The Bostonians by Henry James

Author:Henry James
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781593082970
Publisher: Barnes&Noble
Published: 2011-02-19T10:00:00+00:00

XXV

They passed through two or three small, short streets, which, with their little wooden houses, with still more wooden door-yards, looked as if they had been constructed by the nearest carpenter and his boy—a sightless, soundless, interspaced, embryonic region—and entered a long avenue which, fringed on either side with fresh villas, offering themselves trustfully to the public, had the distinction of a wide pavement of neat red brick. The new paint on the square detached houses shone afar off in the transparent air: they had, on top, little cupolas and belvederes, in front a pillared piazza, made bare by the indoor life of winter, on either side a bow-window or two, and everywhere an embellishment of scallops, brackets, cornices, wooden flourishes. They stood, for the most part, on small eminences, lifted above the impertinence of hedge or paling, well up before the world, with all the good conscience which in many cases came, as Ransom saw (and he had noticed the same ornament when he traversed with Olive the quarter of Boston inhabited by Miss Birdseye), from a silvered number, affixed to the glass above the door, in figures huge enough to be read by the people who, in the periodic horse-cars, travelled along the middle of the avenue. It was to these glittering badges that many of the houses on either side owed their principal identity. One of the horse-cars now advanced in the straight, spacious distance; it was almost the only object that animated the prospect, which, in its large cleanness, its implication of strict business-habits on the part of all the people who were not there, Ransom thought very impressive. As he went on with Verena he asked her about the Women’s Convention, the year before; whether it had accomplished much work and she had enjoyed it.

“What do you care about the work it accomplished?” said the girl. “You don’t take any interest in that.”

“You mistake my attitude. I don’t like it, but I greatly fear it.” In answer to this Verena gave a free laugh. “I don’t believe you fear much!”

“The bravest men have been afraid of women. Won’t you even tell me whether you enjoyed it? I am told you made an immense sensation there—that you leaped into fame.”

Verena never waved off an allusion to her ability, her eloquence; she took it seriously, without any flutter or protest, and had no more manner about it than if it concerned the goddess Minerva.bd “I believe I attracted considerable attention; of course, that’s what Olive wants—it paves the way for future work. I have no doubt I reached many that wouldn’t have been reached otherwise. They think that’s my great use—to take hold of the outsiders, as it were; of those who are prejudiced or thoughtless, or who don’t care about anything unless it’s amusing. I wake up the attention.”

“That’s the class to which I belong,” Ransom said. “Am I not an outsider? I wonder whether you would have reached me—or waked up my attention!”

Verena was silent awhile, as they walked; he heard the light click of her boots on the smooth bricks.

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