The Sacred Fount

The unnamed narrator waits for a train to take him to a weekend party at an estate called Newmarch in the English countryside. While waiting, he sees an old acquaintance, Gilbert Long, and notices that he seems much more lively and self-assured than he had previously. On the train, he meets another of his companions, Mrs. Brissenden, who appears to him much younger and more beautiful than she was the last time he saw her. At the party, he notices Mrs. Brissenden's husband looks far older, and begins to formulate a theory that Mrs. Brissenden is somehow siphoning the "sacred fount" of youth from her husband. He quickly applies this idea to Gilbert Long, as well, and begins to speculate as to whose wit and energy have been 'stolen' in order to account for the change in Long's personality. At first, the narrator theorizes that the source of Long's newfound assurance and intelligence is a woman named Lady John; however, he dismisses the idea upon discussing the 'case' both with Mrs. Brissenden (initially eager to speculate with him) and an artist named Ford Obert.

The narrator notices that another woman at the party, May Server, seems listless, and he starts to wonder if she may be the lover providing vitality to Long. Eventually, he begins to construct extremely elaborate theories to explain Long's energy and Mrs. Server's witlessness, even wondering if either person might be flirting with others in order to obfuscate their real affairs. The novel concludes with a long midnight confrontation with Mrs. Brissenden, who has changed her mind since she spoke to the narrator early in the day. She says the narrator's theories are ridiculous, and he has completely misread the actual relationships of their fellow guests. The conversation ends with her accusation that the narrator is crazy and bidding him goodnight, and the narrator is left dismayed and overwhelmed.

Early critics treated the novel with blank incomprehension or near-contempt. Rebecca West wrote that the narrator "spends more intellectual force than Kant can have used on The Critique of Pure Reason in an unsuccessful attempt to discover whether there exists between certain of his fellow-guests a relationship not more interesting among these vacuous people than it is among sparrows."[1] In a letter dated March 15, 1901, written to Mrs. Humphry Ward, James himself declared: "I say it in all sincerity – the book isn't worth discussing [...] I hatingly finished it; trying to make it – the one thing it 'could' be – a 'consistent' joke."[2]

Other critics have praised the novel. Ezra Pound, in his 1934 book ABC of Reading wrote: "When you have read James' prefaces and twenty of his novels, you would do well to read The Sacred Fount. There for perhaps the first time since 1300 a writer has been able to deal with a sort of content wherewith Cavalcanti had been 'concerned'.[3] In his introduction to the 1995 New Directions edition of the novel, Leon Edel called the novel "undervalued."[4]

The critic Ray Carney judged it to be one of the "hardest" novels ever written.[5]

In Chapter 21 of Donna Leon's third Guido Brunetti detective novel, Dressed for Death (1994; aka The Anonymous Venetian), the character Paola says to Guido: "I'm reading the master. The Sacred Fount is wonderful. Nothing happens, absolutely nothing." Later in the conversation, she states: "I'm already eager to finish it so that I can begin it all over again immediately."[6]

• Original book text of The Sacred Fount (1901)
• The Sacred Fount public domain audiobook at LibriVox