A LIGHT MAN.

BY Henry James.[1]

  “And I—­what I seem to my friend, you see—­
     What I soon shall seem to his love, you guess. 
  What I seem to myself, do you ask of me? 
     No hero, I confess.”

A Light Woman.—­Browning’s Men and Women.

April 4, 1857.—­I have changed my sky without changing my mind.  I resume these old notes in a new world.  I hardly know of what use they are; but it’s easier to stick to the habit than to drop it.  I have been at home now a week—­at home, forsooth!  And yet, after all, it is home.  I am dejected, I am bored, I am blue.  How can a man be more at home than that?  Nevertheless, I am the citizen of a great country, and for that matter, of a great city.  I walked to-day some ten miles or so along Broadway, and on the whole I don’t blush for my native land.  We are a capable race and a good-looking withal; and I don’t see why we shouldn’t prosper as well as another.  This, by the way, ought to be a very encouraging reflection.  A capable fellow and a good-looking withal; I don’t see why he shouldn’t die a millionaire.  At all events he must do something.  When a man has, at thirty-two, a net income of considerably less than nothing, he can scarcely hope to overtake a fortune before he himself is overtaken by age and philosophy—­two deplorable obstructions.  I am afraid that one of them has already planted itself in my path.  What am I?  What do I wish?  Whither do I tend?  What do I believe?  I am constantly beset by these impertinent whisperings.  Formerly it was enough that I was Maximus Austin; that I was endowed with a cheerful mind and a good digestion; that one day or another, when I had come to the end, I should return to America and begin at the beginning; that, meanwhile, existence was sweet in—­in the Rue Tronchet.  But now!  Has the sweetness really passed out of life?  Have I eaten the plums and left nothing but the bread and milk and corn-starch, or whatever the horrible concoction is?—­I had it to-day for dinner.  Pleasure, at least, I imagine—­pleasure pure and simple, pleasure crude, brutal and vulgar—­this poor flimsy delusion has lost all its charm.  I shall never again care for certain things—­and indeed for certain persons.  Of such things, of such persons, I firmly maintain, however, that I was never an enthusiastic votary.  It would be more to my credit, I suppose, if I had been.  More would be forgiven me if I had loved a little more, if into all my folly and egotism I had put a little more naivete and sincerity.  Well, I did the best I could, I was at once too bad and too good for it all.  At present, it’s far enough off; I have put the sea between us; I am stranded.  I sit high and dry, scanning the horizon for a friendly sail, or waiting for a high tide to set me afloat.  The wave of pleasure has deposited me here in the sand.  Shall I owe my rescue to the wave of pain?  At moments I feel a kind of longing to expiate my stupid little sins.  I see, as through a glass, darkly, the beauty of labor and love.  Decidedly, I am willing to work.  It’s written.