Further Notes on The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James:

The Opening Idyll

Of all the ways to begin a novel, one of the most dependable is with an epigram. Perhaps the most famous example is the first sentence from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” Tolstoy employed the same technique to start Ann Karenina: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” So Henry James is in good company when he gets The Portrait of a Lady under way with the observation that: “Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.” 

The whole first chapter of the book forms a justification of this statement. James explains the charms of the afternoon tea by showing the way one unfolds on a particular day in England. There are two aspects of this opening scene that I wish to consider because of the way they resonate throughout the rest of the novel. The first is the idyllic nature of the scene, and the second is its sacramental character. 

The scene opens on the vast lawn of an English country estate where three men are taking their tea: an elderly invalid, his son, and his son’s friend. James emphasizes the idyllic nature of the scene through his use of adjectives with positive associations: delightful, admirable, innocent, perfect, splendid. He focuses on the quality of the light and the way it changes as the afternoon proceeds.

Part of the afternoon had waned, but much of it was left, and what was left was of the finest and rarest quality. Real dusk would not arrive for many hours; but the flood of summer light had begun to ebb, the air had grown mellow, the shadows were long upon the smooth, dense turf. They lengthened slowly, however, and the scene expressed that sense of leisure still to come which is perhaps the chief source of one’s enjoyment of such a scene at such an hour. From five o’clock to eight is on certain occasions a little eternity; but on such an occasion as this the interval could only be an eternity of pleasure. 

The delightful nature of the scene is reflected in the rhythm of the prose that describes it. By repeating certain words and phrases—

much of it was left, and what was left was…

of such a scene at such an hour…

on certain occasions a little eternity; but on such an occasion as this…

James imparts to his prose a languorous rhythm that imitates the way sunlight slowly wanes on a summer afternoon. 

Often when an author begins a novel with such an idyllic scene, it is to suggest that all is not what it seems, that underneath the enchanting surface, something is seriously wrong. One thinks of the opening pages of Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night, with its picture of exquisitely beautiful expatriates lounging on the beaches of the French Riviera. Of course, they’re all damaged underneath their surface veneer, and the rest of the novel charts their descent into misery. Or consider the first chapter of Zola’s The Earth, where the hero is engaged in the seemingly innocent occupation of sowing seeds in a farmer’s field, seeds that will grow into the wheat that supports the local populace. But the earth in its motherly aspect changes, as the novel progresses, into a savage battleground that pits one family against another and culminates in a series of horrific murders and sexual assaults. 

Henry James is doing something quite different in Portrait of a Lady. His intention in this opening chapter is to demonstrate that the delightful setting his three characters find themselves in is actually a reflection of their own interior makeup. One way he does this is by focusing on the 16^th-century country house that forms the backdrop to the scene. The house rests on top of a hill by the river Thames, about 40 miles from London. After describing its façade and history, James returns the reader to the lawn where the three men are taking their tea. 

… the wide carpet of turf that covered the level hill-top seemed but the extension of a luxurious interior. The great still oaks and beeches flung down a shade as dense as that of velvet curtains; and the place was furnished, like a room, with cushioned seats, with rich-coloured rugs, with the books and papers that lay upon the grass. 

The outside of the house is “but the extension” of the inside; what the reader sees on the lawn is an accurate reflection of what exists within, where the reader has not yet been invited. The outside and the inside are one and the same. 

This agreement between the surface and what lies beneath is important because James follows his description of the house’s façade by focusing on the face of Mr. Touchett, the elderly invalid who is drinking tea on the lawn. He and his house are both old, they both show a weathered façade, but James is obviously suggesting that they also share a common integrity, and that the face the old man presents to the world reflects an inner goodness. 

The old gentleman at the table…. had a narrow, clean-shaven face, with evenly distributed features, and an expression of placid acuteness. It was evidently a face in which the range of expression was not large; so that the air of contented shrewdness was all the more of a merit. It seemed to tell that he had been successful in life, but it seemed to tell also that his success had not been exclusive and invidious, but had much of the inoffensiveness of failure. 

The old man resembles the house to the extent that, for both of them, their exterior is an accurate reflection of what they have within. Mr. Touchett’s moral goodness is confirmed for the reader when his son, Ralph, tells his friend, Lord Warburton, that the old man is not as rich as he seems, because “He has given away an immense deal of money.” 

This agreement between the exterior and interior of people and things is in accord with the notion of a sacrament, which is usually defined as “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.” Obviously, the practice of drinking tea at a prescribed time of day has certain sacramental properties, which James emphasizes through his choice of words to describe it. In the book’s opening sentence (see above), the words “dedicated” and “ceremony” have religious connotations, as do other terms that appear later in the opening paragraph: “innocent,” “eternity,” and “votaries.” James wants the reader to understand that the three men he introduces in this opening chapter and who participate in the tea “ceremony” all share a certain moral integrity, and that their attractive (or at least inoffensive) exteriors reflect an inner goodness. The opening chapter of this book is not just the description of an agreeable scene; it is also a way for the narrator to declare where his sympathies lie. 

The novel’s heroine, Isabel Archer, is nowhere present in this opening chapter, except as a topic of conversation. She is waiting in the wings, so to speak, and will make her entrance in Chapter 2. None of the three men in Chapter 1 have met her yet, but they know she is about to arrive. They joke about her in a light-hearted fashion, wondering if she is “pretty” and whether they will fall in love with her. In fact, both of the young men will, in different ways and for different reasons, do exactly that. The tragedy of the book, the tragedy of Isabel Archer’s life will be that she rejects them both and chooses to marry a man who is their inferior in every way that could matter. 

The first time the reader sees Isabel and her future husband, Gilbert Osmond, getting acquainted will be at another afternoon tea that occurs about midway through the novel. This time the ceremony takes place in Italy. Again, the house is situated on top of a hill, and the surroundings possess “an extraordinary charm.” But this time the ceremony will lack any resemblance to a sacrament, and there will be nothing “innocent” about the day’s activities. Instead, Isabel will step into a trap that has been carefully set to capture her and acquire her fortune. This time there will be no agreement between the inside and outside of people and things. The interior of Osmond’s little bungalow, stuffed with the sort of knick-knacks that only a dilettante could love, will be no match for the beauty of the Tuscan countryside. And his meticulously preserved, middle-aged visage will fail to reflect the moral rot within. As the afternoon proceeds, Isabel will develop the uncomfortable feeling that something is out of kilter, that “The place, the occasion, the combination of people, signified more than lay on the surface.” But her own gullibility will prevent her from understanding the danger she is in. 

Henry James uses these two scenes of the afternoon tea ceremony—the one idyllic, the other menacing—to divide his novel into two parts. The first part is a description of Isabel’s good fortune and innocence, an innocence that verges at times on willful ignorance; the second part describes her extreme unhappiness and the understanding she derives from it.