The Point of View by Henry James

January 9.

I TOLD you (after we landed) about my agreement with mamma-that I was to have my liberty for three months, and if at the end of this time I shouldn't have made a good use of it, I was to give it back to her. Well, the time is up today, and I am very much afraid I haven't made a good use of it. In fact, I haven't made any use of it at all-I haven't got married, for that is what mamma meant by our little bargain. She has been trying to marry me in Europe, for years, without a _dot_, and as she has never (to the best of my knowledge) even come near it, she thought at last that, if she were to leave it to me, I might do better. I couldn't certainly do worse. Well, my dear, I have done very badly-that is, I haven't done at all. I haven't even tried. I had an idea that this affair came of itself over here; but it hasn't come to me. I won't say I am disappointed, for I haven't, on the whole, seen any one I should like to marry. When you marry people over here, they expect you to love them, and I haven't seen any one I should like to love. I don't know what the reason is, but they are none of them what I have thought of. It may be that I have thought of the impossible; and yet I have seen people in Europe whom I should have liked to marry. It is true, they were almost always married to some one else. What I _am_ disappointed in is simply having to give back my liberty. I don't wish particularly to be married; and I do wish to do as I like-as I have been doing for the last month.