“I am distraught by the
noise of the enemy,
because of the oppression of the wicked.
For they bring[a] trouble
upon me,
and in anger they cherish enmity against
me.
My heart is in anguish
within me,
the terrors of death have fallen upon me.
Fear and trembling come
upon me,
and horror overwhelms me.
And I say, ‘O that I had
wings like a dove!
I would fly away and be at rest;
yea, I would wander afar,
I would lodge in the wilderness,
I would haste to find me
a shelter
from the raging wind and tempest.’”—Psalm 55:2-8 (Revised Standard Version)
These biblical verses are
the source of not one, but two prominent book titles. One phrase gave rise to
one of the cornerstones of modern philosophy: Danish theologian Soren
Kierkegaard’s 1843 title, Fear and Trembling.
The other might not be as
recognizable to those who have read a novel whose title echoes another verse
here: Henry James’ The Wings of the Dove.
Contemporary readers of
this work from the mature period of American expatriate novelist will hear the
character Milly Theale, an American heiress stricken with a serious disease,
explicitly likened to a dove because of her innocence, and leave it at that. (James,
incidentally, left a clue to the real-life source of the character through the
initials “MT”—Minny Temple, a vivacious, innocent cousin who died of
tuberculosis at age 24.)
But readers in James’ own
time, familiar as they were with the Bible—especially in the King James
version—would have heard an echo in Psalm 55’s “wings like a dove,” and would
think back to the entire passage—someone beset not just by the “terrors of
death,” but also “the noise of the enemy” and “the oppression of the wicked.”
Milly, like the narrator
of the psalm—though without knowing it (at least initially)—is at the mercy of
conspirators: in this case, the cash-poor lovers Merton Densher and Kate Croy,
who hope that, by Merton marrying the soon-to-die Milly, he will inherit her
money, freeing him to wed Kate.
James’ personal religious
beliefs appear to be unconventional, a byproduct of his father, Henry James
Sr., who rejected orthodox Protestantism and became a follower of Swedish
philosopher and Christian mystic Emanuel Swedenborg. But traditional faith can
leave an indelible imprint, and James—Junior, like Senior—would likely hear
that phrase “wings like a dove” reverberate in the imagination in contemplating
the object of the web spun by Croy and Densher.
Kate and Merton have
committed the worst kind of transgression in exploiting the innocence of
another human being. That violation will not go unpunished.
In the quest for material
possession that justifies and finally undermines the love of Croy and Densher,
the novelist might have found an equally apt literary allusion from Psalm 68: “The
women at home divide the spoil, though they stay among the sheepfolds—the wings
of a dove covered with silver, its pinions with green gold.”
(The image accompanying
this post comes from the 1997 film adaptation of The Wings of the Dove,
with Alison Elliott as Millie, Linus Roache as Merton, and Helena Bonham Carter
as Kate.)