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If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Benedictine + University" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Benedictine University". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +HENRY JAMES, JR. + +by William Dean Howells + + + +The events of Mr. James's life--as we agree to understand +events--may be told in a very few words. His race is Irish on +his father's side and Scotch on his mother's, to which mingled +strains the generalizer may attribute, if he likes, that union of +vivid expression and dispassionate analysis which has +characterized his work from the first. There are none of those +early struggles with poverty, which render the lives of so many +distinguished Americans monotonous reading, to record in his +case: the cabin hearth-fire did not light him to the youthful +pursuit of literature; he had from the start all those advantages +which, when they go too far, become limitations. + +He was born in New York city in the year 1843, and his first +lessons in life and letters were the best which the +metropolis--so small in the perspective diminishing to that +date--could afford. In his twelfth year his family went abroad, +and after some stay in England made a long sojourn in France and +Switzerland. They returned to America in 1860, placing +themselves at Newport, and for a year or two Mr. James was at the +Harvard Law School, where, perhaps, he did not study a great deal +of law. His father removed from Newport to Cambridge in 1866, +and there Mr. James remained till he went abroad, three years +later, for the residence in England and Italy which, with +infrequent visits home, has continued ever since. + +It was during these three years of his Cambridge life that I +became acquainted with his work. He had already printed a +tale--"The Story of a Year"--in the "Atlantic Monthly," when I +was asked to be Mr. Fields's assistant in the management, and it +was my fortune to read Mr. James's second contribution in +manuscript. "Would you take it?" asked my chief. "Yes, and all +the stories you can get from the writer." One is much securer of +one's judgment at twenty-nine than, say, at forty-five; but if +this was a mistake of mine I am not yet old enough to regret it. +The story was called "Poor Richard," and it dealt with the +conscience of a man very much in love with a woman who loved his +rival. He told this rival a lie, which sent him away to his +death on the field,--in that day nearly every fictitious +personage had something to do with the war,--but Poor Richard's +lie did not win him his love. It still seems to me that the +situation was strongly and finely felt. One's pity went, as it +should, with the liar; but the whole story had a pathos which +lingers in my mind equally with a sense of the new literary +qualities which gave me such delight in it. I admired, as we +must in all that Mr. James has written, the finished workmanship +in which there is no loss of vigor; the luminous and uncommon use +of words, the originality of phrase, the whole clear and +beautiful style, which I confess I weakly liked the better for +the occasional gallicisms remaining from an inveterate habit of +French. Those who know the writings of Mr. Henry James will +recognize the inherited felicity of diction which is so striking +in the writings of Mr. Henry James, Jr. The son's diction is not +so racy as the father's; it lacks its daring, but it is as +fortunate and graphic; and I cannot give it greater praise than +this, though it has, when he will, a splendor and state which is +wholly its own. + +Mr. James is now so universally recognized that I shall seem to +be making an unwarrantable claim when I express my belief that +the popularity of his stories was once largely confined to Mr. +Field's assistant. They had characteristics which forbade any +editor to refuse them; and there are no anecdotes of +thrice-rejected manuscripts finally printed to tell of him; his +work was at once successful with all the magazines. But with the +readers of "The Atlantic," of "Harper's," of "Lippincott's," of +"The Galaxy," of "The Century," it was another affair. The +flavor was so strange, that, with rare exceptions, they had to +"learn to like" it. Probably few writers have in the same degree +compelled the liking of their readers. He was reluctantly +accepted, partly through a mistake as to his attitude--through +the confusion of his point of view with his private opinion--in +the reader's mind. This confusion caused the tears of rage which +bedewed our continent in behalf of the "average American girl" +supposed to be satirized in Daisy Miller, and prevented the +perception of the fact that, so far as the average American girl +was studied at all in Daisy Miller, her indestructible innocence, +her invulnerable new-worldliness, had never been so delicately +appreciated. It was so plain that Mr. James disliked her vulgar +conditions, that the very people to whom he revealed her +essential sweetness and light were furious that he should have +seemed not to see what existed through him. In other words, they +would have liked him better if he had been a worse artist--if he +had been a little more confidential. + +But that artistic impartiality which puzzled so many in the +treatment of Daisy Miller is one of the qualities most valuable +in the eyes of those who care how things are done, and I am not +sure that it is not Mr. James's most characteristic quality. As +"frost performs the effect of fire," this impartiality comes at +last to the same result as sympathy. We may be quite sure