The Figure in the Carpet of James's Temple of Delight

The Figure in the Carpet of James's Temple of Delight by Robert White, York University "The Figure in the Carpet," Henry James's 1895 tale of "the literary life" (LC II, 1228), gets under way when the narrator, an aspiring young critic, is assigned a review of the most recent novel of the aging Hugh Vereker and is invited to a country-house weekend where Vereker will be the stellar guest; the action starts to unfold when Vereker ruefully observes to the narrator that critics, over the years, have repeatedly "missed my little point with a perfection exactly as admirable when they patted me on the back as when they kicked me in the shins" (FC 280). When the narrator, who has congratulated himself on the perceptiveness of his review, asks, "What then may your 'little point' happen to be?" Vereker replies, "Isn't there for every writer a particular thing of that sort, the thing that most makes him apply himself, the thing without the effort to achieve which he wouldn't write at all, the very passion of his passion, the part of the business in which, for him, the flame of art burns most intensely?" According to Vereker, "There's an idea in my work without which I wouldn't have given a straw for the whole job. ... It stretches, this little trick of mine, from book to book, and everything else, comparatively, plays over the surface of it" (FC 281-82). Vereker says he lives "almost to see if it ever will be detected," but that he "needn't worry—it won't!" Asked if it is "a kind of esoteric message," he disappointedly replies, "Ah, my dear fellow, it can't be described in cheap journalese!" Asked if it is an "element of form or an element of feeling," Vereker indulgently shakes the narrator's hand and tells him: "Good-night, my dear boy—don't bother about it." When the narrator refuses to give over his querying , Vereker hesitantly declares, "Well, you've got a heart in your body. Is that an element of form or an element of feeling? What I contend that nobody has ever mentioned in my work is the organ of life." The narrator responds, "I see—it's some idea about life, some sort of philosophy. Unless it be. ... some kind of game you're up to with your style, something you're after in the language ." And then he profanely breaks out: "Perhaps it's a preference for the letter P! ... Papa, potatoes, prunes—that sort of thing?" To this outbreak VerThe Henry James Review 13 (1992): 27-49 © 1992 by The Johns Hopkins University Press 28 The Henry James Review eker is "suitably indulgent: he only said I hadn't got the right letter." Vereker wishes to depart (he has come to the narrator's room to soften the hurt he fears he may have caused by his dinner-table dismissal of the narrator's review), but he is detained still: "Should you be able, pen in hand, to state it clearly yourself—to name it, phrase it, formulate it?" Vereker does not respond directly to this question, nor does he straightforwardly acquiesce to the narrator 's "just one word more": "This extraordinary 'general intention,' as you call it—for that's the most vivid description I can induce you to make of it—is then generally a sort of buried treasure?" Vereker's face lights up, but what he says is "Yes, call it that, though it's perhaps not for me to do so." When the narrator says, "Nonsense! ... You know you're hugely proud of it," Vereker doesn't gainsay him: "Well, I didn't propose to tell you so, but it is the joy of my soul!" And when the narrator asks, "You mean it's a beauty so rare, so great?" Vereker replies, after a moment's hesitation, "The loveliest thing in the world" (FC 283-85)! Alone in his room, and unable to accept Vereker's "friendly advice"— "Give it up—give it up!"—the narrator wishes he had one of Vereker's "books at hand" ("I would have spent...