The Path of Duty

The Path of Duty is a short story by Henry James, first published in The English Illustrated Magazine in December 1884 and collected in The Author of Beltraffio the following year. It is one of his middle period social stories, set in the English upper class world that he had by now made his own subject after settling permanently in England.

The story is told as a series of letters and notes by a woman who has been a close friend of the central figures. The young Lord Ambrose Tester has been pushed by his family into an engagement with a perfectly suitable young woman, Lady Vandeleur, whom he does not love. Meanwhile he is genuinely in love with a young woman named Joscelind Bernardstone, who is also suitable but who is loved rather than chosen for him by his family. The story works through the complications that follow when Lord Ambrose tries to find a way to follow his own feelings without entirely dishonoring his family obligations.

The narrator is an interesting James creation in herself. She is an American living in London and observing English society with the particular sharpness of someone who is not entirely part of it. Her view of the English engagement system is acerbic without being dismissive, and the framing of the story as her account gives James the room to make sharp observations about English upper class conduct without putting them directly in his own narrative voice. The path of duty of the title is what Lord Ambrose finally decides to walk, and James leaves the reader to judge whether the decision was the right one.

The story runs about fifty pages and works as a single sitting read. It is one of the more accessible of his middle period social stories and is a good piece for readers who liked The Patagonia or An International Episode and want more in the same vein. It pairs naturally with Lady Barberina and with The Reverberator, two other middle period pieces about American observers of English upper class life.