"The principle I have just mentioned as operating had been, with the most newly disembarked of the two men, wholly instinctive—the fruit of a sharp sense that, delightful as it would be to find himself looking, after so much separation, into his comrade's face, his business would be a trifle bungled should he simply arrange for this countenance to present itself to the nearing steamer as the first "note," of Europe. Mixed with everything was the apprehension, already, on Strether's part, that it would, at best, throughout, prove the note of Europe in quite a sufficient degree."
Edith Wharton thought that this sort of thing made much of James' later work incomprehensible. I don't know if it is a case of masturbating the comma so much as masturbating with the comma.
On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 6:47 AM, shag carpet bomb <shag at cleandraws.com>wrote:
> i was flipping through Lorie Moore's _A Gate at the Stairs_ which arrived
> via interlib loan yesterday. In it, the character says that she learned in
> kollidge that Henry James masturbated the comma.
>
> litcritters et al., what does that mean?
>
> shag
>
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> ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)
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