How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
[Paris] hung before him this morning, the vast bright Bablyon, like some huge iridescent object, a jewel brilliant and hard, in which parts were not to be discriminated nor differences comfortably marked. (2.2.8)
Sheesh, get a little more poetic on us why don't you, Henry James? This description is one of the most intense bits of wordplay in all of The Ambassadors. It captures just how much the city of Paris has swept Strether off his feet: by saying that the city itself blurs the differences between things, it suggests that its beauty totally blurs Strether's ideas of good and bad. Things get even blurrier for him as he realizes that Paris isn't the sinful, terrible place that Mrs. Newsome has led him to believe.
Quote #2
The balcony, the distinguished front, testified suddenly, for Strether's fancy, to something that was up and up; they placed the whole case materially, and as by an admirable image, on a level that he found himself at the end of another moment rejoicing to think he might reach. (2.2.14)
Descriptions of setting are usually pretty symbolic in James novels, and this passage is no exception. Here, Strether looks up at the balcony of Chad's Paris apartment and realizes that the balcony symbolizes a goal that he would like to achieve some day. He's not exactly sure what that goal is, but he knows it's connected to the amazing life that Chad is leading in Paris.
Quote #3
In the brownness were glints of gold; patches of purple were in the gloom; objects all that caught, through the muslin, with their high rarity, the light of the low windows. Nothing was clear about them but that they were precious, and they brushed his ignorance with their contempt as a flower, in a liberty taken with him, might have been whisked under his nose. (3.2.1)
Strether goes to visit Maria Gostrey in his Paris apartment, and the first thing he notices is that the place is filled with lots of interesting objects. His immediate sensation at seeing these objects is the feeling that there's an entire world he's been missing out on his whole life. Now he's having this whole new world (cue the Aladdin soundtrack) held under his nose like a flower, and it's up to him to decide if he wants to explore it further or scuttle back to Mrs. Newsome in Woollett.
Quote #4
For what had above all been determined in him as a necessity of the first order was not to lose another hour, nor a fraction of one; was to advance, to overwhelm, with a rush. This was how he would anticipate—by a night-attack, as might be—any forced maturity that a crammed consciousness of Paris was likely to take upon itself to assert on behalf of the boy. (3.2.84)
Strether starts to realize that the longer he stays in Europe (and especially Paris), the more difficult it will be to pull himself out of it to bring Chad home to America. For this reason, he makes a promise to himself to get to Chad as quickly as possible and waste absolutely no time in getting the kid onto a boat bound for Woollett, Massachusetts. Of course, we'll see how long that resolution sticks.
Quote #5
The strolls over Paris to see something or call somewhere were accordingly inevitable and natural, and the late sessions in the wondrous troisieme, the lovely home, when men dropped in and the picture composed more suggestively through the haze of tobacco, of music more or less good and of talk more or less polyglot, were on a principle not to be distinguished from that of the mornings and afternoons. (4.2.44)
As the mention of tobacco suggests, Strether finds his walks around Paris almost addictive. He enjoys them so much, for one, because the place is so different from the boring towns he's used to. But second, he enjoys them because he's totally free to enjoy life on his own terms. And there's no better place to do this than in Paris.
Quote #6
The place itself was a great impression—a small pavilion, clear-faced and sequestered, an effect of polished parquet, of fine white panel and spare sallow gilt, of decoration delicate and rare, in the heart of the Faubourg Saint-Germain and on the edge of a cluster of gardens attached to old noble houses. (5.1.3)
When he first goes to Madame de Vionnet's house, Strether can't help but soak in all of its beautiful details. Madame de Vionnet, you see, is a very wealthy woman. But wealth doesn't mean all that much unless you have a good sense of taste to back it up. And let's just say Madame has got feng shui to share.
Quote #7
[W]hile the tall bird-haunted trees, all of a twitter with the spring and the weather, and the high party-walls, on the other side of which grave hotels stood off for privacy, spoke of survival, transmission, association, a strong indifferent persistent order. (5.1.3)
We're not talking about 140 characters here, guys. There are real birds in this place, and that's part of what gives Strether this impression that there's something inhuman about the city. Nature still exists around it, and he feels that one day the city will no longer be inhabited at all (probably sometime in the distant future—yeah, it's like an apocalypse daydream on a mini, 1903 scale). Anyway, there are basic animal forces at work in the people who live there, which is slightly scary for Strether, but also enhances the place's beauty. If only he could tweet about it he'd really get along with the birds.
Quote #8
[H]e had the sense of names in the air, of ghosts at the windows, of signs and tokens, a whole range of expression, all about him, too thick for prompt discrimination. (5.1.3)
While he soaks up Madame de Vionnet's party, Strether also realizes that he's sitting in a house that is hundreds of years old. All of the houses in Woollett are much newer and have less history to them because let's face it, Paris was around long before Massachusetts was. So Strether senses that he can feel the ghosts of all the people who have lived and danced in this same house over the years. Kind of creepy, but still—this sense of connection to history makes him feel fulfilled in a way that Woollett can never offer.
Quote #9
He gurgled his joy as they rolled through the happy streets; he declared that his trip was a regular windfall, and that he wasn't there, he was eager to remark, to hang back from anything. (8.2.13)
Strether isn't the only guy who can gush (or gurgle) with delight at the sights of Paris. It takes Jim Pocock less than a minute before he starts "gurgling" like a baby with excitement about being in this city. Just looking out the window of his cab is enough to set the man's brain on fire. That, plus the fact that he's going to spend some time away from his overbearing wife, Sarah. Paris apparently provides the perfect backdrop for a man looking to regain his sense of freedom.
Quote #10
'Why I want to come out and live here myself. And I want to live while I am here too. I feel with you—oh you've been grand, old man, I've twigged—that it ain't right to worry Chad.' (8.2.15)
Like Strether, Jim Pocock takes one look at Paris and immediately thinks about how lame his life back in Woollett is. But the difference is that Jim is resigned to his fate as Sarah's husband in lame ole Woollett. That doesn't mean that he's happy about it. He wants badly to live in a place as fun and exciting as Paris, but knows he'll never take that kind of plunge.