Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/135

 naturalness as fine as good wine. He was prompt, spontaneous, sincere; there were so many people at dinner-tables and in studios who were not, that it seemed worth while to allow this rare specimen all possible freedom of action. If Roderick took the words out of your mouth when you were just prepared to deliver them with the most effective accent, he did it with a perfect good conscience and with no pretension of a better right to being heard, but simply because he was full to overflowing of his own momentary thought, which sprang from his lips without asking leave. There were persons waiting on your periods much more deferentially who were ten times more capable of letting you flounder, of a reflective impertinence. The young man received from various sources, chiefly feminine, enough finely-adjusted advice to have established him in life as an embodiment of the proprieties, and he received it, as he afterwards listened to criticisms on his statues, with unfaltering candour and good-humour. Here and there doubtless, as he went, he took in a reef in his sail; but he was too adventurous a spirit to be successfully tamed and he remained at most points the florid, rather strident young Virginian whose brilliant aridity had been the despair of Mr. Striker. All this was what friendly commentators (still chiefly feminine) alluded to when they spoke of his delightful freshness, and critics of harsher sensibilities (of the other sex) when they denounced his damned impertinence. His appearance re-enforced these impressions—his handsome face, his radiant unaverted eyes, 101