The Ambassadors
by Henry James
New York Edition (1909)
Contents
| Volume I |
| Preface |
| Book First |
| Book Second |
| Book Third |
| Book Fourth |
| Book Fifth |
| Book Sixth |
| Volume II |
| Book Seventh |
| Book Eighth |
| Book Ninth |
| Book Tenth |
| Book Book Eleventh |
| Book Twelfth |
Preface
Nothing is more easy than to state the subject of “TheAmbassadors,” which first appeared in twelve numbers of The NorthAmerican Review (1903) and was published as a whole the same year. Thesituation involved is gathered up betimes, that is in the second chapter ofBook Fifth, for the reader’s benefit, into as few words aspossible—planted or “sunk,” stiffly and saliently, in thecentre of the current, almost perhaps to the obstruction of traffic. Never cana composition of this sort have sprung straighter from a dropped grain ofsuggestion, and never can that grain, developed, overgrown and smothered, haveyet lurked more in the mass as an independent particle. The whole case, infine, is in Lambert Strether’s irrepressible outbreak to little Bilham onthe Sunday afternoon in Gloriani’s garden, the candour with which heyields, for his young friend’s enlightenment, to the charming admonitionof that crisis. The idea of the tale resides indeed in the very fact that anhour of such unprecedented ease should have been felt by him as acrisis, and he is at pains to express it for us as neatly as we could desire.The remarks to which he thus gives utterance contain the essence of “TheAmbassadors,” his fingers close, before he has done, round the stem ofthe full-blown flower; which, after that fashion, he continues officiously topresent to us. “Live all you can; it’s a mistake not to. Itdoesn’t so much matter what you do in particular so long as you have yourlife. If you haven’t had that what have you had? I’m tooold—too old at any rate for what I see. What one loses one loses; make nomistake about that. Still, we have the illusion of freedom; thereforedon’t, like me to-day, be without the memory of that illusion. I waseither, at the right time, too stupid or too intelligent to have it, and nowI’m a case of reaction against the mistake. Do what you like so long asyou don’t make it. For it was a mistake. Live, live!” Suchis the gist of Strether’s appeal to the impressed youth, whom he likesand whom he desires to befriend; the word “mistake” occurs severaltimes, it will be seen, in