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What Maisie Knew: Introduction–Chapter 8

An innocent child is torn between her flawed parents after their bitter divorce. Read the full text here.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Introduction–Chapter 8, Chapters 9–16, Chapters 17–24, Chapters 25–31

Here are links to our lists for other works by Henry James: Daisy Miller, The Turn of the Screw
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  1. interminable
    tiresomely long; seemingly without end
    The litigation seemed interminable and had in fact been complicated; but by the decision on the appeal the judgement of the divorce-court was confirmed as to the assignment of the child.
  2. epitaph
    an inscription in memory of a buried person
    "Poor little monkey!" she at last exclaimed; and the words were an epitaph for the tomb of Maisie's childhood.
  3. lamentable
    bad; unfortunate
    What was clear to any spectator was that the only link binding her to either parent was this lamentable fact of her being a ready vessel for bitterness, a deep little porcelain cup in which biting acids could be mixed.
  4. defunct
    having ceased to exist or live
    The child was provided for, thanks to a crafty godmother, a defunct aunt of Beale's, who had left her something in such a manner that the parents could appropriate only the income.
  5. confound
    be confusing or perplexing to
    The child was provided for, but the new arrangement was inevitably confounding to a young intelligence intensely aware that something had happened which must matter a good deal and looking anxiously out for the effects of so great a cause.
  6. confidence
    a secret that is confided or entrusted to another
    She was taken into the confidence of passions on which she fixed just the stare she might have had for images bounding across the wall in the slide of a magic-lantern.
  7. impress
    have a powerful and usually positive effect on
    She was to remember always the words in which Moddle impressed upon her that he did so give himself: "Your papa wishes you never to forget, you know, that he has been dreadfully put about."
  8. ingenious
    showing inventiveness and skill
    She had the knowledge that on a certain occasion which every day brought nearer her mother would be at the door to take her away, and this would have darkened all the days if the ingenious Moddle hadn't written on a paper in very big easy words ever so many pleasures that she would enjoy at the other house.
  9. reminiscence
    a mental impression retained and recalled from the past
    The supreme hour was to furnish her with a vivid reminiscence, that of a strange outbreak in the drawing-room on the part of Moddle, who, in reply to something her father had just said, cried aloud: "You ought to be perfectly ashamed of yourself—you ought to blush, sir, for the way you go on!"
  10. objurgation
    rebuking a person harshly
    The objurgation for instance launched in the carriage by her mother after she had at her father's bidding punctually performed was a missive that dropped into her memory with the dry rattle of a letter falling into a pillar-box.
  11. cunning
    crafty artfulness, especially in deception
    The only thing done, however, in general, took place when it was sighingly remarked that she fortunately wasn't all the year round where she happened to be at the awkward moment, and that, furthermore, either from extreme cunning or from extreme stupidity, she appeared not to take things in.
  12. prodigious
    great in size, force, extent, or degree
    She puzzled out with imperfect signs, but with a prodigious spirit, that she had been a centre of hatred and a messenger of insult, and that everything was bad because she had been employed to make it so.
  13. momentous
    of very great significance
    It was Miss Overmore, her first governess, who on a momentous occasion had sown the seeds of secrecy; sown them not by anything she said, but by a mere roll of those fine eyes which Maisie already admired.
  14. certitude
    complete assurance or confidence
    Everything that had happened when she was really little was dormant, everything but the positive certitude, bequeathed from afar by Moddle, that the natural way for a child to have her parents was separate and successive, like her mutton and her pudding or her bath and her nap.
  15. ignorance
    the lack of knowledge or education
    Maisie's ignorance of what she was to be saved from didn't diminish the pleasure of the thought that Miss Overmore was saving her.
  16. critical
    marked by a tendency to find and call attention to flaws
    It was of a horrid little critical system, a tendency, in her silence, to judge her elders, that this lady suspected her, liking as she did, for her own part, a child to be simple and confiding.
  17. inimitable
    matchless
    It was from something in Mrs. Wix's tone, which in spite of caricature remained indescribable and inimitable, that Maisie, before her term with her mother was over, drew this sense of a support, like a breast-high banister in a place of "drops," that would never give way.
  18. acquire
    gain knowledge or skills
    Her pupil acquired a vivid vision of every one who had ever, in her phrase, knocked against her—some of them oh so hard!—every one literally but Mr. Wix, her husband, as to whom nothing was mentioned save that he had been dead for ages.
  19. voluble
    marked by a ready flow of speech
    Miss Overmore, then also in the vestibule, but of course in the other one, had been thoroughly audible and voluble; her protest had rung out bravely and she had declared that something—her pupil didn't know exactly what—was a regular wicked shame.
  20. extravagance
    the quality of exceeding appropriate limits
    Beale, under this frolic menace, took nothing back at all; he was indeed apparently on the point of repeating his extravagance, but Miss Overmore instructed her little charge that she was not to listen to his bad jokes: she was to understand that a lady couldn't stay with a gentleman that way without some awfully proper reason.
