Decent Appearances: Detection Flawed
in Henry James’s The Sacred Fount

The Sacred Fount is James's last novel before the novels of his so called major phase, that bears the traces of the novels to follow. The reason why I selected this novel to talk about is its apparent failure to actually say anything: in The Sacred Fount the narrator's detection for illicit relations between members of the company remains fruitless. The story has been read as an ambiguous text, as an experiment with form, and even as a love story. Still it remains to be noted that preset notions of decency determine detection here and they are responsible for the endless mystery. The essay maps how standards of sociability ban the work of detection in The Sacred Fount and tries to expose the emergence of the so-called ambiguity in it. It appears that the work of detection is creating symmetry and pattern rather than an account of things past and that it resists the tangled real to forge pattern according to expectation instead. As the similarity of detective work to artistic creation is apparent, when detection is flawed it is artistic imagination that has to be suppressed. I argue that this implies a model of art where representation is impossible and a biased presentation is inevitable. The question still open is that of application: if this pattern fits other ambiguous stories of James's late phase, too.
I would like to explicate the process of detection and its implied parallel to art in two stages, the text stage and the context stage. In the text stage I am going to present the case, the process of detection, then those standards of decency that prevent the solution of the case. Then I am going to point out the similarity between artistic creation and detection in the story and, eventually, show what model of art this similarity implies. In the context stage I am trying to place this reading of The Sacred Fount among ones concentrating on its technical experimentation and describe how their treatment (or rather: their neglect) of the role of decency in the plot result in a different model of art for The Sacred Fount.

I. Text

The mystery of the sacred fount is the mystery of a flow of intelligence and youth the Narrator thinks is happening. The Narrator witnesses that his old acquaintance, Gilbert Long, whom he had always thought thick, grows clever. The only explanation he finds for this is that a clever lady has influenced Long, and he sets out to identify who the lady in question might be. At the same time he realizes that one Lady of the party, Mrs. Briss, has recently grown really pretty, and the Narrator supposes that the lady has been influenced by her husband, who in turn grew old. Also, the narrator is struck by the apparent symmetry between the two couples, the flow of a quality from one side towards the other. He supposes that the unknown lady who is influencing the now clever Gilbert Long must have lost the power of her intelligence in the process. This is when hell breaks loose: the supposed symmetry of the supposed exchanges begins to be extended to other members of the company - detection speeds up.
While the narrator diagnoses the case, values of social behavior are being expressed. The change of Gilbert Long and also the change of Mrs Briss are considered positive. Long has improved, he has more intellect. He is less handsome, but his manners gained in ease, his accounts are accurate, and the narrator is fascinated by the way he makes his points. He definitely possesses a reliable sociability: he is friendly and lost his rudeness. The other improvement is that of Mrs Briss who has become pretty. When the narrator sums up his impression of the improvement in Long he talks of the high sport of subtle intelligence.
Detection starts out to investigate the secret plan determining the flow of information: that is both the relations between members of the company and the relations between couples. The narrator studies the mystery with a rather mechanistic model of the transformation in mind: once there is a pattern in one couple, it should be reflected in the other. It is not only that Lady John's behavior is scrutinized for telltale signs of a relation to Long, but other members of the company are involved in the pattern, too. Basically all relations among the members of the company are interpreted in terms of the secret flow of information they are reflections of. Also, it is not only the Narrator who watches the others in order to set up his patterns, but others play the game as well. For one, Mrs. Briss discusses the latest developments of the Narrator's investigation with him and feeds him her own theory. Then, Obert draws an analogy to the Narrator's mystery, saying "You have your mystery and I'll be hanged if I don't have mine" (James 351). Analogy becomes a powerful tool, the torch of analogy shows the way to follow for the Narrator and Obert. The first problem occurs when analogy breaks down.

