois, i.e. an undistinguished – or undistinguishable – small town in the mid-western USA.
3. Wilts: I.e. Wiltshire, a county, west of London.
4. Constantinople: Now Istanbul.
5. Baedeker: Karl Baedeker (1801–59) began the publishing of famous guide books bearing his name, much used by tourists.
6. Castle of Chillon and the Dent du Midi: The Dent du Midi is a famous peak (3300 metres) south of Lake Geneva. For the Castle of Chillon, see ‘Four Meetings’, note 6.
7. car-window: I.e. railway-carriage window.
8. the book-agency business: Selling books on a subscription basis often through door-todoor salesmen. The more modern and notorious equivalent is perhaps the encyclopaedia salesman.
9. sort of box: Predicament.
10. tilleuls: Lime-trees (French).
New York Edition, Vol. XVII; first magazine publication in Harper’s Magazine, March and April 1908; first book publication in New York Edition.
1. the Museum: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City, founded in 1870. It has occupied its present site in Central Park (see note 10) since 1880. James describes his first impression of the new building (1902) on his 1904–5 visit to the United States in Chapter IV of The American Scene (1907).
2. duck: Closely woven, durable, usually cotton fabric.
3. between Scylla and Charybdis: Proverbial; between two equal but different dangers. Scylla was a sea monster, a terror to ships and sailors, dwelling on the rock of Scylla opposite Charybdis, a whirlpool on the coast of Sicily.
4. wouldn’t cast the stone: Alluding to John 8:7: ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.’
5. Qui s’excuse s’accuse: He who excuses himself accuses himself (French).
6. the Jerey boat: The ferry between New York and New Jersey, predating today’s system of tunnels and bridges.
7. the uses, for Julia, in fine, of adversity: Echoing Shakespeare’s As You Like It II. i. 12: ‘Sweet are the uses of adversity…’
8. Le compte y était: The sum total of the account was there (French).
9. downtown: The business and financial district of New York.
10. the Park: Central Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux in 1857.
11. the East Side: Not then a fashionable address.
12. sanctum sanctorum: The holy of holies (Latin).
13. Nancy and the Artful Dodger… ‘Oliver Twist’: Two of the young thieves in Oliver Twist (1837–9) by Charles Dickens (1812–70).
14. not in sympathy with the old American freedom: Indicating the shift which this later tale represents from the presentation of the ‘freeborn American girl’ in such earlier tales as ‘Daisy Miller’ and ‘The Pension Beaurepas’.
New York Edition, Vol. XVII; first magazine publication in English Review, December 1908; first book publication in New York Edition.
1. Irving Place: Street running between 14th and 23rd Streets, near and east of Union Square and Park Avenue; a good old New York address.
2. the inventor of the sky-scraper: The American architect and engineer William Le Baron Jenney (1832–1907) earned himself the title ‘father of the skyscraper’. His method of metal frame construction was first used in his Home Insurance Building (1885) in Chicago and remains basic to the construction of tall buildings.
3. pour deux sous: For two cents (French). (A sou is, literally, five centimes.)
4. ombres chinoises: European version of the Chinese shadow-puppet show (French).
5. Pantaloon… Christmas farce… Harlequin: Pantaloon and Harlequin have their origins as stock characters in sixteenth-century Italian Commedia Dell’arte and survived into English pantomime, usually played at Christmas.
6. the trodden worm of the adage: ‘Even a worm will turn.’ The most abject of creatures will turn upon its tormentors if driven to extremity.