Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/124

 but though all things interested and many delighted him, none surprised or disconcerted; he invented short cuts and was all ready for the unexpected. Witnessing the rate at which he did intellectual execution on the general spectacle of European life, Rowland felt at moments a vague dismay for his future; he was eating his cake all at once and might have none left for the morrow. But we must live as our pulses are timed, and Roderick's struck the hour very often. He was by imagination, though he never became in manner, a natural man of the world; he had intuitively, as an artist, what one may call the historic consciousness. He asked Rowland questions which this halting dilettante was quite unable to answer, and of which he was equally unable to conceive where his friend had picked up the data. Roderick ended by answering them himself, tolerably to his satisfaction, and in a short time he had almost turned the tables and become in their walks and talks the accredited fountain of criticism. Rowland took a generous pleasure in all these facilities and felicities; Roderick was so much younger than he himself had ever been. Surely youth and genius hand in hand were the most beautiful sight in the world. Roderick added to this the charm of his more immediately personal qualities. The vivacity of his perceptions, the audacity of his imagination, the picturesqueness of his phrase when he was pleased—and even more when he was displeased—his abounding good-humour, his candour, his unclouded frankness, his unfailing impulse to share with his friend every emotion and 90