DOI article:
James, Henry: The death of the lion
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20196#0044
38 The Death of the Lion
with her in which I tried to express that the function of such a
man was to exercise his genius—not to serve as a hoarding for
pictorial posters. The people I was perhaps angriest with were
the editors of magazines who had introduced what they called new
features, so aware were they that the newest feature of all would
be to make him grind their axes by contributing his views on
vital topics and taking part in the periodical prattle about the
future of fiction. I made sure that before I should have done
with him there would scarcely be a current form of words left
me to be sick of; but meanwhile I could make surer still of my
animosity to bustling ladies for whom he drew the water that
irrigated their social flower-beds.
I had a battle with Mrs. Wimbush over the artist she protected,
and another over the question of a certain week, at the end of
July, that Mr. Paraday appeared to have contracted to spend with
her in the country. I protested against this visit; I intimated
that he was too unwell for hospitality without a nuance, for caresses
without imagination ; I begged he might rather take the time in
some restorative way. A sultry air of promises, of reminders hung
over his August, and he would greatly profit by the interval of
rest. He had not told me he was ill again—that he had had a
warning; büt I had not needed this, and I found his rcticence
his worst Symptom. The only thing he said to me was that he
believed a comfortable attack of something or other would set him
up : it would put out of the question everything but the exemp-
tions he prized. I am afraid I shall have presented him as a
martyr in a very small cause if I fail to explain that he surren-
dered himself much more liberally .than I surrendered him. He
filled his lungs, for the most part, with the comedy of his queer
fate : the tragedy was in the spectacles through which I chose to
look. He was conscious of inconvenience, and above all of a
great
with her in which I tried to express that the function of such a
man was to exercise his genius—not to serve as a hoarding for
pictorial posters. The people I was perhaps angriest with were
the editors of magazines who had introduced what they called new
features, so aware were they that the newest feature of all would
be to make him grind their axes by contributing his views on
vital topics and taking part in the periodical prattle about the
future of fiction. I made sure that before I should have done
with him there would scarcely be a current form of words left
me to be sick of; but meanwhile I could make surer still of my
animosity to bustling ladies for whom he drew the water that
irrigated their social flower-beds.
I had a battle with Mrs. Wimbush over the artist she protected,
and another over the question of a certain week, at the end of
July, that Mr. Paraday appeared to have contracted to spend with
her in the country. I protested against this visit; I intimated
that he was too unwell for hospitality without a nuance, for caresses
without imagination ; I begged he might rather take the time in
some restorative way. A sultry air of promises, of reminders hung
over his August, and he would greatly profit by the interval of
rest. He had not told me he was ill again—that he had had a
warning; büt I had not needed this, and I found his rcticence
his worst Symptom. The only thing he said to me was that he
believed a comfortable attack of something or other would set him
up : it would put out of the question everything but the exemp-
tions he prized. I am afraid I shall have presented him as a
martyr in a very small cause if I fail to explain that he surren-
dered himself much more liberally .than I surrendered him. He
filled his lungs, for the most part, with the comedy of his queer
fate : the tragedy was in the spectacles through which I chose to
look. He was conscious of inconvenience, and above all of a
great