Explore "Georgina's Reasons" by Henry James on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Mrs. Portico, as we know, was always talking about going to Europe; but she had not yet -- I mean a year after the incident I have just related -- put her hand upon a youthful cicerone. Petticoats, of course, were required; it was necessary that her companion should be of the sex which sinks most naturally upon benches, in galleries and cathredrals, and pauses most frequently upon staircases that ascend to celebrated views. She was a widow, with a good fortune and several sons, all of whom were in Wall Street, and none of them capable of the relaxed pace at which she expected to take her foreign tour. They were all in a state of tension. They went through life standing. She was a short, broad, high-colored woman, with a loud voice, and superabundant black hair, arranged in a way peculiar to herself, -- with so many combs and bands that it had the appearance of a national coiffure.
There was an impression in New York, about 1845, that the style was Danish; some one had said something about having seen it in Schleswig-Holstein.