that +Mr. James does not like the peculiar phase of our civilization +typified in Henrietta Stackpole; but he treats her with such +exquisite justice that he lets US like her. It is an extreme +case, but I confidently allege it in proof. + +His impartiality is part of the reserve with which he works in +most respects, and which at first glance makes us say that he is +wanting in humor. But I feel pretty certain that Mr. James has +not been able to disinherit himself to this degree. We Americans +are terribly in earnest about making ourselves, individually and +collectively; but I fancy that our prevailing mood in the face of +all problems is that of an abiding faith which can afford to be +funny. He has himself indicated that we have, as a nation, as a +people, our joke, and every one of us is in the joke more or +less. We may, some of us, dislike it extremely, disapprove it +wholly, and even abhor it, but we are in the joke all the same, +and no one of us is safe from becoming the great American +humorist at any given moment. The danger is not apparent in Mr. +James's case, and I confess that I read him with a relief in the +comparative immunity that he affords from the national +facetiousness. Many of his people are humorously imagined, or +rather humorously SEEN, like Daisy Miller's mother, but these do +not give a dominant color; the business in hand is commonly +serious, and the droll people are subordinated. They abound, +nevertheless, and many of them are perfectly new finds, like Mr. +Tristram in "The American," the bill-paying father in the +"Pension Beaurepas," the anxiously Europeanizing mother in the +same story, the amusing little Madame de Belgarde, Henrietta +Stackpole, and even Newman himself. But though Mr. James +portrays the humorous in character, he is decidedly not on +humorous terms with his reader; he ignores rather than recognizes +the fact that they are both in the joke. + +If we take him at all we must take him on his own ground, for +clearly he will not come to ours. We must make concessions to +him, not in this respect only, but in several others, chief among +which is the motive for reading fiction. By example, at least, +he teaches that it is the pursuit and not the end which should +give us pleasure; for he often prefers to leave us to our own +conjectures in regard to the fate of the people in whom he has +interested us. There is no question, of course, but he could +tell the story of Isabel in "The Portrait of a Lady" to the end, +yet he does not tell it. We must agree, then, to take what seems +a fragment instead of a whole, and to find, when we can, a name +for this new kind in fiction. Evidently it is the character, not +the fate, of his people which occupies him; when he has fully +developed their character he leaves them to what destiny the +reader pleases. + +The analytic tendency seems to have increased with him as his +work has gone on. Some of the earlier tales were very dramatic: +"A Passionate Pilgrim," which I should rank above all his other +short stories, and for certain rich poetical qualities, above +everything else that he has done, is eminently dramatic. But I +do not find much that I should call dramatic in "The Portrait of +a Lady," while I do find in it an amount of analysis which I +should call superabundance if it were not all such good +literature. The novelist's main business is to possess his +reader with a due conception of his characters and the situations +in which they find themselves. If he does more or less than this +he equally fails. I have sometimes thought that Mr. James's +danger was to do more, but when I have been ready to declare this +excess an error of his method I have hesitated. Could anything +be superfluous that had given me so much pleasure as I read? +Certainly from only one point of view, and this a rather narrow, +technical one. It seems to me that an enlightened criticism will +recognize in Mr. James's fiction a metaphysical genius working to +aesthetic results, and will not be disposed to deny it any method +it chooses to employ. No other novelist, except George Eliot, +has dealt so largely in analysis of motive, has so fully +explained and commented upon the springs of action in the persons +of the drama, both before and after the facts. These novelists +are more alike than any others in their processes, but with +George Eliot an ethical purpose is dominant, and with Mr. James +an artistic purpose. I do not know just how it should be stated +of two such noble and generous types of character as Dorothea and +Isabel Archer, but I think that we sympathize with the former in +grand aims that chiefly concern others, and with the latter in +beautiful dreams that primarily concern herself. Both are +unselfish and devoted women, sublimely true to a mistaken ideal +in their marriages; but, though they come to this common +martyrdom, the original difference in them remains. Isabel has +her great weaknesses, as Dorothea had, but these seem to me, on +the whole, the most nobly imagined and the most nobly intentioned +women in modern fiction; and I think Isabel is the more subtly +divined of the two. If we speak of mere characterization, we +must not fail to acknowledge the perfection of Gilbert Osmond. +It was a profound stroke to make him an American by birth. No +European could realize so fully in his own life the ideal of a +European dilettante in all the meaning of that cheapened word; as +no European could so deeply and tenderly feel the sweetness and +loveliness of the English past as the sick American, Searle, in +"The Passionate Pilgrim." + +What is called the international