- when Lord Warburton meets Isabel, he finds her interesting indeed, and he soon falls in love

with her, he tells to Ralph: “You wished a while ago to see my idea of an interesting woman.
There it is!” (p.26).
-he says to her “You judge only from the outside you don’t care…You only care to amuse
yourself” (p. 111), insisting on her independency or maybe even superficiality.
- Lord Warburton sees her very agreeable: “His smile was peculiarly friendly and pleasing, and
his whole person seemed to emit that radiance of good-feeling and good fare.” (p.141).
- she gently but firmly rejects him and she adds: ‘but I’m not sure I wish to marry anyone” (p.
150).

-Caspar Goodwood is Isabel's American suitor.

-Isabel sees his persistence as aggression and is only irritated by it: “but he insisted, ever, with
his whole weight and force: even in one’s usual contact with him one had to reckon with that”
(p.160). -Caspar loves her and expects an answer to his letter: “I’ve been hoping every day for an
answer to my letter. You might have written me a few lines” (p. 214).
-he admires her independence and the grandeur with which she proclaims her liberty and he says:
“But I’ll come back, wherever you are, two years hence” (p. 227).
-when Casper find out that Isabel wants to marry Osmond, he tries to change her mind: “It
implied things she could never assent to-rights, reproaches, remonstrance, rebuke, the
expectation of making her change her purpose” (p. 467).
-after Ralph’s death, when Casper talks to Isabel, she notices a difference: “That had been
aimless, fruitless passion, but at present he had an idea, which she scented in all her being” (p.
831).
-now he understands Isabel: “You’re the most unhappy of women, and your husband’s the
deadliest of fiends… You can’t turn anywhere; you know that perfectly. Now it is therefore that I
want you to think of me” (p.832).
-Isabel refuses him: “As you love me, as you pity me, leave me alone!” (p. 835) and she returns
to Rome.

Smith, Virginia Llewellyn. Henry James and the Real Thing, A modern reader’s guide, The
Macmillan Press Lt, London, 1994.