Wings of the Dove (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Read Online Free Page A

delights in his own cerebrations. He is happiest when he is thinking and pondering about events, examining other people’s motives (or his own), or when he is studying historical events or uncovering a scandal to put in his newspaper. He is passive where Kate is active. He is a loner, while she recognizes (if she does not always like) the necessity and inevitability of seeking one’s goals by manipulating others in a web of social interactions. Their opposite personalities and qualities of mind attract and apparently are complementary, even though we may well wonder how long such an attachment will last. If they were forced to survive on Densher’s meager pay as a journalist, their relationship would probably soon fizzle out. Densher has a conviction deep down that “he will never be rich.” Unless pushed by Kate, he would be content to drift through life reading, writing the occasional piece for his newspaper, and contemplating the state of affairs from the margins of society. He is not wholly without ambition. He does want to get ahead in his chosen profession of journalism, as is evidenced by his willingness to visit America (where he first makes the acquaintance of Milly). But he doesn’t have the relentless drive to advance his career with real vigor, just as he doesn’t have the will to resist Kate when she propels him into the scheme to entrap Milly. Kate is willing to roll the dice, whereas Densher on his own could hardly imagine doing so. He admires her precisely for her uncanny knack of knowing what she wants and for her boldness in trying to achieve her goals. How, why, and to what degree he modifies his feelings toward Kate are critical turning points in the novel.
    Rounding out the cast of characters is a host of lesser figures who play their parts in the drama. They are background figures, providing a kind of color, tint, scenery, and atmosphere. I use visual images advisedly, for James’s text is like a canvas on which he has painted an intricate scene. The eye is drawn to the characters in the foreground, but the others are necessary for the complete portrait. James’s metaphors and allusions are predominantly visual. His bent, his artistic taste is to painting, in contrast to that of Proust or Mann, whose novels are filled with musical references and allusions. That the visual arts seize the imaginations of James’s characters further reinforces the whole effect of portraiture.
    Kate’s aunt, Maud Lowder, is the rich, iron-willed, and domineering matriarch with whom Kate lives. Aunt Maud is determined to use her niece to advance her own ends. Maud Lowder acquired her money through marriage, and she lacks the aristocratic pedigree that is necessary to function at the top of London’s disintegrating, but still snobbish, social order. As a social climber and would-be aristocrat, Maud seeks to use her beautiful niece to advance her own social standing by marrying Kate off to a member of the nobility. The immediate candidate for this end is Lord Mark, who has a beautiful estate but is otherwise essentially broke. He needs money to keep up his lifestyle and is unabashedly in the hunt for a bride so that he can barter his social position for a fortune. He is none too finicky, requiring only that the woman’s fortune be large enough. Lord Mark, a somewhat shadowy figure, turns out to be the closest thing to a purely evil force in the novel. His visit to Milly in Venice, in which he reveals to her the true state of the relationship between Kate and Densher, is as an act of malevolence and vengeance.
    Aunt Maud’s social control extends also to Kate’s unfortunate and widowed sister Marian, who lives in lower-class penury with three children to care for. Marian has fallen out of favor with Aunt Maud because she married a man of whom Aunt Maud disapproved, and is now, after her husband’s early death, reduced to living in conditions close to squalor. Her only hope in the short run is for occasional acts