"It is indeed immensely picturesque. I can fancy sitting all a summer's day watching its shadows shorten and lengthen again, and drawing a delicious contrast between the world's duration and the feeble span of individual experience. There is something in Stonehenge almost reassuring; and if you are disposed to feel that life is rather a superficial matter, and that we soon get to the bottom of things, the immemorial gray pillars may serve to remind you of the enormous background of time."
"The effort really to see and really to represent is no idle business in face of the constant force that makes for muddlement. The great thing is indeed that the muddled state too is one of the very sharpest of the realities, that it also has color and form and character, has often in fact a broad and rich comicality."
3 likes
Source: Henry James (1979). “What Maisie Knew: In the Cage - The Pupil”, Augustus m Kelley Pubs
About the author
Same author
More quotes by Henry James
"Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea."
"It's time to start living the life you've imagined."
"Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind."
"We work in the dark - we do what we can - we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art."
"Do not mind anything that anyone tells you about anyone else. Judge everyone and everything for yourself."