Reading room of the Boston Public Library

THINGS HAVE been very busy at home this week as my husband and I work on repairs and renovations. A contractor is doing root canal on our house today and everything is a mess. I haven’t been able to blog much, but I expect to return to normal in time for Holy Week, which begins on Sunday.

Here, in the meantime, is an interesting letter I received this morning:

Grace A. writes:

I immensely enjoyed reading The Bostonians, thanks to the recommendation on your site. However, I would be interested to know what you make of the final sentence in the book:

“It is to be feared that with the union, so far from brilliant, into which [Verena] was about to enter, these were not the last [tears] she was destined to shed.”

Initially, I was dismayed, thinking that he had undone his entire story with that one sentence, but it’s hard for me to believe he would do such a thing, and the sentence is vague enough to mean something else.

This was only my first work of Henry James, and I plan to read others to attain a better grasp of his views in general, but if you wouldn’t mind sharing your opinion, I think it would help me to make sense of it.

Laura writes:

Thank you for writing. I’m glad you enjoyed the book.

For those unfamiliar with The Bostonians by Henry James, it’s about a young girl in late 19th-century America who falls under the spell of an older woman, a fervent suffragette from genteel Boston. The charming, young Verena has a gift for public speaking and Olive Chancellor, the older spinster, becomes obsessed with her youthful charm and abilities. Verena travels the lecture circuit converting other women under Olive’s direction.

A lawyer from the South, whose family has lost almost everything in the Civil War and who is Olive’s cousin, comes to New York to make his way. Basil Ransom also becomes enraptured with Verena Tarrant, whom he meets on a visit to Boston, and though he despises feminism, he decides to win her over. He wisely understands that she is too young to grasp the implications of the political cult she has entered. He does not argue with her, he leads her out of the dark. Basil suffers from an acute case of toxic masculinity.

Verena is a reminder that feminism’s chief target has always been the young and clueless. They are the pawns and the foot soldiers, easy to manipulate because they don’t know much about life. Verena is a million idealistic college students tasting the intoxicating brew of a  political religion for the first time.

Grace’s question reveals the ending.

As for that particular ending line, I think it is Henry James at his finest, the great realist that he is.

“It is to be feared that with the union, so far from brilliant, into which [Verena] was about to enter, these were not the last [tears] she was destined to shed.”

I understand your reaction. But wouldn’t it have been dishonest to suggest their future would be blissful? James is saying there will be tears, not heartbreak or disaster. And tears she surely will experience. Remember, Basil does not at all fit into the modern world. For one, he will never be rich or care much about money — that’s, I think, what James means when he says “so far from brilliant.” — and, even more importantly, the future belongs to the likes of Olive Chancellor and insane, messianic ideologies such as feminism.

Verena and Basil are destined to be like you and me. They will be fighting the drift of things. And that’s hard.

They will shed tears.

They will shed tears for what we have lost.

But theirs is a great love story, and they will be a success at the things that matter most. They will remain what they are — a man and a woman, not freaks of nature as Olive would have them.

— Comments —

Alan writes:

There is something terribly strange in that Reading Room of the Boston Public Library painting above.

How come those people don’t have wires coming out of their heads?

How come they aren’t staring at little screens?

How come that woman isn’t wearing leggings?

How come those men aren’t wearing t-shirts and ball caps?

How come that group is so un-diverse?

How come they aren’t playing with crayons and coloring books?

How come they aren’t showing off their tattoos?

How come there aren’t any posters advertising next month’s Hip Hop Music festival?

Laura writes:

You’re right.

It’s a ghastly scene. -:)

Grace writes:

Thank you for your thoughts!As I think about it more, I suppose that last sentence is in keeping with the tragic shriek from Verena, only moments before, as she witnesses Olive throw herself toward the crowd. Verena’s giving herself to Ransom does not guarantee an absence of pain and suffering. Instead, like you said, it ensures the opposite; though not without greater consolation. Your putting it in a realist light is very helpful. I’ve always considered “happily ever afters” to be a bit disingenuous anyway. Thanks again!

Laura writes:

You’re welcome.

Lydia Sherman writes:

Henry James meant that like us, the young woman will be fighting against another kind of force, particularly the one she was persuaded to campaign against. The trials of marriage, motherhood, the home, values, etc.  When once she was crying over the “injustice” of traditional life, now she will shed many tears over the way she will be sidelined, dismissed, pressured, ridiculed etc. by the feminist movement she once unwittingly embraced.

Laura writes:

Exactly!

Please follow and like us: