In Portrait of a Lady, a rather curious misunderstanding occurs between Ralph and Henrietta. Curious, as the conversation takes place in a spirit of jocularity that masks the deeper feelings of the characters. Henrietta, as reporters are wont to do, interrogates Ralph in a highly personal and familiar way. Instead of taking offense, Ralph responds with wit, undertaking to dispatch each successive volley in a sportive manner. She declares him unserious, noting that he has a duty to marry. Ralph takes this as a proposal to marry her. She abruptly leaves after a few terse words, and we are left to ponder what offended her more: his presumption or the fact that she desired to say yes.

Later, when discussing the matter with Isabel, the difference is framed as cultural, between European and American sensibilities. More specifically, Henrietta embodies the democratic spirit. But what exactly is the democratic spirit? To ask highly personal questions without being personally involved in the answer.

“She had no interested views, and never supposed you would think she had.”

It is a great insight by Henry James. Americans, by reputation, do come across as nosy, probing, presumptuous. The assumption that personal questions must necessarily require a demand for some personal stake or claim in the outcome is deeply ingrained. The private lives of others? What business is it of yours? It is suspicious to say the least. The democratic spirit allows no person to escape the criticism born of equal standing. You are my peer. On this basis alone, I judge. Everyone has the right to pass judgment over me by virtual of our equal standing. What a terrible burden! How desperately we wish to escape this pervasive, invidious judgment. Democracy cannot long survive the contrary impulse, the desire to be lord and master of our own fate.