  21. precocious
    characterized by exceptionally early development
    Her embarrassment, of a precocious instinctive order, attached itself to the idea that this was another of the matters it was not for her, as her mother used to say, to go into.
  22. deception
    a misleading falsehood
    For Maisie moreover concealment had never necessarily seemed deception; she had grown up among things as to which her foremost knowledge was that she was never to ask about them.
  23. derision
    contemptuous laughter
    She had learned that at these doors it was wise not to knock—this seemed to produce from within such sounds of derision.
  24. devolve
    pass on or delegate to another
    She became aware in time that this phase wouldn't have shone by lessons, the care of her education being now only one of the many duties devolving on Miss Overmore; a devolution as to which she was present at various passages between that lady and her father—passages significant, on either side, of dissent and even of displeasure.
  25. disproportionate
    out of proper balance
    She was now old enough to understand how disproportionate a stay she had already made with her father; and also old enough to enter a little into the ambiguity attending this excess, which oppressed her particularly whenever the question had been touched upon in talk with her governess.
  26. renunciation
    rejecting or disowning or disclaiming as invalid
    Maisie knew Mrs. Farange had gone abroad, for she had had weeks and weeks before a letter from her beginning "My precious pet" and taking leave of her for an indeterminate time; but she had not seen in it a renunciation of hatred or of the writer's policy of asserting herself, for the sharpest of all her impressions had been that there was nothing her mother would ever care so much about as to torment Mr. Farange.
  27. suspicion
    an impression that something might be the case
    What at last, however, was in this connexion bewildering and a little frightening was the dawn of a suspicion that a better way had been found to torment Mr. Farange than to deprive him of his periodical burden.
  28. subtlety
    a fine difference in meaning, opinion, or attitude
    It was a contradiction that if Ida had now a fancy for waiving the rights she had originally been so hot about her late husband shouldn't jump at the monopoly for which he had also in the first instance so fiercely fought; but when Maisie, with a subtlety beyond her years, sounded this new ground her main success was in hearing her mother more freshly abused.
  29. penetrate
    become clear or enter one's consciousness or emotions
    Her very silence became after this one of the largest elements of Maisie's consciousness; it proved a warm and habitable air, into which the child penetrated further than she dared ever to mention to her companions.
  30. fatalism
    a mental attitude accepting that everything is predetermined
    Maisie found in this exchange of asperities a fresh incitement to the unformulated fatalism in which her sense of her own career had long since taken refuge; and it was the beginning for her of a deeper prevision that, in spite of Miss Overmore's brilliancy and Mrs. Wix's passion, she should live to see a change in the nature of the struggle she appeared to have come into the world to produce.
  31. avidity
    a positive feeling of wanting to push ahead with something
    With the acuteness of her years, however, Maisie saw that her own avidity would triumph, and she held out the picture to Miss Overmore as if she were quite proud of her mother.
  32. quaver
    a tremulous sound
    The pathetic quaver of this brave boast was not lost on Maisie, who threw herself so gratefully on the speaker's neck that, when they had concluded their embrace, the public tenderness of which, she felt, made up for the sacrifice she imposed, their companion had had time to lay a quick hand on Sir Claude and, with a glance at him or not, whisk him effectually out of sight.
  33. deficient
    inadequate in amount or degree
    There was little indeed in the commerce of her companions that her precocious experience couldn't explain, for if they struck her as after all rather deficient in that air of the honeymoon of which she had so often heard—in much detail, for instance, from Mrs. Wix—it was natural to judge the circumstance in the light of papa's proved disposition to contest the empire of the matrimonial tie.
  34. inconsistent
    not in agreement
    If she was her father's wife she was not her own governess, and if her presence had had formerly to be made regular by the theory of a humble function she was now on a footing that dispensed with all theories and was inconsistent with all servitude.
  35. diversion
    an activity that amuses or stimulates
    The dangers of the town equally with its diversions added to Maisie's sense of being untutored and unclaimed.
  36. mirth
    great merriment
    The child could see that at this Sir Claude, though still moved to mirth, coloured a little; but he spoke to her very kindly.
  37. perceptible
    capable of being grasped by the mind or senses
    "It will be very interesting, my dear, you know, to find out what it is to-day that your father does mind. I'm sure I don't know!"—and she seemed to repeat, though with perceptible resignation, her plaint of a moment before.
  38. omen
    a sign of a thing about to happen
    His account of the matter was most interesting, and Maisie, as if it were of bad omen for her, stared at the picture in some dismay.
  39. consciousness
    an alert cognitive state in which you are aware of yourself
    And with this Sir Claude's eyes rested on the little girl in a way that seemed to her to mask her mother's attitude with the consciousness of his own.
  40. deliberate
    think about carefully; weigh
    The little girl deliberated; even this consecrated tie had become as a cord she must suddenly snap.
Created on Wed Nov 16 18:36:55 EST 2016 (updated Mon Sep 24 16:39:45 EDT 2018)

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