The Perfection of Mr. Offord’s Salon - “Brooksmith”
The perfection in Mr. Offord’s salon is not credited to feminine involvement: “ Mr. Offord had solved the insoluble; he had, without feminine help—save in the sense that ladies were dying to come to him and that he saved the lives of several—established a salon; but I might have guessed that there was a method in his madness, a law in his success.” Typically, based on Mr. Offord’s ailment, one would not antedate him to formulate an artistic salon in the absence of feminine input. The accomplishment in the meticulous salon is ironic considering that home making, of which organization of the salon is a constituent, is principally apportioned to females. The irony which the salon parades is apposite in typifying Brooksmith as an immaculate artist.
George Stransom’s dislike of Anniversaries - “The Altar of the Dead”
Henry James illuminates, “He had a mortal dislike, poor Stransom, to lean anniversaries, and loved them still less when they made a pretence of a figure. Celebrations and suppressions were equally painful to him, and but one of the former found a place in his life. He had kept each year in his own fashion the date of Mary Antrim’s death.” Based on George Stransom’s abhorrence for anniversaries, it would be probable that he would not hold onto Mary Antrim’s retentions after her passing. However, George Stransom’s preoccupation with Mary Antrim’s remembrances reworks the course of his life for all he can ruminate about is death. The irony unveils the potency of death that could transmute dislike into fervent obsession.
