Glasses is one of the best short stories written by Henry James in 1896. A society marriage is about to take place between a young woman whose only asset is an incredibly attractive face. That is until her fiancé realizes that she requires bulky spectacles that detract from her appearance because she is practically blind. In Folkestone, the unnamed narrator, a bachelor artist, notices a young woman with an astonishingly stunning face. He discovers that she is Flora Saunt, an orphan, from a friend, the widowed Mrs. Meldrum who must wear unsightly glasses. Lord Iffield, the unintelligent heir to a country estate, is one of her admirers. Geoffrey Dawling, who is educated and empathetic but not attractive, is another admirer who is also wealthy. Later, the narrator attends a Lohengrin performance in London. He sees a beautiful woman in a box wearing expensive gems and assumes she must be Flora. She looks at him over her opera glasses and smiles. Before realizing she is now blind, he approaches her box and kisses her hand in greeting. She can't see Geoffrey's terrible appearance, but he rejoins her and the two.
Henry James OM was an American-born British author born in New York City on 15 April 1843. He is recognized as a crucial figure in the transition from literary realism to literary modernism. Henry James, Sr., an investor, and banker in Albany, was his father. Henry James was medically unfit in 1861 to fight in the American Civil War. For The Nation and Atlantic Monthly, he produced both fiction and nonfiction writing. Later, in 1878, Watch and Ward was published as a book. He left for Paris in 1875 and arrived in London in 1876. The Portrait of a Lady (1878), was released in 1881. He relocated to Sussex in 1897-1898, where he wrote The Turn of the Screw. He wrote The Ambassadors, The Wings of the Dove, and The Golden Bowl between 1902 and 1904. He received the Order of Merit in 1915 and became a citizen of Great Britain. His memoirs A Small Boy and Others and Notes of a Son and Brother were both published in 1913. He received the Order of Merit in 1915 and became a citizen of Great Britain. He was cremated after passing away on February 28, 1916, in Chelsea, London.
