First Lines: Henry James - The Portrait of a Lady

 

Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.

First Lines: Henry James - The Turn of the Screw

(art: Lynd Ward)

The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Cristmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child.

First Lines: Henry James - The Wings of the Dove

She waited, Kate Croy, for her father to come in, but he kept her unconscionably, and there were moments at which she showed herself, in the glass over the mantel, a face positively pale with the irritation that had brought her to the point of going away without sight of him.

First Lines: Henry James - Washington Square

During a portion of the first half of the present century, and more particularly during the latter part of it, there flourished and practised in the city of New York a physician who enjoyed perhaps an exceptional share of the consideration which, in the United States, has always been bestowed upon distinguished members of the medical profession.