Densher and Ford

Densher and Ford by Chris Brown, University of South Carolina Ford Madox Ford's unlikely asseverations of intimacy with Henry James have convinced many of the reverse and have disuaded Jamesians from pursuing Ford's claim to figure in Merton Densher (e.g., LF 45, PL 10, RY 212). If not intimacy, however, recent histories by Brita Lindberg-Seyersted and Miranda Seymour do detail numerous friendly contacts between the authors while James wrote The Wings of the Dove, thereby rendering the idea of the presence of Ford in Densher at least entertainable, and the one does evoke the other in several ways. To start with locales, Merton is the name of the Surrey town where Ford was bom; as a young man he attended the Brompton Oratory (Moser 13), where Densher appears Christmas morning. Like Densher, the Edwardian Ford was tall, fair, and handsome—this before he adopted the person as well as the persona of the "Only Uncle of the Gifted Young"—and Densher's manner shows a certain resemblance to Ford. "Visibly absent-minded" (WD 86), Densher glances "absently" (WD 242) in the National Gallery and stands "idly agaze" (WD 85) in Kensington Gardens, yet one can discern "in his eyes the potential recognition of ideas" (WD 86). According to his sister, the young Ford had "quiet, absent-looking blue eyes that seemed as if they were always pondering over something" (MacShane 15). In addition, botii character and man are precocious. Densher writes "as for print, with deplorable ease; since there had been nothing to stop him even at the age of ten, so there was as little at twenty" (WD 96). Ford's serious writing did not begin at age ten, but it did at age sixteen under the fostering of his grandfather, the distinguished painter Ford Madox Brown: by age twenty he had published three fairy tales, a volume of poetry, and a fulllength novel. Finally, the two share the experience of the Continent in their formative years. Possessing "migatory parents" (WD 114), Densher attends Swiss schools and a German university before Cambridge. Ford—Hueffer prior to 1919—had at least a migratory fatiier, Francis Hueffer, who took his Ph.D. at Gottingen before emigrating to become chief music critic of the Times. Ford did not attend Swiss schools or Cambridge, but he did make several youthful visits to his relatives in France and Germany; according to Frank MacShane (14-15) he was The Henry James Review 13 (1992): 198-202 © 1992 by The Johns Hopkins University Press Densher and Ford 199 enrolled at the University of Bonn for a time while visiting his uncle, a history professor there. MacShane judges the effects thus: "Altogether, the montiis Ford spent on the Continent broadened Ford's horizons considerably. They emphasized what he had already expected—that he was not simply a young Englishman , but a young man with roots all over Europe. ... For a young man whose childhood had in some ways been oppressive, and who was not entirely English, the visits abroad provided botii a relief and a cosmopolitan outlook" (15). The outlook included scorn for the conventional. Ford's sister reports, "he was very critical and thought that everyone was stupid and not worth disagreeing with" (MacShane 15). Densher too is "more a prompt critic than a prompt follower of custom" (WD 86). With his "foreign accidents, his queer antecedents" (WD 114), he is only "half a Briton" to Aunt Maud (WD 114). Kate finds him "exposed to initiations indelible" by European life; he is "probably spoiled for native, for insular use" (WD 116). Thus Densher smacks of Ford, but meeting the charge of fortuity requires a motive for such portrayal. The reason lies, I believe, in Ford's The Cinque Ports, published in late October, 1900, and sent to James in May 1901. One can be nearly certain that James read part of tiie book. He forcefully says he will read it in his letter of tiianks dated May 16: "I shall read die Ports—I can't possibly not" (Lindberg-Seyersted 37). He was keenly interested in local history and had just written on the subject in his article "Winchelsea, Rye and Denis...