tirely concerned with Strether's experience of his peculiar mission
to Europe, and never passes outside the circle of his thought.
Strether is despatched, it will be remembered, by a resolute New
England widow, whose son is living lightly in Paris instead of
attending to business at home. To win the hand of the widow, Strether
must succeed in snatching the young man from the siren who is believed
to have beguiled him. The mission is undertaken in all good faith,
Strether descends upon Paris with a mind properly disposed and
resolved. He comes as an ambassador representing principle and duty,
to treat with the young man, appeal to him convincingly and bear him
off. The task before him may be difficult, but his purpose is simple.
Strether has reckoned, however, without his imagination; he had
scarcely been aware of possessing one before, but everything grows
complicated as it is touched and awakened on the new scene. By degrees
and degrees he changes his opinion of the life of freedom; it is most
unlike his prevision of it, and at last his purpose is actually
inverted. He no longer sees a misguided young man to be saved from
disaster, he sees an exquisite, bountiful world laid at a young man's
feet; and now the only question is whether the young man is capable
of meeting and grasping his opportunity. He is incapable, as it turns
out; when the story ends he is on the verge of rejecting his freedom
and going back to the world of commonplace; Strether's mission has
ended successfully. But in Strether's mind the revolution is complete;
there is nothing left for him, no reward and no future. The world of
commonplace is no longer _his_ world, and he is too late to seize the
other; he is old, he has missed the opportunity of youth.

This is a story which must obviously be told from Strether's point of
view, in the first place. The change in his purpose is due to a change
in his vision, and the long slow process could not be followed unless
his vision were shared by the reader. Strether's predicament, that is
to say, could not be placed upon the stage; his outward behaviour, his
conduct, his talk, do not express a tithe of it. Only the brain behind
his eyes can be aware of the colour of his experience, as it passes
through its innumerable gradations; and all understanding of his case
depends upon seeing these. The way of the author, therefore, who takes
this subject in hand, is clear enough at the outset. It is a purely
pictorial