The Portrait of a Lady

Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. There are circumstances in which, whether you partake of the tea or not--some people of course never do--the situation is in itself delightful.

Volume I architecture—Isabel's inheritance, Gardencourt education, European tour, Osmond's courtship gathering—paints the portrait through what Isabel refuses as much as accepts; the marriage-trap reversal is only foreshadowed here, so plot scores 86 on Vol.I evidence.

I'm an old friend of your aunt's. I've lived much in Florence. I'm Madame Merle. She made this last announcement as if she were referring to a person of tolerably distinct identity.

Isabel Archer, Ralph Touchett, Madame Merle, Gilbert Osmond, Lord Warburton, and Caspar Stackpole each supply a distinct consciousness; Isabel alone would carry a lesser book, so cast scores 90.

Her fortune had dropped her, as her cousin said, into the dullest house in England. Her gouty uncle received very little company, and Mrs. Touchett, not having cultivated many of the arts of conversation, passed her time in reading.

James's deliberate tempo—afternoon tea, Gardencourt conversations, European travel—assumes a reader patient with nuance over event; inheritance pivot and Rome arrival provide acceleration, so pace scores 84 on Vol.I rhythm.

I may not attempt to report in its fulness our young woman's response to the deep appeal of Rome, to analyse her feelings as she trod the pavement of the Forum or to number her pulsations as she crossed the threshold of St. Peter's.

The afternoon-tea opening and Rome passages exemplify James's mature style—the long sentence capturing thought in motion, free indirect depth making Isabel's inner life the primary action—so prose scores 96.

Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. There are circumstances in which, whether you partake of the tea or not--some people of course never do--the situation is in itself delightful.

Gardencourt as English country-house sanctuary, the Touchett fortune as enabling condition, and Rome/Florence/San Remo as Old World testing ground map the international theme of American freshness against European corruption, so world scores 92.

Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. There are circumstances in which, whether you partake of the tea or not--some people of course never do--the situation is in itself delightful.

Ch.I's afternoon-tea paragraph establishing "an innocent pastime" on a "splendid summer afternoon" is one of the most seductive openings in James—the reader enters leisure that will be systematically interrogated, so hook scores 92.

I seem to myself to have woken up one morning in possession of them--of Ralph Touchett and his parents, of Madame Merle, of Gilbert Osmond and his daughter and his sister, of Lord Warburton, Caspar Goodwood and Miss Stackpole.

The novel of consciousness as primary form—what happens is what Isabel perceives and chooses—and the American girl abroad as structural principle rewrote the international novel, so innov scores 94.

I may not attempt to report in its fulness our young woman's response to the deep appeal of Rome, to analyse her feelings as she trod the pavement of the Forum or to number her pulsations as she crossed the threshold of St. Peter's.

Vol.I ends in suspense—Rome, Osmond's courtship unresolved, Warburton's anxious inquiry—not the novel's true ending; ending score reflects incomplete source text only, so ending scores 76.