How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
This was odd justice in the eyes of those who still blinked in the fierce light projected from the tribunal—a light in which neither parent figured in the least as a happy example to youth and innocence. (Preface.2)
This sentence appears in the second paragraph of James's novel, which already predicts that it's going to be a challenge for Maisie to hang onto her innocence. The law administers "odd justice," which is just James's funny way of saying injustice. And James's point here is that injustice poses a threat to innocence, making it hard for the innocent to flourish when even the law sets a bad example.
Quote #2
[…] not for any good they could do her, but for the harm they could, with her unconscious aid, do to each other. (Preface.5)
The fact that Maisie is "unconscious" of the harm her parents intend to do to each other shows just how innocent this little girl is.
Quote #3
Her first term was with her father, who spared her only in not letting her have the wild letters addressed to her by her mother: he confined himself to holding them up at her and shaking them, while he showed his teeth, and then amusing her by the way he chucked them, across the room, bang into the fire. (I.2)
Daddy Beale helps preserve his daughter's innocence only by not allowing her to read the letters her mom sends her. Nice work, Dad. He doesn't think about what kind of experience she's gaining by seeing her dad set fire to those very same letters.
Quote #4
Then it was that [Maisie] found the words spoken by her beastly papa to be, after all, in her little bewildered ears, from which, at her mother's appeal, they passed, in her clear shrill voice, straight to her little innocent lips. "He said I was to tell you, from him," she faithfully reported, "that you're a nasty horrid pig!" (I.4)
Note the marked contrast between Maisie's innocence and the message that is made to pass through her "innocent lips." Maisie's parents are actively corrupting her, this early moment suggests. James highlights yet again how hard it's going to be for his small heroine to protect her childish ways in a "beastly" and cruel world.
Quote #5
She had conceived her first passion, and the object of it was her governess. (III.6)
This sentence says two very interesting things about Innocence According to James. The first is that innocent children can feel passion and stay innocent. The second is that there are different kinds of passion, and that a child's emotional passion is purer than an adult's sexual passion.
Quote #6
Neither this, however, nor the old brown frock nor the diadem nor the button, made a difference for Maisie in the charm put forth through everything, the charm of Mrs. Wix's conveying that somehow, in her ugliness and her poverty, she was peculiarly and soothingly safe; safer than any one in the world, than papa, than mamma, than the lady with the arched eyebrows; safer even, though so much less beautiful, than Miss Overmore, on whose loveliness, as she supposed it, the little girl was faintly conscious that one couldn't rest with quite the same tucked-in and kissed-for-good-night feeling. (IV.3)
One of the lovely things about Maisie's innocence is the fact that it allows her to look past outward homeliness and see inner beauty. Experience in the world is shown to be a clouding influence—you can see more clearly through innocent eyes.
Quote #7
"Isn't he sympathetic?" asked Mrs. Wix, who had clearly, on the strength of his charming portrait, made up her mind that Sir Claude promised her a future. "You can see, I hope," she added with much expression, "that he's a perfect gentleman!" Maisie had never before heard the word "sympathetic" applied to anybody's face; she heard it with pleasure and from that moment it agreeably remained with her. (XI.20)
Another awesome thing about innocence is it gives great pleasure. Maisie isn't just happy about the fact that Mrs. Wix thinks that Sir Claude is sympathetic. She's happy with the word "sympathetic" being used to describe a person's appearance.
Quote #8
Full of charm at any rate was the prospect of some day getting Sir Claude in; especially after Mrs. Wix, as the fruit of more midnight colloquies, once went so far as to observe that she really believed it was all that was wanted to save him. This critic, with these words, struck her disciple as cropping up, after the manner of mamma when mamma talked, quite in a new place. The child stared as at the jump of a kangaroo. "Save him from what?"
Mrs. Wix debated, then covered a still greater distance. "Why just from awful misery." (XI.20-22)
Of course, innocence has its downsides. Maisie is shocked when she realizes that the saintly Mrs. Wix sounds like her horrible mother. This comparison comes up because Mrs. Wix is talking "after the manner of mamma when mamma talked," which probably means that Maisie is picking up on Mrs. Wix's attraction to Sir Claude.
Quote #9
"You'll never know what I've been through about you—never, never, never. I spare you everything, as I always have; though I daresay you know things that … would make me—well, no matter! You're old enough at any rate to know there are a lot of things I don't say that I easily might; though it would do me good, I assure you, to have spoken my mind for once in my life." (XXI.2)
This passage illustrates why it's so difficult for Maisie to preserve her innocence—and so remarkable that she does. Maisie's mother, Ida, is speaking here, and she's telling lies, both to herself, it seems, and to Maisie. The truth is that she hasn't spared her daughter anything at all but only burdened her with lies and insults and guilt and shame. This is why Ida's departure from the novel is more of a relief than a tragedy: to the end, Ida is mean as can be. And that Maisie manages to fall far from that tree means that she's one of a kind.