A Bundle of Letters by Henry James (books to read to get smarter .TXT) 📕

I never supposed, when I left Bangor, that I was coming to Europe to learn ENGLISH! If I do learn it, I don’t think you will understand me when I get back, and I don’t think you’ll like it much. I should be a good deal criticised if I spoke like that at Bangor. However, I verily believe Bangor is the most critical place on earth; I have seen nothing like it over here. Tell them all I have come to the conclusion that they are A GREAT DEAL TOO FASTIDIOUS. But I was speaking about this English young lady and her brother. I wish I could put them before you. She is lovely to look at; she seems so modest and retiring. In spite of this, however, she dresses in a way that attracts great attention, as I couldn’t help noticing when one day I went out to walk with her. She was ever so much looked at; but she didn’t seem to notice it, until at last I couldn’t help calling attention to it. Mr. Leverett thinks everything of it; he calls it the “costume of the future.” I should call it rather the costume of the past—you know the English have such an attachment to the past.

I said this the other day to Madame do Maisonrouge—that Miss Vane dressed in the costume of the past. De l’an passe, vous voulez dire?

said Madame, with her little French laugh (you can get William Platt to translate this, he used to tell me he knew so much French).

You know I told you, in writing some time ago, that I had tried to get some insight into the position of woman in England, and, being here with Miss Vane, it has seemed to me to be a good opportunity to get a little more. I have asked her a great deal about it; but she doesn’t seem able to give me much information. The first time I asked her she told me the position of a lady depended upon the rank of her father, her eldest brother, her husband, etc. She told me her own position was very good, because her father was some relation—I forget what—to a lord. She thinks everything of this; and that proves to me that the position of woman in her country cannot be satisfactory; because, if it were, it wouldn’t depend upon that of your relations, even your nearest. I don’t know much about lords, and it does try my patience (though she is just as sweet as she can live) to hear her talk as if it were a matter of course that I should.

I feel as if it were right to ask her as often as I can if she doesn’t consider every one equal; but she always says she doesn’t, and she confesses that she doesn’t think she is equal to “Lady Something-or-other,” who is the wife of that relation of her father.

I try and persuade her all I can that she is; but it seems as if she didn’t want to be persuaded; and when I ask her if Lady So-and-so is of the same opinion (that Miss Vane isn’t her equal), she looks so soft and pretty with her eyes, and says, “Of course she is!” When I tell her that this is right down bad for Lady So-and-so, it seems as if she wouldn’t believe me, and the only answer she will make is that Lady So-and-so is “extremely nice.” I don’t believe she is nice at all; if she were nice, she wouldn’t have such ideas as that. I tell Miss Vane that at Bangor we think such ideas vulgar; but then she looks as though she had never heard of Bangor. I often want to shake her, though she IS so sweet. If she isn’t angry with the people who make her feel that way, I am angry for her. I am angry with her brother too, for she is evidently very much afraid of him, and this gives me some further insight into the subject. She thinks everything of her brother, and thinks it natural that she should be afraid of him, not only physically (for this IS natural, as he is enormously tall and strong, and has very big fists), but morally and intellectually. She seems unable, however, to take in any argument, and she makes me realise what I have often heard—that if you are timid nothing will reason you out of it.

Mr. Vane, also (the brother), seems to have the same prejudices, and when I tell him, as I often think it right to do, that his sister is not his subordinate, even if she does think so, but his equal, and, perhaps in some respects his superior, and that if my brother, in Bangor, were to treat me as he treates this poor young girl, who has not spirit enough to see the question in its true light, there would be an indignation, meeting of the citizens to protest against such an outrage to the sanctity of womanhood—when I tell him all this, at breakfast or dinner, he bursts out laughing so loud that all the plates clatter on the table.

But at such a time as this there is always one person who seems interested in what I say—a German gentleman, a professor, who sits next to me at dinner, and whom I must tell you more about another time. He is very learned, and has a great desire for information; he appreciates a great many of my remarks, and after dinner, in the salon, he often comes to me to ask me questions about them. I have to think a little, sometimes, to know what I did say, or what I do think. He takes you right up where you left off; and he is almost as fond of discussing things as William Platt is. He is splendidly educated, in the German style, and he told me the other day that he was an “intellectual broom.” Well, if he is, he sweeps clean; I told him that. After he has been talking to me I feel as if I hadn’t got a speck of dust left in my mind anywhere. It’s a most delightful feeling. He says he’s an observer; and I am sure there is plenty over here to observe. But I have told you enough for to-day. I don’t know how much longer I shall stay here; I am getting on so fast that it sometimes seems as if I shouldn’t need all the time I have laid out. I suppose your cold weather has promptly begun, as usual; it sometimes makes me envy you. The fall weather here is very dull and damp, and I feel very much as if I should like to be braced up.