But periodically it must happen that their young grow up;
the daughter of the house reaches the "awkward age," becomes suddenly
too old for the school-room and joins her elders below. Then comes the
difficulty; there is an interval in which she is still too young for
the freedom of her elders' style, and it looks as though she might
disconcert them not a little, sitting there with wide eyes. Do they
simply disregard her and continue their game as before? Do they try to
adapt their style to her inexperience? Apparently they have no theory
of their proper course; the difficulty seems to strike them afresh,
every time that it recurs. In other such worlds, not of modern London,
it is foreseen and provided for; the young woman is married and
launched at once, there is no awkward age. But here and now--or rather
here and _then_, in the nineteenth century--it makes a real little
situation, and this is the subject of Henry James's book.
It is clearly dramatic; it is a clean-cut situation, raising the
question of its issue, and by answering the question the subject is
treated. What will these people do, how will they circumvent this
awkwardness? That is what the book is to show--action essentially, not
the picture of a character or a state of mind. Mind and character
enter into it, of course, as soon as the situation is particularized;
the girl becomes an individual, with her own outlook, her own way of
reaching a conclusion, and her point of view must then be understood.
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