In the Cage by Henry James (Illustrated)
By Henry James
()
About this ebook
Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. The Delphi Classics edition of James includes original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of the author, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.
eBook features:* The complete unabridged text of ‘In the Cage’
* Beautifully illustrated with images related to James’s works
* Individual contents table, allowing easy navigation around the eBook
* Excellent formatting of the textPlease visit www.delphiclassics.com to learn more about our wide range of titles
Henry James
Henry James (1843–1916) was an American writer, highly regarded as one of the key proponents of literary realism, as well as for his contributions to literary criticism. His writing centres on the clash and overlap between Europe and America, and The Portrait of a Lady is regarded as his most notable work.
Read more from Henry James
Roderick Hudson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bostonians Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Daily Henry James: A Year of Quotes from the Work of the Master Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Gothic Novel Collection Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Henry James: The Complete Novellas and Tales (Centaur Classics) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Europeans Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Oxford Book of American Essays Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Beast in the Jungle Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Badass Prepper's Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Prepare Yourself for the Worst Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Golden Bowl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Harvard Classics: All 71 Volumes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGothic Classics: 60+ Books in One Volume Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings50 Feminist Masterpieces you have to read before you die (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Wings of the Dove Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Turn of the Screw and Other Short Works Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The American Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Greatest American Short Stories: 50+ Classics of American Literature Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Great English Short-Story Writers, Volume 1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Best Short Stories and Novellas of Henry James Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe American Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to In the Cage by Henry James (Illustrated)
Titles in the series (37)
The American by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Princess Casamassima by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsConfidence by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRoderick Hudson by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWashington Square by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWatch and Ward by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Europeans by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Bostonians by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Tragic Muse by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Portrait of a Lady by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Other House by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Wings of the Dove by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Reverberator by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ivory Tower by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Awkward Age by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Golden Bowl by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sacred Fount by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Spoils of Poynton by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Whole Family by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sense of the Past by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhat Maisie Knew by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ambassadors by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Outcry by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Turn of the Screw by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5A London Life by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Beast in the Jungle by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Lesson of the Master by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNotes on Novelists by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Aspern Papers by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn the Cage by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related ebooks
In The Cage: Classic Short Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ivory Tower by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA London Life by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLife’s Little Ironies by Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD (British Classics Series): Historical Romance Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thomas Hardy: The Best Works Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Beast in the Jungle by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFar from the Madding Crowd Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNight and Day by Virginia Woolf - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD (Historical Romance Novel) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wings of the Dove by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Lady Ludlow Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Mrs. Perkins’s Ball by William Makepeace Thackeray (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Bostonians: Vol. 2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKipps by H. G. Wells (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMen’s Wives by William Makepeace Thackeray (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain by Charles Dickens (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mayor Of Casterbridge Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Europeans by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sense of the Past by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTwo on a Tower by Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Doings of Raffles Haw by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBarnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsColonel Quaritch, V.C. by H. Rider Haggard - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStories of Romance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Gold of Chickaree Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBARNABY RUDGE (Illustrated): A Historical Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Outcry by Henry James (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRuth by Elizabeth Gaskell - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Classics For You
