Though Henry James at first
preferred Paris, London finally took a hold of him, thanks to the majesty of
its clubs and the comfort of its furnished rooms. The New Yorker found a sense
of well-being in the city's furnished apartments, smothered under piles of
keepsakes and trinkets, shining silver, coal fires in fact all the
paraphernalia of Victorian England.
These rooms, in whose decoration
morality triumphed over aesthetics and sentiment was more important than style,
were turned into museums or miniature replicas of the 1851 International
Exhibition.
On tablecloths embroidered by
countless little nieces, you would find souvenirs of Carlsbad or Florence set
out on display. Hunting trophies and silver given by worthy tradesmen as golden
wedding presents would crown libraries fitted out in the chastest Gothic
fashion.
Draft screens made up of
thousands of magazine illustrations were there to trap the slightest breath of
air. An eczema of lockets and framed paintings covered the walls. Family
photographs and watercolors of the Highlands and the Lake of Geneva-both areas
of good moral standing-overflowed from the frames that held them.
Tables and windows were draped in
velvet like dresses by Worth. Aspidistras grew old in their stands. Antimacassars
protected the velvet headrests of armchairs, glass bowls sheltered bridal
crowns of fabric flowers, or even poor dead pussy, animal skins here and there
overlaid the carpet and, finally, Axminster carpets covered the floor. America never really opened her
gates to this tide of bric-a-brac, for though it may have been comfortable, it
never became cosy.
But Henry James needed it all:
the screens to allow Maisie to come upon her parents' secret, the curtains to
cast their shadow over discreditable intrigues, the lampshades, creased like
crinolines, to catch in a pool of light a seedy Bostonian or some peeress who
has come down in the world.
Since "Gone With The
Wind," America rediscovered this style among the debris of failed London
boardinghouses up for sale in the Portobello Road flea-market, and boatloads of
Victoriana set off daily for the New World.
