Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/272

THE AMERICAN a tall, lean, slightly flushed and considerably silent man, with a lounging, permanent-looking seat, who laughed out sometimes when no one had meant to be droll, and yet remained grave in presence of those calculated witticisms and those initiated gaieties for the appreciation of which he apparently lacked the proper culture and the right acquaintances. It had to be confessed that the number of the subjects upon which he was without ideas was only equalled by the number of the families to which he was not allied; and it might have been added more gravely still that as regards those subjects upon which he was without ideas he was also quite without professions. He had little of the small change of conversation and rarely rose to reach down one of those ready-made forms and phrases that drape, whether fresh or frayed, the hooks and pegs of the general wardrobe of talk—that repository in which alone so many persons qualify for the discipline of society, as supernumerary actors prepare, amid a like provision, for the ordeal of the footlights. He was able on the other hand, at need, to make from where he sat one of the long arms that stretch quite out of the place—to the effect, as might mostly be felt, of coming back with some proposition as odd as a single shoe.

Bent, at any rate, on possession, he had at his command treasures of attention and never measured the possibilities of interest in a topic by his own power of contribution to it: he liked topics to grow at least big enough for him to walk round them and see. This made, for his advantage, to his being little acquainted with satiety either of sound or of sense; he 242