When analogy fails, the obsession of observation produces scenes of self-reflection in the Narrator. First he takes notice of his sharpened perception and special sensibility. He also expresses his need for a material clue, but restrains himself by saying the detective and his interest in the keyhole are ignoble, it is only psychological signs that are honorable for the investigator. Still, he notes that he is "reading into mere human things an interest so much deeper than mere human things were prepared to supply" (James 402), that is, he is aware of his abuse of psychological signs. He is disgusted by the investigation itself when it begins to concern Mrs. Server, "curiosity began to strike me as wanting in taste" (James 342), and realizes that success may be more embarrassing than failure. As he comments: "I had no wish to see her studied at the light of my theory. I called deception to my aid." (James 343). This is the point where he decides to redirect his forces: detection serves to deceive.

Detection serves to deceive: this is also the point where I have to stop listing data and ask why detection went astray and was left incomplete. My hypothesis consists of two components. The first is that it was necessary to give up detection because common standards of decency required appearances instead of facts. The second component is that the principles determining detection are also the principles determining "artistic creation" in The Sacred Fount, and in this way art can only have the status of appearance, too.

The company required not an exposure but a covering of the supposed illicit relations between its members. So it is not only the Narrator's moral scruples that restrain him from pursuing his investigation, but also other members of the company express this need. The narrator contends he has to pretend to be an idiot for a decent appearance (James 484). At the same time he is aware that he plays a part in a tight little drama where everyone has a part to play (James 409). As a result, the cottage becomes a secluded stage: "Newmarch and its hospitalities were sacrificed: we were so social that the summer stars did not get to us -- in a crystal cage." (James 427). Here life became a simulated lounge where the art of telling is of utmost importance. The Narrator enjoys this situation describes his final conversation with Mrs. Briss "we both knew we know more than we told. This made our conversation far more interesting than any colloquy I'd ever enjoyed" he states (James 467). However, the narrator overdoes his tolerance of talk and his playmates resist after a while. Mrs Briss complains to the narrator about his habits: with his art of putting things one simply does not know where one is. Lady John tells the Narrator to give up confabulating. In face of them all, the Narrator is amused by his being a nuisance, "as inhumanly amused as if one had found one could create something" (James 374). The Narrator overdoes his role and thinks he in fact creates something while the others would like to put an end to his creativity.

There is a distinct similarity between the process of detection and the process of art as the Narrator describes them: their practice, their relation to the Real, and even their aims are alike. The Narrator talks of artistic glow when he theorizes, and compares one of his new theories to reading a passage in a favorite author he had not noticed before (James 417). Also, "artistic imagination" is characterized in the story and is similar to the obsessed observation of the Narrator. Imagination is dangerous, when too vivid: this is the problem with May Server, her active imagination frightens males of the company. So imagination has to be suppressed, much like detection had to be.

As for their relation to the Real, both detection and art are against it. The mystery itself, the relation of the two couples appears as a scene, in which art and the detective interest seek patterns and symmetries that do not characterize the real.

These opposed couples balanced like bronze groups at the two ends of the chimney-piece. I mustn't take them ... for granted merely because they balanced. Things in the real had a way of not balancing." (James 417) .

The aim of detection and artistic creation is also similar. The Sacred Fount is not only the fount of intellect and beauty but something more and more hazy than that: the scent of something ultimate. The others share this thirst for the infinite, after listening to a piano concert the company is under a spell. " ... it was the infinite that for the hour, the distinguished foreigner poured out to us causing it to roll in wonderful waves of sound, almost of colour, over to our receptive attitudes and faces" (James 408). Art and detection appear similar as creation and as means to some unclear infinite.
Although the process of detection and artistic creation and experience seem to mach, including their thirst for the infinite, the results of detection and art, namely theories and works of art, do not fit accordingly. Works of art are balanced and ordered, but the solution is apparently not. The problem the narrator faces is the unreliability of his theories. He has to notice that piecing facts together is like picking up straws (James 418), and that theories come into pieces at a touch (James 489). When, eventually, he leaves the house in panic, a tangle of theories is left behind with loose threads, without a clear solution for the mystery. Is it in any way similar to the patterned symmetry of a work of art? It seems that detection only aims at producing perfect results but fails to do so.

