Washington Square

Austin Sloper had made his mark sufficiently to mitigate the anomaly of his having been chosen among a dozen suitors by a young woman of high fashion, who had ten thousand dollars of income and the most charming eyes in the island of Manhattan.

Anti-romance architecture—Morris's courtship, Dr Sloper's opposition, Catherine's obstinate devotion, Morris's abandonment and return—delivers cruelty without villainy where each party's victory is also defeat, so plot scores 86.

She was not ugly; she had simply a plain, dull, gentle countenance. The most that had ever been said for her was that she had a "nice" face, and, though she was an heiress, no one had ever thought of regarding her as a belle.

Catherine Sloper, Dr Austin Sloper, Morris Townsend, Mrs Lavinia Penniman, and Mrs Almond each supply a distinct angle on Washington Square propriety; Catherine alone would carry a lesser book, so cast scores 88.

I have tried everything upon her; I really have been quite merciless. But it is of no use whatever; she is absolutely _glued_. I have passed, in consequence, into the exasperated stage.

Thirty-five chapters of compact early James—the European trip and Morris's disappearance mark the structural turn before the final rejection—society-novel length without society-novel sprawl, so pace scores 84.

Morris Townsend had told her that her niece preferred, unromantically, an interview in a chintz-covered parlour to a sentimental tryst beside a fountain sheeted with dead leaves, and she was lost in wonderment at the strangeness of such a taste.

Early James at full clarity—Dr Sloper's epigrams, Catherine's self-assessment, the chintz parlour—before the late style; social comedy curdling into tragedy without changing register, so prose scores 90.

The ideal of quiet and of genteel retirement, in 1835, was found in Washington Square, where the Doctor built himself a handsome, modern, wide-fronted house, with a big balcony before the drawing-room windows.

Washington Square genteel New York—Dr Sloper's house, the parlour, the Square itself, the European tour—every drawing-room visit carrying inheritance and judgment; the square as enclosure for a daughter's life, so world scores 86.

Austin Sloper had made his mark sufficiently to mitigate the anomaly of his having been chosen among a dozen suitors by a young woman of high fashion, who had ten thousand dollars of income and the most charming eyes in the island of Manhattan.

Ch.I establishes Dr Sloper's medical reputation, Catherine's plainness against her dead mother's beauty, and the ten-thousand-a-year inheritance—immediately setting the triangle of money, love, and paternal contempt, so hook scores 84.

"Why have you never married?" he asked abruptly. "You have had opportunities." "I didn't wish to marry." "Yes, you are rich, you are free; you had nothing to gain."

The anti-romance heroine who wins by refusing—Catherine's final "I didn't wish to marry" and return to fancy work—James's systematic denial of consolation; the father proved right and monstrous simultaneously, so innov scores 86.

Catherine, meanwhile, in the parlour, picking up her morsel of fancy work, had seated herself with it again—for life, as it were.

Morris rejected without rage, Catherine "picking up her morsel of fancy work, had seated herself with it again—for life, as it were"—devastating quiet; among James's most perfectly cruel closures, so ending scores 92.