[edgar] henry JAMES AND HIS METHOD 233 



of wings. They were folded now over the breasts of buried gener- 

 ations." 



Strether's impressions have been accumulating for some weeks 

 when we find him seated one day with Chad's friend Bilham on a 

 bench in Gloriani's garden. He is pleasantly sustained by the mere 

 fact of feeling that persons of high distinction are present, — authors, 

 dramatists, artists, fashionable celebrities even — but he does not wish 

 to talk with them, "having nothing at all to say and finding it would 

 do beautifully as it was; do beautifully because what it was — well, 

 was just simply too late. And when after this little Bilham, submis- 

 sive and responsive, but with an eye to the consolation nearest, easily 

 threw off some 'Better late than never!' all he got in return for it was 

 a sharp 'Better early than late!' This note indeed the next thing 

 overflowed for Strether into a quiet stream of demonstration that as 

 soon as he had let himself go he felt as the real relief. It had occasion- 

 ally gathered to a head, but the reservoir had filled sooner than he 

 knew and his companion's touch was to make the waters spread. 

 There were some things that had to come in time if they were to come 

 at all. If they didn't come in time they were lost for ever. It was 

 the general sense of them that had overwhelmed him with its long 

 slow rush. 



'"It's not too late for you, on anyside, and you don't strike me as 

 in danger of missing the train; besides which people can be in general 

 pretty well trusted, of course — with the clock of their freedom ticking 

 as loud as it seems to do here — to keep an eye on the fleeting hour. 

 All the same don't forget that you're young — blessedly young; be glad 

 of it on the contrary and live up to it. Live all you can ; it's a mistake 

 not to. It doesn't so much matter what you do in particular, so long 

 as you have your life. If you haven't had that what have you had ? 

 This place and these impressions — mild as you may find them to wind 

 a man up so; all my impressions of Chad and of people I've seen at 

 his place — well, have had their abundant message for me, have just 

 dropped that into my mind. I see it now. I haven't done so enough 

 before — and now I'm old; too old at any rate for what I see. Oh I 

 do see, at least; and more than you'd believe or I can express. It's too 

 late. And it's as if the train had fairly waited at the station for me 

 without my having had the gumption to know it was there. Now 

 I hear its" faint receding whistle miles and miles down the line. What 

 one loses one loses; make no mistake about that. The affair — 

 I mean the affair of life — couldn't, no doubt, have been different for 

 me; for it's at the best a tin mould, either fluted and embossed, with 

 ornamental excrescences, or else smooth and dreadfully plain, into 

 which, a helpless jelly, one's consciousness is poured — so that one 



