"The melodramatic doings in Watch and Ward probably caused James some embarrassment in later years, and it's easy to see why he disowned the book and spoke of Roderick Hudson as his first novel. Still, many critics have pointed out that melodrama always held a certain fascination for James. Watch and Ward is only a particularly gauche example."--from Wikipedia
There's a certain amount of creepiness and immaturity in Henry James' first novel or maybe it's just because I have a certain amount of impatience with characters (male or female) who set out to groom young wards into potential future lovers.
While most certainly not his best work, Watch and Ward still shows that even at his worst James had this amazing insight into emotional complexities and matters of the heart.
This sentence reminds me of how determined the human heart can be to not get attached:
He used to lie awake at night, trying hard to fix in his mind the happy medium between coldness and weak fondness.
In an early part of the story the main character, Roger, refuses to recognize at first that the young woman he is persuing (who is much closer to his own age than the ward he is soon to take on) has no romantic interest in him whatsoever. His letters to her are so insistent and lacking in awareness that she writes back: "Do leave me alone!"
Poor Roger! The reader's pity for him battles with an understanding that what so often motivates the heart for more is the very undoing of it...
At times I do I think Mr. James was probably a lot less stuffy than he came across as...
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