|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: come into it as a matter of course? - that question hummed in my
brain. Of course he knew; otherwise he wouldn't return my stare so
queerly. His wife had told him what I wanted and he was amiably
amused at my impotence. He didn't laugh - he wasn't a laugher:
his system was to present to my irritation, so that I should
crudely expose myself, a conversational blank as vast as his big
bare brow. It always happened that I turned away with a settled
conviction from these unpeopled expanses, which seemed to complete
each other geographically and to symbolise together Drayton Deane's
want of voice, want of form. He simply hadn't the art to use what
he knew; he literally was incompetent to take up the duty where
|
