As typified by two passages from the current read:
from The Portrait of a Lady
Henry JamesIsabel was sure moreover that her mild forehead and silver cross referred to some weird Anglican mystery, some delightful reinstitution perhaps of the quaint office of the canoness.
*****
[Harriet Stackpole speaking with Lord Warburton]". . . . I don't approve of you, you know; I feel as if I ought to tell you that."
"Don't approve of me?"
"Yes; I don't suppose any one ever said such a thing to you before, did they? I don't approve of lords as an institution. I think the world has got beyond them--far beyond."
"Oh, so do I. I don't approve of myself in the least. Sometimes it comes over me--how I should object to myself if I were not myself, don't you know? But that's rather good, by the wayl--not to be vainglorious."
"Why don't you give it up then?" Miss Stackpole enquired.
"Give up--a--?" asked Lord Warburton, meeting her harsh inflexion with a very mellow one.
"Give up being a lord."
"Oh, I'm so little of one! One would really forget all about it if you wretched Americans were not constantly remind one. However, I do think of giving it up, the litter there is left of it, one of these days."
"I should like to see you do it!" Henrietta exclaimed rather grimly.
"I'll invite you to the ceremony; we'll have supper and a dance."
Critics note that much of James's work is about this conflict between the Old World and the New World, with the New representing innocence and rugged individualism and self-determination (as noted in the character of Miss Archer herself.) Having not read sufficiently in his oeuvre to make such sweeping judgments, I'll accept the advise of the critics. If so, in these interchanges we see some of the downside of innocence and self-determination--a kind of naive arrogance that can pronounce with impunity on things it does not understand and look down upon all things foreign as "quaint" and "charming" or unlikeable institutions.
There is a price to pay for this sort of arrogance and previous reading has led me to believe that Miss Archer, much to her woe is to be brought up sharp against it.
Whatever the case, I'll keep you informed. And hopefully you can be as amused as I am.
