Life Lately: New Illustrations & Book recommendations (Henry James)

Today I'm back with some new art, thoughts  and book recommendations. One of the things I've learned lately (or better to say relearned because it's something that I need to remind myself of) is the importance of sketching.

Why sketching is important? 

Finding time to do art is never easy. That is why I always advise sketching or even doodling. Sketching or doodling is a great way of getting ideas onto paper. Ideas that can grow into something more. Ideas that can become paintings or even an ambitious project of some kind. This doesn't just apply to hobby art. Brainstorming and writing things down is a great way to organize our thoughts. Similarly, keeping scrapbooks, art journals or what not, can help us take our creative idea the next step. Waiting for inspiration is one of the worst myths out there, together with waiting for things to be perfect. My advice: just grab a pen and see where it gets you. Remember to always keep trying.

For example, I made this pen drawing/doodle not really having anything in mind. I wasn't trying to do anything but I ended up liking it and now I think I'll try to turn it into something more, something larger scale. Maybe a painting or something of the sort. Maybe a series of similar doodles. I'm not that focused on developing my art skills at the moment because I'm working on some other things, but I like to steal ten or fifteen minutes to do some sketching. It's amazing what a difference ten minutes can make in terms of our creativity. Even a bit of sketching can get our creative juices going. I think it's a bit like food. The more we eat, the more hungry we tend to get. Sometimes the same thing can be applied to art. The more we do it, the more we can't get enough of it. 

A Girl Wearing a Beanie Spiral Notebook

A Girl Wearing a Beanie Studio Pouch

Red Lips Fashion Illustration iPhone Case

Red Lips Tote Bag

The image you can see bellow was a fashion illustration sketch that got turned into an illustration when I decided to add watercolour to it. I'm not sure where I'm going with this style or will I turn it into anything. I'm a bit uncertain about the illustration itself. I like the blurry urban watercolour background, but that's about it. Is it a bit too out there for a fashion illustration? I do like the outfit, though. Camel culottes are something I'd love to own, and preferably I'd wear them with a red turtleneck and a cropped jacket. High boots are a winter must, don't you agree? 

Bellow you can see a few sketches I made while I was sitting in a cafe with friends. When I don't have the time to do art seriously, then I do my best to do it any way I can.  You can't always have the energy to do everything. Sometimes you can read a book a day, sometimes you can read a book a month. Sometimes you can make a painting a day, sometimes the best you can master is a sketch a day. The important thing is to keep trying. Keep trying to find ways to better ourselves. It is easy to get frustrated with ourselves when things don't go as planned. But things almost never go as planned, do they? So, why not relax and do the best we can? What more can we do? 

Another illustration idea I got was to make one of a girl reading. First I sketched it with a pen then I decided to add in some watercolour. Clearly, this is not the way to do it. What you should do is to sketch with pencil and then add watercolour. You must also remember to use special paper for watercolour. That is certainly sound advice (one that I get a lot) but you know what? Sometimes it's fun to break the rules. Sometimes it is fun to add watercolour to a paper that can't take it. Why not? In addition, sometimes I like to sketch with a pen and add watercolour. It's not the proper way to do things, but you can end up with pretty interesting results. 

Do you agree that reading is food for the soul? What is the latest book you have read? I have to admit that I don't do as much reading as I used to, but I do my best to keep reading. The last book I've read is a collection of stories by Henry James and I'd definitely recommend that one. I found an old edition at home and decided to read it during the weekend. It felt so good being able to finish a book in one sitting. The stories in this edition included: Four Meetings, The Beast in the Jungle, The Real Thing and Daisy Miller. I've already read Daisy Miller, so only three of them were new to me, but what stories they were! Deeply moving and endlessly fascinating. If I had the time, I'd love to write long reviews for them, but since I don't, I'll just post short ones (and only for two of them). I hope I'll manage to write more reviews in the future. I've read many works by Henry James and I always enjoy his writings. My personal favourites are: The Portrait of a Lady, The Turn of a Screw and The Aspen Papers. What are your favourites? Do you like Henry James? If yes, what are your favourite works by him?

