by Henry James

Name: Madame de Mauves — Chapter 3
Author: by Henry James

Summary

“Madame de Mauves — Chapter 3”, published in 1874, is a work by by Henry James. It explores elements such as Longmore, Clairin and Saint-Germain.

Quotes from Madame de Mauves — Chapter 3 (by Henry James)

by Henry James, Madame de Mauves — Chapter 3 (1874)

“ She lived in an old-fashioned pavilion, between a high-walled court and an excessively artificial garden, beyond whose enclosure you saw a long line of tree-tops. Longmore liked the garden and in the mild afternoons used to move his chair through the open window to the smooth terrace which overlooked it while his hostess sat just within. Presently she would come out and wander through the narrow alleys and beside the thin- spouting fountain, and at last introduce him to a private gate in the high wall, the opening to a lane which led to the forest. ”

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Source: Wikisource

by Henry James, Madame de Mauves — Chapter 3 (1874)

“ I've always tried to believe that--without base concessions--such extremities may always somehow be dodged or indefinitely postponed. I should be willing to buy myself off, from having ever to be OVERWHELMED, by giving up--well, any amusement you like." She lived evidently in nervous apprehension of being fatally convinced--of seeing to the end of her deception. Longmore, when he thought of this, felt the force of his desire to offer her something of which she could be as sure as of the sun in heaven. ”

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Source: Wikisource

by Henry James, Madame de Mauves — Chapter 3 (1874)

“ Longmore had often heard of that historic type, and was properly grateful for an opportunity to examine it closely. It had its elegance of outline, but depended on spiritual sources so remote from those of which he felt the living gush in his own soul that he found himself gazing at it, in irreconcileable antipathy, through a dim historic mist. "I'm a modern bourgeois," he said, "and not perhaps so good a judge of how far a pretty woman's tongue may go at supper before the mirrors properly crack to hear. ”

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Source: Wikisource

by Henry James, Madame de Mauves — Chapter 3 (1874)

“ Fortune had played Madame Clairin a terrible trick, but had found an adversary and not a victim. Though quite without beauty she had always had what is called the grand air, and her air from this time forth was grander than ever. ”

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Source: Wikisource

by Henry James, Madame de Mauves — Chapter 3 (1874)

“ His tone to Longmore--as the latter was perfectly aware--was that of a man of the world to a man not quite of the world; but what it lacked in true frankness it made up in easy form. "I can't thank you enough for having overcome my wife's shyness," he more than once declared. "If we left her to do as she pleased she would--in her youth and her beauty--bury herself all absurdly alive. Come often, and bring your good friends and compatriots--some of them are so amusing. ”

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Source: Wikisource

by Henry James, Madame de Mauves — Chapter 3 (1874)

“ He measured the rare magnanimity of self-effacement so deliberate, he felt how few women were capable of exchanging a luxurious woe for a thankless effort. Madame de Mauves, he himself felt, wasn't sweeping the horizon for a compensation or a consoler; she had suffered a personal deception that had disgusted her with persons. ”

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Source: Wikisource

by Henry James, Madame de Mauves — Chapter 3 (1874)

“ Longmore had at any rate an exasperated sense that this nobleman thought rather the less of their interesting friend on account of that very same fine difference of nature which so deeply stirred his own sympathies. He was rarely present during the sessions of the American visitor, and he made a daily journey to Paris, where he had de gros soucis d'affaires as he once mentioned--with an all-embracing flourish and not in the least in the tone of apology. ”

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Source: Wikisource

by Henry James, Madame de Mauves — Chapter 3 (1874)

“ Suddenly she espied it, ready made to her hand, in poor Longmore's wealth and amiability. American dollars and American complaisance had made her brother's fortune; why shouldn't they make hers? She overestimated the wealth and misinterpreted the amiability; for she was sure a man could neither be so contented without being rich nor so "backward" without being weak. Longmore met her advances with a formal politeness that covered a good deal of unflattering discomposure. ”

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Source: Wikisource

by Henry James, Madame de Mauves — Chapter 3 (1874)

“ France is out there beyond the garden, France is in the town and the forest; but here, close about me, in my room and"--she paused a moment--"in my mind, it's a nameless, and doubtless not at all remarkable, little country of my own. It's not her country," she added, "that makes a woman happy or unhappy."
Madame Clairin, Euphemia's sister-in-law, might meanwhile have been supposed to have undertaken the graceful task of making Longmore ashamed of his uncivil jottings about her sex and nation. ”

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Source: Wikisource

by Henry James, Madame de Mauves — Chapter 3 (1874)

“ And yet, disinterestedly, it would have been hard to give a name to the pitiless perversity lighted by such a conclusion, and there were times when Longmore was almost persuaded against his finer judgement that he was really the most considerate of husbands and that it was not a man's fault if his wife's love of life had pitched itself once for all in the minor key. ”

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Source: Wikisource

by Henry James, Madame de Mauves — Chapter 3 (1874)

“ When he appeared it was late in the evening and with an imperturbable air of being on the best of terms with every one and every thing which was peculiarly annoying if you happened to have a tacit quarrel with him. If he was an honest man he was an honest man somehow spoiled for confidence. ”

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Source: Wikisource

by Henry James, Madame de Mauves — Chapter 3 (1874)

“ As matters stand one may be very American and yet arrange it with one's conscience to live in Europe. My imagination perhaps--I had a little when I was younger--helped me to think I should find happiness here. ”

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Source: Wikisource

by Henry James, Madame de Mauves — Chapter 3 (1874)

“ It was only after his answer was posted that he fully measured the zeal with which he had declared that the journey must either be deferred or abandoned--since he couldn't possibly leave Saint-Germain. He took a walk in the forest and asked himself if this were indeed portentously true. Such a truth somehow made it surely his duty to march straight home and put together his effects. Poor Webster, who, he knew, had counted ardently on this excursion, was the best of men; six weeks ago he would have gone through anything to join poor Webster. ”

by Henry James

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Quotes from Madame de Mauves — Chapter 3 (by Henry James)

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