Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/117

 Counts Egmont and Horn; and he wrote the names of these gentlemen—for reasons best known to himself-on the back of an old letter.

At the outset, on his leaving Paris, his curiosity had not been intense; passive entertainment, in the Champs Elysées and at the theatres, seemed about as much as he need expect of himself, and although, as he had said to Tristram, he wanted to see the mysterious and satisfying best, he had not the grand tour in the least on his conscience and was not given to worrying the thing that amused him. He believed serenely that Europe was made for him and not he for Europe. He had said he wanted to improve his mind, but he would have felt a certain embarrassment, a certain shame even—a false shame possibly—if he had caught himself looking intellectually into the mirror. Neither in this nor in any other respect had he a high sense of responsibility; it was his prime conviction that a man's life should be a man's ease and that no privilege was really great enough to take his breath away. The world, to his vision, was a great bazaar where one might stroll about and purchase handsome things; but he was no more conscious, individually, of social pressure than he admitted the claim of the obligatory purchase. He had not only a dislike but a sort of moral mistrust of thoughts too admonitory; one should n't hunt about for a standard as a lost dog hunts for a master. One's standard was the idea of one's own good-humoured prosperity, the prosperity which enabled one to give as well as take. To expand without too much ado—without "mean" timidity 87