THE BEAST IN THE JUNGLE, HENRY JAMES

What to say of The Beast in the Jungle? This fascinating novella, first published in 1903 as a part of a collection, is believed by many to be one of James' finest shorter narratives. 'This is the stuff Greek tragedies are made of!', the reader is tempted to exclaim. Its protagonist is a man hunted by fear.

What determined the speech that startled him in the course of their encounter scarcely matters, being probably but some words spoken by himself quite without intention—spoken as they lingered and slowly moved together after their renewal of acquaintance.  He had been conveyed by friends an hour or two before to the house at which she was staying; the party of visitors at the other house, of whom he was one, and thanks to whom it was his theory, as always, that he was lost in the crowd, had been invited over to luncheon.  There had been after luncheon much dispersal, all in the interest of the original motive, a view of Weatherend itself and the fine things, intrinsic features, pictures, heirlooms, treasures of all the arts, that made the place almost famous; and the great rooms were so numerous that guests could wander at their will, hang back from the principal group and in cases where they took such matters with the last seriousness give themselves up to mysterious appreciations and measurements.  There were persons to be observed, singly or in couples, bending toward objects in out-of-the-way corners with their hands on their knees and their heads nodding quite as with the emphasis of an excited sense of smell.  When they were two they either mingled their sounds of ecstasy or melted into silences of even deeper import, so that there were aspects of the occasion that gave it for Marcher much the air of the “look round,” previous to a sale highly advertised, that excites or quenches, as may be, the dream of acquisition.  The dream of acquisition at Weatherend would have had to be wild indeed, and John Marcher found himself, among such suggestions, disconcerted almost equally by the presence of those who knew too much and by that of those who knew nothing.  The great rooms caused so much poetry and history to press upon him that he needed some straying apart to feel in a proper relation with them, though this impulse was not, as happened, like the gloating of some of his companions, to be compared to the movements of a dog sniffing a cupboard.  It had an issue promptly enough in a direction that was not to have been calculated.

It led, briefly, in the course of the October afternoon, to his closer meeting with May Bartram, whose face, a reminder, yet not quite a remembrance, as they sat much separated at a very long table, had begun merely by troubling him rather pleasantly.  It affected him as the sequel of something of which he had lost the beginning.  He knew it, and for the time quite welcomed it, as a continuation, but didn’t know what it continued, which was an interest or an amusement the greater as he was also somehow aware—yet without a direct sign from her—that the young woman herself hadn’t lost the thread.  She hadn’t lost it, but she wouldn’t give it back to him, he saw, without some putting forth of his hand for it; and he not only saw that, but saw several things more, things odd enough in the light of the fact that at the moment some accident of grouping brought them face to face he was still merely fumbling with the idea that any contact between them in the past would have had no importance.  If it had had no importance he scarcely knew why his actual impression of her should so seem to have so much; the answer to which, however, was that in such a life as they all appeared to be leading for the moment one could but take things as they came.  He was satisfied, without in the least being able to say why, that this young lady might roughly have ranked in the house as a poor relation; satisfied also that she was not there on a brief visit, but was more or less a part of the establishment—almost a working, a remunerated part.  Didn’t she enjoy at periods a protection that she paid for by helping, among other services, to show the place and explain it, deal with the tiresome people, answer questions about the dates of the building, the styles of the furniture, the authorship of the pictures, the favourite haunts of the ghost?  It wasn’t that she looked as if you could have given her shillings—it was impossible to look less so.  Yet when she finally drifted toward him, distinctly handsome, though ever so much older—older than when he had seen her before—it might have been as an effect of her guessing that he had, within the couple of hours, devoted more imagination to her than to all the others put together, and had thereby penetrated to a kind of truth that the others were too stupid for.  She was there on harder terms than any one; she was there as a consequence of things suffered, one way and another, in the interval of years; and she remembered him very much as she was remembered—only a good deal better.