The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wuthering Heights (with an Introduction by Mary Augusta Ward) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Confederacy of Dunces Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Things They Carried Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Little Women (Seasons Edition -- Winter) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Master & Margarita Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Master and Margarita Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Farewell to Arms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Republic by Plato Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rebecca Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Animal Farm: A Fairy Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Count of Monte Cristo (abridged) (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Learn French! Apprends l'Anglais! THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY: In French and English Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Grapes of Wrath Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Good Man Is Hard To Find And Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mythos Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Have Always Lived in the Castle Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Jungle: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bell Jar: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Count of Monte-Cristo English and French Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ulysses: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Persuasion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sense and Sensibility (Centaur Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The End of the Affair Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for In the Cage by Henry James (Illustrated)
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
In the Cage by Henry James (Illustrated) - Henry James
VOLUMES
Parts Edition Contents
The Novels
1, Watch and Ward
2, Roderick Hudson
3, The American
4, The Europeans
5, Confidence
6, Washington Square
7, The Portrait of a Lady
8, The Bostonians
9, The Princess Casamassima
10, The Reverberator
11, The Tragic Muse
12, The Other House
13, The Spoils of Poynton
14, What Maisie Knew
15, The Awkward Age
16, The Sacred Fount
17, The Wings of the Dove
18, The Ambassadors
19, The Golden Bowl
20, The Outcry
21, The Whole Family
22, The Ivory Tower
23, The Sense of the Past
The Novellas
24, Daisy Miller
25, The Aspern Papers
26, A London Life
27, The Lesson of the Master
28, The Turn of the Screw
29, In the Cage
30, The Beast in the Jungle
The Tales
31, The Complete Tales
The Plays
32, Pyramus and Thisbe
33, Still Waters
34, A Change of Heart
35, Daisy Miller
36, Tenants
37, Disengaged
38, The Album
39, The Reprobate
40, Guy Domville
41, Summersoft
42, The High Bid
43, The Outcry
The Travel Writing
44, Transatlantic Sketches
45, Portraits of Places
46, A Little Tour in France
47, English Hours
48, The American Scene
49, Italian Hours
The Non-Fiction
50, French Novelists and Poets
51, Hawthorne
52, Partial Portraits
53, Essays in London and Elsewhere
54, Picture and Text
55, William Wetmore Story and His Friends
56, Views and Reviews
57, Notes on Novelists
58, Within the Rim and Other Essays
59, Notes and Reviews
60, The Art of the Novel
The Letters
61, The Letters of Henry James
The Autobiographies
62, A Small Boy and Others
63, Notes of a Son and Brother
64, The Middle Years
The Criticism
65, The Criticism
www.delphiclassics.com
In the Cage
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER I
It had occurred to her early that in her position — that of a young person spending, in framed and wired confinement, the life of a guinea-pig or a magpie — she should know a great many persons without their recognising the acquaintance. That made it an emotion the more lively — though singularly rare and always, even then, with opportunity still very much smothered — to see any one come in whom she knew outside, as she called it, any one who could add anything to the meanness of her function. Her function was to sit there with two young men — the other telegraphist and the counter-clerk; to mind the sounder,
which was always going, to dole out stamps and postal-orders, weigh letters, answer stupid questions, give difficult change and, more than anything else, count words as numberless as the sands of the sea, the words of the telegrams thrust, from morning to night, through the gap left in the high lattice, across the encumbered shelf that her forearm ached with rubbing. This transparent screen fenced out or fenced in, according to the side of the narrow counter on which the human lot was cast, the duskiest corner of a shop pervaded not a little, in winter, by the poison of perpetual gas, and at all times by the presence of hams, cheese, dried fish, soap, varnish, paraffin and other solids and fluids that she came to know perfectly by their smells without consenting to know them by their names.
The barrier that divided the little post-and-telegraph-office from the grocery was a frail structure of wood and wire; but the social, the professional separation was a gulf that fortune, by a stroke quite remarkable, had spared her the necessity of contributing at all publicly to bridge. When Mr. Cocker’s young men stepped over from behind the other counter to change a five-pound note — and Mr. Cocker’s situation, with the cream of the Court Guide
and the dearest furnished apartments, Simpkin’s, Ladle’s, Thrupp’s, just round the corner, was so select that his place was quite pervaded by the crisp rustle of these emblems — she pushed out the sovereigns as if the applicant were no more to her than one of the momentary, the practically featureless, appearances in the great procession; and this perhaps all the more from the very fact of the connexion (only recognised outside indeed) to which she had lent herself with ridiculous inconsequence. She recognised the others the less because she had at last so unreservedly, so irredeemably, recognised Mr. Mudge. However that might be, she was a little ashamed of having to admit to herself that Mr. Mudge’s removal to a higher sphere — to a more commanding position, that is, though to a much lower neighbourhood — would have been described still better as a luxury than as the mere simplification, the corrected awkwardness, that she contented herself with calling it. He had at any rate ceased to be all day long in her eyes, and this left something a little fresh for them to rest on of a Sunday. During the three months of his happy survival at Cocker’s after her consent to their engagement she had often asked herself what it was marriage would be able to add to a familiarity that seemed already to have scraped the platter so clean. Opposite there, behind the counter of which his superior stature, his whiter apron, his more clustering curls and more present, too present, h’s had been for a couple of years the principal ornament, he had moved to and fro before her as on the small sanded floor of their contracted future. She was conscious now of the improvement of not having to take her present and her future at once. They were about as much as she could manage when taken separate.
