Continuing my reading of shorter works by Henry James. It is interesting to me how often he, like Wilkie Collins, had elements of what could be seen as a form of supernaturalism in his works, even ones which are by no means fantastic tales. At times they are very minor touches, just a slight bit of poetic atmosphere which hints that something more than the natural may be at work (much as Collins' use of fate as an overriding force in several of his works); at other times there is something which makes the story itself border on the sublime, or the numinous (as with "Madame de Mauves"), though the full impact of this may not be felt until the very end of the story.
Few of these are likely to appeal to those looking for "weird" work, as these elements really are, save for his overtly ghostly tales, not something which call attention to themselves unless one is reading with considerable care; nonetheless, they do at times take the stories into a region I wasn't expecting with the bulk of them.
The piece I'm reading at the moment is titled "The Liar", in which, on the first page, I encountered this little bit in the midst of describing the protagonist's reaction to a country house to which he has been invited:
Now, I have encountered this line many times over the years, without knowing its exact origin. Often I have seen it mistakenly attributed to M. R. James, rather than Henry; but at any rate, it certainly shows how common Le Fanu's works were at this period (1888), which may come as a surprise to some of his readers today....
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