 Potent, beautiful and heart-breaking! This is a story about a man who lives in anticipation of something terrible that is to come, but when it happens he misses it. A woman, his best friend, warns him of it but it's too late. Could I see the ending? Yes, I most certainly could but somehow it didn't spoil the enjoyment of this story one bit.

“You know you told me something I’ve never forgotten and that again and again has made me think of you since; it was that tremendously hot day when we went to Sorrento, across the bay, for the breeze.  What I allude to was what you said to me, on the way back, as we sat under the awning of the boat enjoying the cool.  Have you forgotten?”

He had forgotten, and was even more surprised than ashamed.  But the great thing was that he saw in this no vulgar reminder of any “sweet” speech.  The vanity of women had long memories, but she was making no claim on him of a compliment or a mistake.  With another woman, a totally different one, he might have feared the recall possibly even some imbecile “offer.”  So, in having to say that he had indeed forgotten, he was conscious rather of a loss than of a gain; he already saw an interest in the matter of her mention.  “I try to think—but I give it up.  Yet I remember the Sorrento day.”

“I’m not very sure you do,” May Bartram after a moment said; “and I’m not very sure I ought to want you to.  It’s dreadful to bring a person back at any time to what he was ten years before.  If you’ve lived away from it,” she smiled, “so much the better.”

“Ah if you haven’t why should I?” he asked.

“Lived away, you mean, from what I myself was?”

“From what I was.  I was of course an ass,” Marcher went on; “but I would rather know from you just the sort of ass I was than—from the moment you have something in your mind—not know anything.”

Still, however, she hesitated.  “But if you’ve completely ceased to be that sort—?”

“Why I can then all the more bear to know.  Besides, perhaps I haven’t.”

“Perhaps.  Yet if you haven’t,” she added, “I should suppose you’d remember.  Not indeed that I in the least connect with my impression the invidious name you use.  If I had only thought you foolish,” she explained, “the thing I speak of wouldn’t so have remained with me.  It was about yourself.”  She waited as if it might come to him; but as, only meeting her eyes in wonder, he gave no sign, she burnt her ships.  “Has it ever happened?”

Then it was that, while he continued to stare, a light broke for him and the blood slowly came to his face, which began to burn with recognition.

“Do you mean I told you—?”  But he faltered, lest what came to him shouldn’t be right, lest he should only give himself away.

“It was something about yourself that it was natural one shouldn’t forget—that is if one remembered you at all.  That’s why I ask you,” she smiled, “if the thing you then spoke of has ever come to pass?”

Oh then he saw, but he was lost in wonder and found himself embarrassed.  This, he also saw, made her sorry for him, as if her allusion had been a mistake.  It took him but a moment, however, to feel it hadn’t been, much as it had been a surprise.  After the first little shock of it her knowledge on the contrary began, even if rather strangely, to taste sweet to him.  She was the only other person in the world then who would have it, and she had had it all these years, while the fact of his having so breathed his secret had unaccountably faded from him.  No wonder they couldn’t have met as if nothing had happened.  “I judge,” he finally said, “that I know what you mean.  Only I had strangely enough lost any sense of having taken you so far into my confidence.”

“Is it because you’ve taken so many others as well?”

“I’ve taken nobody.  Not a creature since then.”

“So that I’m the only person who knows?”

“The only person in the world.”

“Well,” she quickly replied, “I myself have never spoken.  I’ve never, never repeated of you what you told me.”  She looked at him so that he perfectly believed her.  Their eyes met over it in such a way that he was without a doubt.  “And I never will.”

She spoke with an earnestness that, as if almost excessive, put him at ease about her possible derision.  Somehow the whole question was a new luxury to him—that is from the moment she was in possession.  If she didn’t take the sarcastic view she clearly took the sympathetic, and that was what he had had, in all the long time, from no one whomsoever.  What he felt was that he couldn’t at present have begun to tell her, and yet could profit perhaps exquisitely by the accident of having done so of old.  “Please don’t then.  We’re just right as it is.”

