The Ambassadors by Henry James
page 36 of 598 (06%)
page 36 of 598 (06%)
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It so touched the place that he quite changed colour and his laugh
grew almost awkward. "Am I enjoying it as much as THAT?" "You're not enjoying it, I think, so much as you ought." "I see"--he appeared thoughtfully to agree. "Great is my privilege." "Oh it's not your privilege! It has nothing to do with me. It has to do with yourself. Your failure's general." "Ah there you are!" he laughed. "It's the failure of Woollett. THAT'S general." "The failure to enjoy," Miss Gostrey explained, "is what I mean." "Precisely. Woollett isn't sure it ought to enjoy. If it were it would. But it hasn't, poor thing," Strether continued, "any one to show it how. It's not like me. I have somebody." They had stopped, in the afternoon sunshine--constantly pausing, in their stroll, for the sharper sense of what they saw--and Strether rested on one of the high sides of the old stony groove of the little rampart. He leaned back on this support with his face to the tower of the cathedral, now admirably commanded by their station, the high red-brown mass, square and subordinately spired and crocketed, retouched and restored, but charming to his long-sealed eyes and with the first swallows of the year weaving their flight all round it. Miss Gostrey lingered near him, full of an air, to which she more and more justified her right, of understanding the effect of things. She quite concurred. "You've indeed somebody." |
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