Henry James
The Real Thing
MP3 CD
(IDB Productions Aug. 16, 2019)
The Real Thing
I.
WHEN the porter’s wife (she used to answer the house-bell), announced “A
gentleman—with a lady, sir,” I had, as I often had in those days, for the
wish was father to the thought, an immediate vision of sitters. Sitters
my visitors in this case proved to be; but not in the sense I should have
preferred. However, there was nothing at first to indicate that they
might not have come for a portrait. The gentleman, a man of fifty, very
high and very straight, with a moustache slightly grizzled and a dark
grey walking-coat admirably fitted, both of which I noted
professionally—I don’t mean as a barber or yet as a tailor—would have
struck me as a celebrity if celebrities often were striking. It was a
truth of which I had for some time been conscious that a figure with a
good deal of frontage was, as one might say, almost never a public
institution. A glance at the lady helped to remind me of this
paradoxical law: she also looked too distinguished to be a “personality.”
Moreover one would scarcely come across two variations together.
I.
WHEN the porter’s wife (she used to answer the house-bell), announced “A
gentleman—with a lady, sir,” I had, as I often had in those days, for the
wish was father to the thought, an immediate vision of sitters. Sitters
my visitors in this case proved to be; but not in the sense I should have
preferred. However, there was nothing at first to indicate that they
might not have come for a portrait. The gentleman, a man of fifty, very
high and very straight, with a moustache slightly grizzled and a dark
grey walking-coat admirably fitted, both of which I noted
professionally—I don’t mean as a barber or yet as a tailor—would have
struck me as a celebrity if celebrities often were striking. It was a
truth of which I had for some time been conscious that a figure with a
good deal of frontage was, as one might say, almost never a public
institution. A glance at the lady helped to remind me of this
paradoxical law: she also looked too distinguished to be a “personality.”
Moreover one would scarcely come across two variations together.
- ISBN
- 1776771230 / 9781776771233
- Weight
- 3.5 oz.
- Dimensions
- 7.5 x 5.5 in.
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