Life & Wisdom Quote by Henry James

Henry James lands this like a drawing-room aside that cuts deeper than it first appears. The line performs the very social maneuver it critiques: a polite, almost fussy recommendation about “bringing up” the conscience, as if morality were a child to be educated to good manners and then sent out of the room before it becomes inconvenient. The sly pivot comes in the punchline - “nice to the second housemaid” - a detail so specific it exposes the whole machinery of class as etiquette.

James is sketching a world where virtue is measured not by justice but by the smooth running of hierarchy. You don’t have to challenge the system; you just have to be pleasant to the people it relies on, especially those low enough to absorb your neglect but close enough to witness your character. Not the “housemaid” in general, but the second one: the figure even further from attention, the one least likely to be flattered, the one whose dignity is easiest to overlook. Being kind to her becomes a cheap moral alibi, a token decency that lets you “leave” your conscience at a manageable setting.

The subtext is James’s familiar preoccupation with self-deception among the cultivated: the way refined people convert ethical responsibility into social performance. It also hints at the modern anxiety his novels anatomize - that conscience, once fully “brought up,” might demand structural reckoning. James’s irony suggests most people prefer a conscience trained for minor mercies, not major disruptions.