“Oh I am,” she laughed, “if you are!”  To which she added: “Then you do still feel in the same way?”

To a modern mind, The Beast In the Jungle might seem overblown, too emotional and not very convincing but luckily I don't have a modern mind. I absolutely loved it and clung onto every page. I was moved to tears, even though I could anticipate just about everything from the very start. The ending felt so dramatic, even if it was (as I emphasized) only expected. 

“Do you mean because you’ve been in love?”  And then as he but looked at her in silence: “You’ve been in love, and it hasn’t meant such a cataclysm, hasn’t proved the great affair?”

“Here I am, you see.  It hasn’t been overwhelming.”

“Then it hasn’t been love,” said May Bartram.

“Well, I at least thought it was.  I took it for that—I’ve taken it till now.  It was agreeable, it was delightful, it was miserable,” he explained.  “But it wasn’t strange.  It wasn’t what my affair’s to be.”

“You want something all to yourself—something that nobody else knows or has known?”

“It isn’t a question of what I ‘want’—God knows I don’t want anything.  It’s only a question of the apprehension that haunts me—that I live with day by day.”

He said this so lucidly and consistently that he could see it further impose itself.  If she hadn’t been interested before she’d have been interested now.

“Is it a sense of coming violence?”

Evidently now too again he liked to talk of it.  “I don’t think of it as—when it does come—necessarily violent.  I only think of it as natural and as of course above all unmistakeable.  I think of it simply as the thing.  The thing will of itself appear natural.”

“Then how will it appear strange?”

Marcher bethought himself.  “It won’t—to me.”

“To whom then?”

“Well,” he replied, smiling at last, “say to you.”

“Oh then I’m to be present?”

“Why you are present—since you know.”

“I see.”  She turned it over.  “But I mean at the catastrophe.”

At this, for a minute, their lightness gave way to their gravity; it was as if the long look they exchanged held them together.  “It will only depend on yourself—if you’ll watch with me.”

“Are you afraid?” she asked.

“Don’t leave me now,” he went on.

“Are you afraid?” she repeated.

“Do you think me simply out of my mind?” he pursued instead of answering.  “Do I merely strike you as a harmless lunatic?”

“No,” said May Bartram.  “I understand you.  I believe you.”

“You mean you feel how my obsession—poor old thing—may correspond to some possible reality?”

“To some possible reality.”

“Then you will watch with me?”

She hesitated, then for the third time put her question.  “Are you afraid?”

“Did I tell you I was—at Naples?”

“No, you said nothing about it.”

“Then I don’t know.  And I should like to know,” said John Marcher.  “You’ll tell me yourself whether you think so.  If you’ll watch with me you’ll see.”

“Very good then.”  They had been moving by this time across the room, and at the door, before passing out, they paused as for the full wind-up of their understanding.  “I’ll watch with you,” said May Bartram.

The sensibility of this writer is outstanding. I will probably never tire of his writing. One thing I especially appreciate about this story is that it can be read in two ways, as a metaphor for fear of life itself and what it can do to us, and as an actual story featuring a very human protagonist. In a way, we are our own worst enemy, the beast in the jungle. The tiger that lurks in the jungle is hidden within our own heart. This story is a wonderful reminder of that.

FOUR MEETINGS, HENRY JAMES 

I saw her only four times, but I remember them vividly; she made an impression upon me. I thought her very pretty and very interesting,—a charming specimen of a type. I am very sorry to hear of her death; and yet, when I think of it, why should I be sorry? The last time I saw her she was certainly not—But I will describe all our meetings in order.I saw her only four times, but I remember them vividly; she made an impression upon me. I thought her very pretty and very interesting,—a charming specimen of a type. I am very sorry to hear of her death; and yet, when I think of it, why should I be sorry? The last time I saw her she was certainly not—But I will describe all our meetings in order.