novel is popularly dated from +the publication of "Daisy Miller," though "Roderick Hudson" and +"The American" had gone before; but it really began in the +beautiful story which I have just named. Mr. James, who invented +this species in fiction, first contrasted in the "Passionate +Pilgrim" the New World and Old World moods, ideals, and +prejudices, and he did it there with a richness of poetic effect +which he has since never equalled. I own that I regret the loss +of the poetry, but you cannot ask a man to keep on being a poet +for you; it is hardly for him to choose; yet I compare rather +discontentedly in my own mind such impassioned creations as +Searle and the painter in "The Madonna of the Future" with "Daisy +Miller," of whose slight, thin personality I also feel the +indefinable charm, and of the tragedy of whose innocence I +recognize the delicate pathos. Looking back to those early +stories, where Mr. James stood at the dividing ways of the novel +and the romance, I am sometimes sorry that he declared even +superficially for the former. His best efforts seem to me those +of romance; his best types have an ideal development, like Isabel +and Claire Belgarde and Bessy Alden and poor Daisy and even +Newman. But, doubtless, he has chosen wisely; perhaps the +romance is an outworn form, and would not lend itself to the +reproduction of even the ideality of modern life. I myself waver +somewhat in my preference--if it is a preference--when I think of +such people as Lord Warburton and the Touchetts, whom I take to +be all decidedly of this world. The first of these especially +interested me as a probable type of the English nobleman, who +amiably accepts the existing situation with all its possibilities +of political and social change, and insists not at all upon the +surviving feudalities, but means to be a manly and simple +gentleman in any event. An American is not able to pronounce as +to the verity of the type; I only know that it seems probable and +that it is charming. It makes one wish that it were in Mr. +James's way to paint in some story the present phase of change in +England. A titled personage is still mainly an inconceivable +being to us; he is like a goblin or a fairy in a storybook. How +does he comport himself in the face of all the changes and +modifications that have taken place and that still impend? We +can hardly imagine a lord taking his nobility seriously; it is +some hint of the conditional frame of Lord Warburton's mind that +makes him imaginable and delightful to us. + +It is not my purpose here to review any of Mr. James's books; I +like better to speak of his people than of the conduct of his +novels, and I wish to recognize the fineness with which he has +touched-in the pretty primness of Osmond's daughter and the mild +devotedness of Mr. Rosier. A masterly hand is as often manifest +in the treatment of such subordinate figures as in that of the +principal persons, and Mr. James does them unerringly. This is +felt in the more important character of Valentin Belgarde, a +fascinating character in spite of its defects,--perhaps on +account of them--and a sort of French Lord Warburton, but +wittier, and not so good. "These are my ideas," says his +sister-in-law, at the end of a number of inanities. "Ah, you +call them ideas!" he returns, which is delicious and makes you +love him. He, too, has his moments of misgiving, apparently in +regard to his nobility, and his acceptance of Newman on the basis +of something like "manhood suffrage" is very charming. It is of +course difficult for a remote plebeian to verify the pictures of +legitimist society in "The American," but there is the probable +suggestion in them of conditions and principles, and want of +principles, of which we get glimpses in our travels abroad; at +any rate, they reveal another and not impossible world, and it is +fine to have Newman discover that the opinions and criticisms of +our world are so absolutely valueless in that sphere that his +knowledge of the infamous crime of the mother and brother of his +betrothed will have no effect whatever upon them in their own +circle if he explodes it there. This seems like aristocracy +indeed! and one admires, almost respects, its survival in our +day. But I always regretted that Newman's discovery seemed the +precursor of his magnanimous resolution not to avenge himself; it +weakened the effect of this, with which it had really nothing to +do. Upon the whole, however, Newman is an adequate and +satisfying representative of Americanism, with his generous +matrimonial ambition, his vast good-nature, and his thorough good +sense and right feeling. We must be very hard to please if we +are not pleased with him. He is not the "cultivated American" +who redeems us from time to time in the eyes of Europe; but he is +unquestionably more national, and it is observable that his +unaffected fellow-countrymen and women fare very well at Mr. +James's hand always; it is the Europeanizing sort like the +critical little Bostonian in the "Bundle of Letters," the ladies +shocked at Daisy Miller, the mother in the "Pension Beaurepas" +who goes about trying to be of the "native" world everywhere, +Madame Merle and Gilbert Osmond, Miss Light and her mother, who +have reason to complain, if any one has. Doubtless Mr. James +does not mean to satirize such Americans, but it is interesting +to note how they strike such a keen observer. We are certainly +not allowed to like them, and the other sort find somehow a place +in our affections along with his good Europeans. It is a little +odd, by the way, that in all the printed talk