Quote 3
This place
and these impressions . . . of Chad and of people I’ve seen at his place—well,
have had their abundant message for me. . . . [T]he right time now
is yours. The right time is any time that one is
still so lucky as to have. . . . .Of course I don’t take you for
a fool, or I shouldn’t be addressing you thus awfully. . . . Live!
This quotation occurs during the novel’s
first climax, in the middle of Book Fifth. A climax is the most
dramatic moment in a book, the point at which various themes culminate,
tensions peak, and at least some characters are forever altered—the
climax is a point of no return. In this early climax, Strether finally
articulates all that he has been learning, seeing, digesting, and
doing in Paris. According to legend, Henry James heard this speech
almost verbatim during a party he attended. Later, James called
this speech the “germ” for the entire novel The Ambassadors.
At a similar garden party, James overheard his good friend, the
writer William Dean Howells, speak similar words to the younger
Jonathan Sturges. From this experience, James felt inspired to create
a fictionalized account of an older man, one who has not lived life
to its full potential, who realizes what he has been missing, and
who expresses this newfound wisdom to a younger friend. The older
man, in this scene, is Strether. The younger man is little Bilham,
Strether’s friend and surrogate son.
Throughout the first half of the novel, Strether has grown increasingly
open and at ease in Europe; this quotation demonstrates the openness
and ease. Paris has helped Strether not only to relax but also has
inspired him to develop a true enjoyment of the details of life
and to reflect on his past, a time at which Strether was unable
to truly enjoy life. Before speaking these words to Bilham at Gloriani’s
garden party, Strether meets Madame de Vionnet and assumes she is
Chad’s close friend. Afterward, he makes the brief acquaintance
of Jeanne de Vionnet and, finding her elegant and good mannered,
approves of her as an appropriate lover for Chad. Thanks to these
experiences, Strether finds himself in a positive state of mind.
When he ends up face to face with the younger Bilham, Strether feels
inspired to express, explicitly, his new optimistic views. This
moment is the first instance of Strether explicitly commenting on
his internal changes. Although Strether continues to change and
grow in the second half of the novel, he never forgets the feeling
than one should “live.” Even though he feels it may be “too late”
for him, much of what Strether does for the rest of the book is “live,”
freely and openly, in a manner that would be impossible for him
in Woollett.
