The whole setup sounds suspiciously English was it for this that Emerson, Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, and others had founded the magazine, twenty-three years before? Suspicions are confirmed, as the tale unfurls the setting is indeed an English lawn, rug-soft, on a waning summer’s day, and one of the tea-takers, to make matters worse, is an English lord. It began, “Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.” This is hardly the most American of starts, and certainly not the most American of sentiments those readers, if canvassed, could have nominated a host of more agreeable experiences. Readers of The Atlantic Monthly, browsing the edition of November, 1880, and already looking forward to articles on “The Silk Industry in America” and “The Future of Weather Foretelling,” were greeted, on the opening page, by the first installment of a new story. Our foremost explorer of the private life: Henry James, circa 1890.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |