There was food for suspicion,
perhaps, in the wandering
blankness that sat at moments
in his eyes .. but this dis-
couraging symptom was known,
among those who liked him, by
the indulgent name of dreami-
ness. He is the more welcome
to the benefit of such an in-
terpretation as there is al-
ways held to be something en-
gaging in the combination of
the muscular and the musing,
the mildness of strength.
"Do you mean that you have lost
the faculty of displeasure?"
"I haven't the least idea. I
never try it. My dear fellow,
we have only one life that we
know anything about: fancy tak-
ing it up with disagreeable im-
pressions! When, then, shall we
go in for the agreeable? .. The
happy moments of our conscious-
ness - the multiplication of
those moments. We must save as
many as possible from the dark
gulf."
Henry James
The Tragic Muse
1908
Penguin, 1978©
Dorothea Lange
1937
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