However, if you consider in detail how a prototypical work of art actually functions in the story, you'll notice that actual patterns of art are not as reliable as the descriptions above may suggest. There is a portrait titled "The Mask of Death" in the story, where a young man holding a mask in his hand is depicted. Four characters of the story understand the picture in four ways, not being able to decide if the expression "The Mask of Death" really refers to the young man or the mask in his hand, as the features of both are somewhat artificial. Death can be either the man or the mask, and in this way the "solution" of the portrait "The Mask of Death" remains unknown. The observers come up with four solutions instead of the two logically possible. They substitute faces from the company into the picture. Considering the process of detection beside this scheme, we can certainly say that detection produces a pattern impossible to fill, too. One has the theory of symmetrical relation between two couples, where the symmetry lies in a flow of intelligence or vitality from one member of the couple to the other. The only problem is to find who the actual members of the two couples are. Detection goes as far as to state the pattern, but does not fill the functions with names. Thus the so-called failure of the detection actually resembles the pattern of the picture.

As a consequence, I argue that detection is not a failure of the so-called artistic creativity in this story but rather a replica of it. A work of art here presents a pattern to be filled in but that is impossible to fill in. Similarly, detection presents a pattern where the gaps of knowledge cannot be filled in unanimously. And let me pursue this similarity between detection and artistic creation and reception further. Remember that detection was blocked by a common need on the part of the company not to reveal the names of the persons involved in illicit relations. Standards of decency made the Narrator put an end to his investigation. He couldn't come up with a solution because it was better for members not to expose what was going on, i.e. the real if you like. If the analogy between detection and artistic creation and reception can be stretched so far, should one not assign a role to expectations within the realm of art, too? This similarity, in turn, implies a model of art that does not simply rely on a direct opposition between a patterned artwork and the tangled real. It seems that a third pole, that of standards or expectations has to be taken into consideration, too. This third pole should be the one that keeps the gap between the other two open.

II. Context

Such a reading of The Sacred Fount does not propose any new element into the story of the story. Rather, it represents a change of focus. Shlomith Rimmon in her study of ambiguity in Jamesian texts (after Jean Frantz Blackall) saw it as an exercise in gap filling where two sets of exclusive clues were present to fill the gaps and these result in ambiguity (Rimmon 167). She listed the social values of the group and the opposition of detection and decency as sets of exclusive clues to back up her theory of ambiguity based on symbolic logic. Consequently, for her the model of art in the story is a function that creates ambiguity (Rimmon 234). In other words, she only has the two poles: Art and Real in her model, she focuses on Art within this and every other aspect of the story is labeled according to this duality. Sergio Perosa, in turn, emphasizes life and states the story is a parable of the pathetic failure of the ordering and the expressive skills on which the artist's greatness depends (after Walter Isle, Perosa 78-9), so life overcomes art. The power of expectations is labeled under Life, i.e. the real. Let my version represent the third focus, the one on expectations.

III. Conclusion

Standards of dencent behaviour prevented the solution of the mystery at Newmarch in The Sacred Fount. The apparent similarity of artistic processes to those of detection made me consider a theory of art implied in the text that involves not only the poles Art/Real but also a third, that of expectations. This model seems to present an adjustment of focus, as other readings of The Fount have concentrated on either the Art or The Real poles instead. The question I still have not answered though is the scope of my approach. The Sacred Fount anticipates the major phase and the question projected for me is if this frame can be applied to the novels of the major phase, too.

References

James, Henry. The Sacred Fount. In Henry James, Three Novels: The Europeans, The Spoils of Poynton, The Sacred Fount. New York: Harper & Row, 1968. 315 - 493.

Perosa, Sergio. Henry James and the Experimntal Novel. Charlottesville: U of Virginia Press, 1978.

Rimmon (Kennan), Shlomith. The Concept of Ambiguity -- The Example of James. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1976.