When I picked up Four Meetings, I must admit I had high expectations because I do have a thing for Henry James. There is something so effortless about his writing style, his prose always seems to flow and yet it always feels substantial and meaningful. 

The first one took place in the country, at a little tea-party, one snowy night. It must have been some seventeen years ago. My friend Latouche, going to spend Christmas with his mother, had persuaded me to go with him, and the good lady had given in our honor the entertainment of which I speak. To me it was really entertaining; I had never been in the depths of New England at that season. It had been snowing all day, and the drifts were knee-high. I wondered how the ladies had made their way to the house; but I perceived that at Grimwinter a conversazione offering the attraction of two gentlemen from New York was felt to be worth an effort.

Mrs. Latouche, in the course of the evening, asked me if I “didn’t want to” show the photographs to some of the young ladies. The photographs were in a couple of great portfolios, and had been brought home by her son, who, like myself, was lately returned from Europe. I looked round and was struck with the fact that most of the young ladies were provided with an object of interest more absorbing than the most vivid sun-picture. But there was a person standing alone near the mantelshelf, and looking round the room with a small gentle smile which seemed at odds, somehow, with her isolation. I looked at her a moment, and then said, “I should like to show them to that young lady.”

“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Latouche, “she is just the person. She doesn’t care for flirting; I will speak to her.”

I rejoined that if she did not care for flirting, she was, perhaps, not just the person; but Mrs. Latouche had already gone to propose the photographs to her.

“She’s delighted,” she said, coming back. “She is just the person, so quiet and so bright.” And then she told me the young lady was, by name, Miss Caroline Spencer, and with this she introduced me.

Now, that's quite a combination if you ask me. Another thing I enjoy and sometimes marvel at when it comes to his writing is the ambiguity. Perhaps this story isn't a best example of that, for this time it is the central heroine that lives in ambiguity and not the reader. Or is it so? The story is told by a male narrator that sounds suspiciously like Henry James himself. In other words, he is an American living in Europe. He meets a young woman, an American teacher that dreams of visiting Europe. She will be the heroine of this story. The four meetings (referred to in the title) will reveal her sad destiny. Every time our narrator meets her we learn more of her. This is basically a story in four scenic episodes (That would make for a brilliant mini series!). The ending of the story is not entirely clear, but we can guess it is not a happy one. Not a spoiler, is it? I mean it's Henry James, you know that it won't end up with - they lived happily ever after.

Miss Caroline Spencer was not exactly a beauty, but she was a charming little figure. She must have been close upon thirty, but she was made almost like a little girl, and she had the complexion of a child. She had a very pretty head, and her hair was arranged as nearly as possible like the hair of a Greek bust, though indeed it was to be doubted if she had ever seen a Greek bust. She was “artistic,” I suspected, so far as Grimwinter allowed such tendencies. She had a soft, surprised eye, and thin lips, with very pretty teeth. Round her neck she wore what ladies call, I believe, a “ruche,” fastened with a very small pin in pink coral, and in her hand she carried a fan made of plaited straw and adorned with pink ribbon. She wore a scanty black silk dress. She spoke with a kind of soft precision, showing her white teeth between her narrow but tender-looking lips, and she seemed extremely pleased, even a little fluttered, at the prospect of my demonstrations. These went forward very smoothly, after I had moved the portfolios out of their corner and placed a couple of chairs near a lamp. The photographs were usually things I knew,—large views of Switzerland, Italy, and Spain, landscapes, copies of famous buildings, pictures, and statues. I said what I could about them, and my companion, looking at them as I held them up, sat perfectly still, with her straw fan raised to her underlip. Occasionally, as I laid one of the pictures down, she said very softly, “Have you seen that place?” I usually answered that I had seen it several times (I had been a great traveller), and then I felt that she looked at me askance for a moment with her pretty eyes. I had asked her at the outset whether she had been to Europe; to this she answered, “No, no, no,” in a little quick, confidential whisper. But after that, though she never took her eyes off the pictures, she said so little that I was afraid she was bored. Accordingly, after we had finished one portfolio, I offered, if she desired it, to desist. I felt that she was not bored, but her reticence puzzled me, and I wished to make her speak. I turned round to look at her, and saw that there was a faint flush in each of her cheeks. She was waving her little fan to and fro. Instead of looking at me she fixed her eyes upon the other portfolio, which was leaning against the table.

“Won’t you show me that?” she asked, with a little tremor in her voice. I could almost have believed she was agitated.

“With pleasure,” I answered, “if you are not tired.”

“No, I am not tired,” she affirmed. “I like it—I love it.”

Henry James wrote some amazing women characters. Tragic heroines seem to be his specialty. The story is perhaps a bit predictable, but honestly I found it so easy to relate to it. It's a very touching story indeed. I could really sympathize with the heroine of this story. Bless her poor puritan heart. However, I don't feel sorry for her. I feel there is bravery in her innocence, something that I can't help but respect. Perhaps her illusions have a value of their own? Perhaps her fate is not so tragic? Perhaps it is better to believe in something that isn't true than to be vulgar? Who is really the victim? I had a lot of questions upon finishing this story, and I happen to think that's a sign of good writing.

She fanned herself a moment, and then repeated the lines correctly, in a soft, flat, and yet agreeable voice. By the time she had finished she was blushing. I complimented her and told her she was perfectly equipped for visiting Switzerland and Italy. She looked at me askance again, to see whether I was serious, and I added, that if she wished to recognize Byron’s descriptions she must go abroad speedily; Europe was getting sadly dis-Byronized.

“How soon must I go?” she asked.

“Oh, I will give you ten years.”

“I think I can go within ten years,” she answered very soberly.

“Well,” I said, “you will enjoy it immensely; you will find it very charming.” And just then I came upon a photograph of some nook in a foreign city which I had been very fond of, and which recalled tender memories. I discoursed (as I suppose) with a certain eloquence; my companion sat listening, breathless.

“Have you been very long in foreign lands?” she asked, some time after I had ceased.

“Many years,” I said.

“And have you travelled everywhere?”

“I have travelled a great deal. I am very fond of it; and, happily, I have been able.”

Again she gave me her sidelong gaze. “And do you know the foreign languages?”

“After a fashion.”

“Is it hard to speak them?”

“I don’t believe you would find it hard,” I gallantly responded.

“Oh, I shouldn’t want to speak; I should only want to listen,” she said. Then, after a pause, she added, “They say the French theatre is so beautiful.”

“It is the best in the world.”

“Did you go there very often?”

“When I was first in Paris I went every night.”

“Every night!” And she opened her clear eyes very wide. “That to me is:—” and she hesitated a moment—“is very wonderful.” A few minutes later she asked, “Which country do you prefer?”

“There is one country I prefer to all others. I think you would do the same.”

She looked at me a moment, and then she said softly, “Italy?”

“Italy,” I answered softly, too; and for a moment we looked at each other. She looked as pretty as if, instead of showing her photographs, I had been making love to her. To increase the analogy, she glanced away, blushing. There was a silence, which she broke at last by saying,—

“That is the place which, in particular, I thought of going to.”

“Oh, that’s the place, that’s the place!” I said.

She looked at two or three photographs in silence. “They say it is not so dear.”

“As some other countries? Yes, that is not the least of its charms.”

“But it is all very dear, is it not?”

“Europe, you mean?”

“Going there and travelling. That has been the trouble. I have very little money. I give lessons,” said Miss Spencer.

“Of course one must have money,” I said, “but one can manage with a moderate amount.”

I can definitely recommend this one to fans of Henry James. It's very much his signature style. If you liked Daisy Miller, you'll probably like this one as well. On the other hand, I can see how it might seem naive to a cynic. I suppose it's not a story for everyone, but it definitely has its place among the classics.

Thank you for reading!