The Sense of the Past
by Henry James
When the last of the English Pendrels dies and leaves a London estate house to American
Ralph Pendrel, the young Pendrel travels to England and finds himself inhabiting the body
of an even earlier Pendrel. Unfortunately, when Henry James himself died, that’s as far
as he’d gotten in writing the book, although the posthumous publication included
James’s notes on the conclusion—plenty enough to inspire a litany of followers from
countless versions of Berkeley Square to H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Shadow Out
of Time.”
— Michael Main
He clung to his gravity, which somehow steadied him—so odd it was that the sense of her
understanding wouldn’t be abated, which even a particular lapse, he could
see. . .
The Sense of the Past by Henry James (W. Collins Sons,
1917).