Gossip and Gothicism in The Sacred Fount

Gossip and Gothicism in The Sacred Fount by E. A. Sklepowich, New School for Social Research Not many people, least of all the ghost of Henry James, would dispute John Leonard's comment that "novels are gossip," but James probably would add that everything depends on what the novel 1st does with the material. The master of The Spoils of Poynton, The Go I den Bow I, and The Turn of the Screw, each rooted firmly in rumor and gossip, was in a position to know. However, one should turn not to these works for James's most intriguing handling of gossip but to the elliptical The Sacred Fount, which, like so many of his other novels, has its origins in gossip, first having manifested itself to James as an anecdote passed on to him over dinner by Stopford Brooke, presumably with other social tidbits. By the time James was finished with Brooke's stray suggestion, however, he had written a novel of over 75,000 words, almost eight times as long as he had intended—a situation that resembles the pattern of elaboration usually characteristic of gossip. In this fascinating narrative written after he put aside his unfinished ghost story, The Sense of the Past, James provides insight into the psychology and aesthetics of gossiping and, as an additional twist, characterizes the gossiper as a more urbane version of those sexually threatening villains of Gothic fiction who stalk their victims with relentless determination. James, in fact, socializes the Gothic, transforming a popular genre into a supreme fiction of ep i stemo I og i ca I pursuit, capture, and escape. What is at stake for the scrutinized individuals In The Sacred Fount is neither rape nor death, the usual threats In the Gothic tale, but their drawing-room equivalents: loss of reputation and social disfavor. Simply stated, the novel is about an involved game of gossip and speculation played by an anonymous narrator during a weekend at an English country house, Newmarch. This narrator, with his acute observation and almost insatiable curiosity, creates and plays a game based on the Intimate behavior of his fellow guests. As an idle, Imaginative observer of highly visible individuals whom he knows well, he Is In an excellent position for gossiping. With his theory of the "sacred fount"—his belief that In every relationship one partner saps the beauty, strength, or intelligence of the other—he attempts to decipher the patterns of relationships observable to him at Newmarch, focusing his attentions primarily on searching out the lover of Gilbert Long, whose manner and appearance have undergone an astonishing revltalization since the narrator last saw him. Thus, submerged not far below the surface of this tale of sociability and speculation Is vampirism, one of the most powerful of the Gothic motifs and one that was of considerable Interest to late Victorian writers, probably because of the oblique way it allowed them to deal with sexuality. The narrator transforms this vampire theory and the material of gossip Into an elaborate game of aesthetics that can be Interpreted as either a parody or an approximation of the art of the novelist In general and of James In particular. In Gothic fashion the narrator Is a manipulator, concerned with arranging relationships Into patterns he considers Ideal, forever In quest of what he calls a "fine 1. John Leonard, "Hi, This Is Marcel Proust, Reporting from the Hamptons," Esquire, Aug. 1976, p. 52. 2. The Notebooks of Henry James, ed. F. 0. Matthiessen and Kenneth B. Murdock (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1961), p. 150. 112 symmetry" and an "artificial proportion." His manipulation, however, is not in the usual manner of the Gothic villain—for example, through disguise and kidnapping (Lovelace), imprisonment (Montoni), or Satanic, erotic seduction (Dracula)—but through an assault essentially Intellectual and social. His inqulsitiveness becomes an Inquisition, his invasion of privacy an attack; his behavior soon resembles, even foreshadows, the obsessions of characters in modern fiction, such as the anonymous husband in Robbe-Gril let's Jalousie. There is an analogy between this activity of the anonymous narrator—in essence, a sacrifice of human complexity and individuality for the sake of his vision, his...