DOI Artikel:
James, Henry: The next time
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27805#0015
The Next Time
By Henry James
rs. Highmore’s errand this morning was odd enough to
deserve commemoration : she came to ask me to write a
notice of her great forthcoming work. Her great works have
come forth so frequently without my assistance that I was
sufficiently entitled, on this occasion, to open my eyes ; but what
really made me stare was the ground on which her request reposed,
and what leads me to record the incident is the train of memory
lighted by that explanation. Poor Ray Limbert, while we talked,
seemed to sit there between us : she reminded me that my acquaint-
ance with him had begun, eighteen years ago, with her having
come in precisely as she came in this morning to bespeak my
consideration for him. If she didn’t know then how little my
consideration was worth she is at least enlightened about its value
to-day, and it is just in that knowledge that the drollery of her
visit resides. As I hold up the torch to the dusky years—by which
I mean as I cipher up with a pen that stumbles and stops the
figured column of my reminiscences—I see that Limbert’s public
hour, or at least my small apprehension of it, is rounded by those
two occasions. It was finis, with a little moralising flourish, that
Mrs. Highmore seemed to trace to-day at the bottom of the page.
“ One of the most voluminous writers of the time,” she has often
repeated
By Henry James
rs. Highmore’s errand this morning was odd enough to
deserve commemoration : she came to ask me to write a
notice of her great forthcoming work. Her great works have
come forth so frequently without my assistance that I was
sufficiently entitled, on this occasion, to open my eyes ; but what
really made me stare was the ground on which her request reposed,
and what leads me to record the incident is the train of memory
lighted by that explanation. Poor Ray Limbert, while we talked,
seemed to sit there between us : she reminded me that my acquaint-
ance with him had begun, eighteen years ago, with her having
come in precisely as she came in this morning to bespeak my
consideration for him. If she didn’t know then how little my
consideration was worth she is at least enlightened about its value
to-day, and it is just in that knowledge that the drollery of her
visit resides. As I hold up the torch to the dusky years—by which
I mean as I cipher up with a pen that stumbles and stops the
figured column of my reminiscences—I see that Limbert’s public
hour, or at least my small apprehension of it, is rounded by those
two occasions. It was finis, with a little moralising flourish, that
Mrs. Highmore seemed to trace to-day at the bottom of the page.
“ One of the most voluminous writers of the time,” she has often
repeated