Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/491

 enjoyment as they do here. Here it 's such a mixture; one does n't know what to choose, what to believe. Beauty stands there—beauty such as this night and this place and all this sad strange summer have been so full of—and it penetrates to one's soul and lodges there and keeps saying that man was n't made, as we think at home, to struggle so much and miss so much, but to ask of life as a matter of course some beauty and some charm. This place has destroyed any scrap of consistency that I ever possessed, but even if I must myself say something sinful I love it!"

"If it 's sinful, I absolve you—in so far as I have power. We should n't be able to enjoy, I suppose, unless we could suffer, and in anything that 's worthy of the name of experience—that experience which is the real taste of life, is n't it?—the mixture is of the finest and subtlest. Just now and here it 's certainly wonderful enough. Yet we must take things as much as possible in turn."

His words had a singular aptness, for he had hardly uttered them when Roderick came out from the house, not, as appeared, on pleasure bent. He stood for a moment taking in the effulgence.

"It 's a very beautiful night, my son," said his mother, going to him timidly and touching his arm. He passed his hand through his hair and let it stay there, clasping his thick locks. "Beautiful?" he cried. "Of course it's beautiful! Everything's beautiful; everything 's insolent, defiant, atrocious with beauty. Nothing 's ugly but me—me and my poor dead brain!" 457