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Henry James Quotes and Quotations
We must grant the artist his subject, his idea, his donnee: Our criticisms apply only to what he makes of it. Deep experience is never peaceful. Cats and monkeys - monkeys and cats - all human life is there. The real offence, as she ultimately perceived, was her having a mind of her own at all. Her mind was to be his - attached to his own like a small garden plot to a deer park. Live all you can; it's a mistake not to. It doesn't so much matter what you do in particular, so long as you have your life. If you haven't had that, what have you had? True happiness, we are told, consists in getting out of one's self. But the point is not only to get out, you must stay out. And to stay out, you must have some absorbing errand. Three things in human life are important: The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind. The only success worth one's powder was success in the line of one's idiosyncrasy ... what was talent but the art of being completely whatever one happened to be? True happiness, we are told, consists in getting out of one's self, but the point is not only to get out; you must stay out, and to stay out, you must have some absorbing errand. The only success worth one's powder was success in the line of one's idiosyncrasy ... what was talent but the art of being completely whatever one happened to be? Deep experience is never peaceful. |