|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: the odd echo, the conscious human resonance (he scarce knew how to
qualify it) that sounds made while he was there alone sent back to
his ear or his fancy; and that, in the second, he imagined Alice
Staverton for the instant on the point of asking him, with a
divination, if he ever so prowled. There were divinations he was
unprepared for, and he had at all events averted enquiry by the
time Mrs. Muldoon had left them, passing on to other parts.
There was happily enough to say, on so consecrated a spot, that
could be said freely and fairly; so that a whole train of
declarations was precipitated by his friend's having herself broken
out, after a yearning look round: "But I hope you don't mean they
|