Daisy Miller by Henry James

Daisy Miller is a novella from James’ early period, published in 1879, after Roderick Hudson and The Europeans and just before Washington Square and The Portrait of a Lady. The Aspern Papers comes about 10 years later. Like most of James’ works, Daisy Miller concerns Americans in Europe.

In this case, the main character is a young man, named Winterbourne, “some seven-and-twenty years of age” (p. 6). (I read a paperback edition from Barnes and Noble Classics, pub. 2004). His first name is never noted. Winterbourne is studying in Geneva but in the opening chapter has come to the resort town of Vevey to visit his aunt, staying at a hotel. In Vevey he is attracted to a young American woman traveling with her mother and her nine year-old brother. This is Daisy Miller.

“…the young girl’s eyes were singularly honest and fresh. They were wonderfully pretty eyes; and, indeed, Winterbourne had not seen for a long time anything prettier than his fair countrywoman’s various features–her complexion, her nose, her ears, her teeth.” (p. 11)

There is an immediate clash of cultures. Though both characters are American, Winterbourne has become Europeanized through his stay in Geneva. He is well-mannered. Daisy calls him stiff. She likes the elevated way he speaks. Daisy and her family, in James’ dialogue, speak colloquially, saying “ain’t”, for instance, or “don’t” instead of “doesn’t” as in, “He says he don’t care much about old castles.” (p. 15). Though both families are wealthy, Winterbourne and his aunt are higher class. The aunt considers the Miller family vulgar. She criticizes their over-familiarity with their servant, Eugenio. When Winterbourne invites his Aunt to meet Daisy, she declines.

Winterbourne is amused by Daisy. He wonders whether her forwardness, her chattiness, and her ease around men, is simply the American way. In any case she charms him, and though he is somewhat shocked by her, he sees her as fundamentally good, and defends her behavior as essentially innocent.

Daisy flirts with Winterbourne. He enjoys her toying with him. After a brief stay at Vevey, Winterbourne must return to Geneva. The Miller family are enjoying a long European holiday (the father is home in Schenectady). Daisy, saying goodbye to Winterbourne in Vevey, tells him she hopes that he will come and visit them that winter in Rome. It happens that Winterbourne’s aunt will also be in Rome that winter so the arrangement is easily made. The rest of the novel takes place in Rome, beginning in January and ending in an “early spring.”

Winterbourne arrives in Rome. He calls on a woman he knows from Geneva, another American, Mrs. Walker, and while there, Daisy and her family also pay a call. Daisy has made friends in Rome, including among the locals, and particularly with a handsome Italian named Giovanelli. Daisy asks Mrs. Walker if she can bring Giovanelli as her guest to a party Mrs. Walker is hosting in a few days. Mrs. Walker consents. Then Daisy announces she must go as she has a date to go walking in the Pincio, a park, with Giovanelli. Mrs. Walker is scandalized: both that she would walk openly, unchaperoned, in the park with a gentleman, and that Daisy proposes to walk alone over to the park to meet him. It’s arranged that Winterbourne will accompany Daisy to the park. Then follows an awkward situation of the two men walking together with Daisy in the park. Even this, though, is too much for Mrs. Walker. She arrives in her carriage and insists that Daisy come away with her. Daisy refuses. Winterbourne can’t convince her either. Instead, Daisy continues her walk with Giovanelli and Mrs. Walker takes Winterbourne away advising him to have no more to do with the scandalous girl.

Winterbourne, though, persists in his view that Daisy is essentially good, though naive, and merely unconcerned with arbitrary standards of propriety. I like this comment on the Miller family made by Winterbourne’s aunt. “‘They are hopelessly vulgar,’ said Mrs. Costello. ‘Whether or no being hopelessly vulgar is being “bad” is a question for the metaphysicians. They are bad enough to dislike, at any rate; and for this short life that is quite enough.'” (p. 33)

Daisy shows up at Mrs. Walker’s party with Giovanelli. They arrive late. Mrs. Walker attempts to shun Daisy but Daisy isn’t bothered. The rest of the ex-pat American community in Rome give her the cold-shoulder. She barely notices. Daisy’s mother is more concerned with her own “dyspepsia” than with her daughter’s behavior. She begins to think that Daisy and the Giovanelli might be secretly engaged, which excites her. For his part, Giovanelli is happy to have the company of a lovely young woman for however long she will have him with neither hope nor cunning designs on anything further.

In the final scene, Winterbourne, having dined at a “beautiful villa on the Caelian Hill”(p. 57) decides to walk home. As he passes the Colosseum, he decides on a whim to see how it looks at midnight. Inside, he remembers the danger of “Roman fever” the malaria supposedly spread through night air. He means to have a glance and leave quickly. But he notices a couple sitting together at the center of the Colosseum, and the couple sees him. It is Daisy and Giovanelli.

This is too much for Winterbourne. “Winterbourne stopped, with a sort of horror; and, it must be added, with a sense of relief. It was as if a sudden illumination had been flashed upon the ambiguity of Daisy’s behavior and the riddle had become easy to read. She was a young lady whom a gentleman need no longer be at pains to respect.” (p. 58).

He approaches the couple and warns them of the danger from malaria. Daisy is unconcerned. She is healthy! Eugenio has pills he can give her! Giovanelli explains he is unconcerned for his own self and agreed to bring Daisy only because she wanted to and he wanted to please her. They depart. Daisy does become ill. She dies in a week. Winterbourne attends her funeral at the Protestant cemetery in Rome. Then he returns to Geneva and his “studies”, which may more likely be, James suggests, a new “interest in a very clever, foreign lady.” (p. 62).

Daisy, of course, is the right name for a fresh and innocent young woman. the name Winterbourne implies a chilly personality, and he’s associated with Geneva, the center of Calvinism. Daisy calls him stiff, and he certainly is, compared to her, but Winterbourne does not judge her the way a Calvinist would. The judgment comes from the other Americans, his aunt, and her set. And if Winterbourne is naturally stiff, Daisy certainly softens him.

There’s a lot in Daisy that reminds me of Sally Bowles in The Berlin Stories, also a story of foreigners in Europe. Winterbourne is also an Isherwood type: variously shocked and charmed by the free spirit of the young woman he befriends and is half in love with. Daisy, and Sally, too, are the kind of young women we’ve come to describe as the “manic-pixie girl.”

The story might be read as vulgar America encountering mannered Europe. Or the free-spirit America and the constrained Europe. Or the young America and the old Europe. Although, in fact, all the characters are American, and Winterbourne is not much older than Daisy. Which side you approve of in that conflict probably depends on your taste. Although Daisy dies at the end if the malaria is a punishment it’s only for her foolishness, not for her morals, which were never, actually, compromised.

James’ writing is clear and straightforward. It’s a small tale, quickly told. Now and then he interjects himself as a narrator, such as, “As I have already had occasion to relate…” (p. 54) which lends an air of comfortable familiarity.

Altogether delightful.