She had, none the less, to give her mind steadily to what Mr. Mudge had again written her about, the idea of her applying for a transfer to an office quite similar — she couldn’t yet hope for a place in a bigger — under the very roof where he was foreman, so that, dangled before her every minute of the day, he should see her, as he called it, hourly,
and in a part, the far N.W. district, where, with her mother, she would save on their two rooms alone nearly three shillings. It would be far from dazzling to exchange Mayfair for Chalk Farm, and it wore upon her much that he could never drop a subject; still, it didn’t wear as things had worn, the worries of the early times of their great misery, her own, her mother’s and her elder sister’s — the last of whom had succumbed to all but absolute want when, as conscious and incredulous ladies, suddenly bereft, betrayed, overwhelmed, they had slipped faster and faster down the steep slope at the bottom of which she alone had rebounded. Her mother had never rebounded any more at the bottom than on the way; had only rumbled and grumbled down and down, making, in respect of caps, topics and habits,
no effort whatever — which simply meant smelling much of the time of whiskey.
CHAPTER II
It was always rather quiet at Cocker’s while the contingent from Ladle’s and Thrupp’s and all the other great places were at luncheon, or, as the young men used vulgarly to say, while the animals were feeding. She had forty minutes in advance of this to go home for her own dinner; and when she came back and one of the young men took his turn there was often half an hour during which she could pull out a bit of work or a book — a book from the place where she borrowed novels, very greasy, in fine print and all about fine folks, at a ha’penny a day. This sacred pause was one of the numerous ways in which the establishment kept its finger on the pulse of fashion and fell into the rhythm of the larger life. It had something to do, one day, with the particular flare of importance of an arriving customer, a lady whose meals were apparently irregular, yet whom she was destined, she afterwards found, not to forget. The girl was blasée; nothing could belong more, as she perfectly knew, to the intense publicity of her profession; but she had a whimsical mind and wonderful nerves; she was subject, in short, to sudden flickers of antipathy and sympathy, red gleams in the grey, fitful needs to notice and to care,
odd caprices of curiosity. She had a friend who had invented a new career for women — that of being in and out of people’s houses to look after the flowers. Mrs. Jordan had a manner of her own of sounding this allusion; the flowers,
on her lips, were, in fantastic places, in happy homes, as usual as the coals or the daily papers. She took charge of them, at any rate, in all the rooms, at so much a month, and people were quickly finding out what it was to make over this strange burden of the pampered to the widow of a clergyman. The widow, on her side, dilating on the initiations thus opened up to her, had been splendid to her young friend, over the way she was made free of the greatest houses — the way, especially when she did the dinner-tables, set out so often for twenty, she felt that a single step more would transform her whole social position. On its being asked of her then if she circulated only in a sort of tropical solitude, with the upper servants for picturesque natives, and on her having to assent to this glance at her limitations, she had found a reply to the girl’s invidious question. You’ve no imagination, my dear!
— that was because a door more than half open to the higher life couldn’t be called anything but a thin partition. Mrs. Jordan’s imagination quite did away with the thickness.
Our young lady had not taken up the charge, had dealt with it good-humouredly, just because she knew so well what to think of it. It was at once one of her most cherished complaints and most secret supports that people didn’t understand her, and it was accordingly a matter of indifference to her that Mrs. Jordan shouldn’t; even though Mrs. Jordan, handed down from their early twilight of gentility and also the victim of reverses, was the only member of her circle in whom she recognised an equal. She was perfectly aware that her imaginative life was the life in which she spent most of her time; and she would have been ready, had it been at all worth while, to contend that, since her outward occupation didn’t kill it, it must be strong indeed. Combinations of flowers and green-stuff, forsooth! What she could handle freely, she said to herself, was combinations of men and women. The only weakness in her faculty came from the positive abundance of her contact with the human herd; this was so constant, it had so the effect of cheapening her privilege, that there were long stretches in which inspiration, divination and interest quite dropped. The great thing was the flashes, the quick revivals, absolute accidents all, and neither to be counted