The Ambassadors Old Age Quotes

The thing that Strether probably envies the most about Bilham is that the guy is just too young to be set in his ways. Strether feels that rigid thinking is probably the number one cause of unhappiness in his life because it has led him to steer clear of exciting new experiences. Instead, he has let the years get the better of him and has settled into a quiet, boring life. He never would have even realized this, though, if he hadn't come out to Paris to meet Chad and his young friends.

When he first runs into Chad, Strether feels that he wants his age to be acknowledged by the young man—in other words, to be respected as an elder. This is the exact opposite of what Strether will want later in the book, but for, this definitely a Woollett way of thinking. And as the book unfolds, Strether will realize that his age doesn't really entitle him to anything. It's his quality as a person that'll make people respect him.

Seeing Chad live such a cool Paris life makes Strether feel a twinge of regret about wasting his own youth. To be fair, the dude lost his wife and his son ten years apart and spent a lot of his life mourning. But even before that, Strether feels like he has always been too safe with his life and has always given into fear. He badly wishes that he were still a young man strutting around parties like Chad and talking to women without feeling ugly and old.

Strether feels bad enough about his age. But one thing he feels even more strongly about is making sure that Bilham doesn't make the same mistakes as him. He tells Bilham that he better appreciate his youth while it lasts. The real gist of Strether's comments is that he wishes he knew what he knows now, but only when he was younger.

When Bilham says that he's too shy to talk to the ladies, Strether doesn't drop his point about telling Bilham to enjoy his youth. You can really see the envy in Strether's words as he fills Bilham's ears with this stuff. From Bilham's point of view, this is probably sounding like Strether's putting a lot of pressure on him. But the poor old dude (Strether) badly wants someone to enjoy their youth, even if it can't be him.

Now that Strether's older, he has enough wisdom to know how a young person could live life to its fullest. The bitter irony is that Strether has only learned this after his youth has passed him by.

In case you couldn't sense the jealousy before, Strether refers to Bilham as "hatefully" young, which is pretty much neon with envy. But at the same time, Strether really does value Bilham's friendship and wants what is best for him. The problem is that Strether has such an axe to grind with the whole "I'm old" thing that he doesn't stop to think of what Bilham might actually want.

We're not sure if Bilham is being nice or if he actually believes this, but he tells Strether that he wouldn't mind being just like him when he reaches fifty. Aw. But try as he might, he can't knock Strether off of his speech about enjoying youth. The guy is downright preoccupied. That said, it's still nice of Bilham to say this, and we can sense that deep down, Strether appreciates it.

This is one of the few places in the book where we hear Madame de Vionnet talking about her age. It's clear that she's insecure about it, which definitely affects how we might later interpret her sexual relationship with Chad, whose is ten years younger than her.

It's when she fears losing Chad that Madame de Vionnet is most vocal about her insecurities. And her biggest insecurity seems to be based on the fact that she's almost forty. As she says in these lines, it's even worse to be old than it is to be a bad person. Here, we can definitely sense that Madame de Vionnet's insecurity about her age is connected to her feelings about her younger lover, Chad. Go get 'em, cougar.