about Mr. +James--and there has been no end of it--his power of engaging +your preference for certain of his people has been so little +commented on. Perhaps it is because he makes no obvious appeal +for them; but one likes such men as Lord Warburton, Newman, +Valentin, the artistic brother in "The Europeans," and Ralph +Touchett, and such women as Isabel, Claire Belgarde, Mrs. +Tristram, and certain others, with a thoroughness that is one of +the best testimonies to their vitality. This comes about through +their own qualities, and is not affected by insinuation or by +downright petting, such as we find in Dickens nearly always and +in Thackeray too often. + +The art of fiction has, in fact, become a finer art in our day +than it was with Dickens and Thackeray. We could not suffer the +confidential attitude of the latter now, nor the mannerism of the +former, any more than we could endure the prolixity of Richardson +or the coarseness of Fielding. These great men are of the +past--they and their methods and interests; even Trollope and +Reade are not of the present. The new school derives from +Hawthorne and George Eliot rather than any others; but it studies +human nature much more in its wonted aspects, and finds its +ethical and dramatic examples in the operation of lighter but not +really less vital motives. The moving accident is certainly not +its trade; and it prefers to avoid all manner of dire +catastrophes. it is largely influenced by French fiction in +form; but it is the realism of Daudet rather than the realism of +Zola that prevails with it, and it has a soul of its own which is +above the business of recording the rather brutish pursuit of a +woman by a man, which seems to be the chief end of the French +novelist. This school, which is so largely of the future as well +as the present, finds its chief exemplar in Mr. James; it is he +who is shaping and directing American fiction, at least. It is +the ambition of the younger contributors to write like him; he +has his following more distinctly recognizable than that of any +other English-writing novelist. Whether he will so far control +this following as to decide the nature of the novel with us +remains to be seen. Will the reader be content to accept a novel +which is an analytic study rather than a story, which is apt to +leave him arbiter of the destiny of the author's creations? Will +he find his account in the unflagging interest of their +development? Mr. James's growing popularity seems to suggest +that this may be the case; but the work of Mr. James's imitators +will have much to do with the final result. + +In the meantime it is not surprising that he has his imitators. +Whatever exceptions we take to his methods or his results, we +cannot deny him a very great literary genius. To me there is a +perpetual delight in his way of saying things, and I cannot +wonder that younger men try to catch the trick of it. The +disappointing thing for them is that it is not a trick, but an +inherent virtue. His style is, upon the whole, better than that +of any other novelist I know; it is always easy, without being +trivial, and it is often stately, without being stiff; it gives a +charm to everything he writes; and he has written so much and in +such various directions, that we should be judging him very +incompletely if we considered him only as a novelist. His book +of European sketches must rank him with the most enlightened and +agreeable travelers; and it might be fitly supplemented from his +uncollected papers with a volume of American sketches. In his +essays on modern French writers he indicates his critical range +and grasp; but he scarcely does more, as his criticisms in "The +Atlantic" and "The Nation" and elsewhere could abundantly +testify. + +There are indeed those who insist that criticism is his true +vocation, and are impatient of his devotion to fiction; but I +suspect that these admirers are mistaken. A novelists he is not, +after the old fashion, or after any fashion but his own; yet +since he has finally made his public in his own way of +story-telling--or call it character-painting if you prefer,--it +must be conceded that he has chosen best for himself and his +readers in choosing the form of fiction for what he has to say. +It is, after all, what a writer has to say rather than what he +has to tell that we care for nowadays. In one manner or other +the stories were all told long ago; and now we want merely to +know what the novelist thinks about persons and situations. Mr. +James gratifies this philosophic desire. If he sometimes +forbears to tell us what he thinks of the last state of his +people, it is perhaps because that does not interest him, and a +large-minded criticism might well insist that it was childish to +demand that it must interest him. + +I am not sure that any criticism is sufficiently large-minded for +this. I own that I like a finished story; but then also I like +those which Mr. James seems not to finish. This is probably the +position of most of his readers, who cannot very logically +account for either preference. We can only make sure that we +have here an annalist, or analyst, as we choose, who fascinates +us from his first page to his last, whose narrative or whose +comment may enter into any minuteness of detail without fatiguing +us, and can only truly grieve us when it ceases. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Etext of Henry James, Jr., by Howells diff --git a/old/jimjr10.zip b/old/jimjr10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..126cfb1 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/jimjr10.zip |