Part 21 (1/2)

There is no faking the amount of perceptive energy concentrated in Henry James's vignettes in such phrases as that on the parents like domestic dogs waiting to be scratched, or in the ten thousand phrases of this sort which abound in his writings. If we were back in the time of Bruyere, we could easily make a whole book of ”Characters” from Henry James's vignettes.[9] The vein holds from beginning to end of his work; from this writing of the eighties to ”The Ivory Tower.” As for example, Gussie Braddon:

”Rosanna waited facing her, noting her extraordinary perfection of neatness, of elegance, of arrangement, of which it couldn't be said whether they most handed over to you, as on some polished salver, the clear truth of her essential commonness or transposed it into an element that could please, that could even fascinate, as a supreme attestation of care. 'Take her as an advertis.e.m.e.nt of all the latest knowledges of how to ”treat” every inch of the human surface and where to ”get” every sc.r.a.p of the personal envelope, so far as she _is_ enveloped, and she does achieve an effect sublime in itself and thereby absolute in a wavering world.'”

We note no inconsiderable progress in the actual writing, in _mistria_, when we reach the ultimate volumes.

1886. ”Bostonians.” Other stories in this collection mostly rejected from collected edition.

”Princess Casama.s.sima” inferior continuation of ”Roderick Hudson.” His original subject matter is beginning to go thin.

1888. ”The Reverberator,” process of fantasia beginning.

Fantasia of Americans vs. the ”old aristocracy,” ”The American” with the s.e.xes reversed. Possibly the theme shows as well in ”Les Transatlantiques,” the two methods, give one at least a certain pleasure of contrast.

1888. ”Aspern Papers,” inferior. ”Louisa Pallant,” a study in the maternal or abysmal relation, good James. ”Modern Warning,” rejected from collected edition.

1889. ”A London Life.” ”The Patagonia.”

”The Patagonia,” not a masterpiece. Slow in opening, excellent in parts, but the sense of the finale intrudes all along. It seems true but there is no alternative ending. One doubts whether a story is really constructed with any mastery when the end, for the purpose of making it a story, is so unescapable. The effect of reality is produced, of course, by the reality of the people in the opening scene; there is no doubt about that part being ”to the life.”

”The Liar” is superb in its way, perhaps the best of the allegories, of the plots invented purely to be an exposition of impression. It is magnificent in its presentation of the people, both the old man and the Liar, who is masterly.

”Mrs. Temperly” is another such excellent delineation and shows James as an excellent hater, but G.S. Street expresses a concentration of annoyance with a greater polish and suavity in method; and neither explains, theorizes, nor comments.

James never has De Maupa.s.sant's reality. His (H.J.'s) people almost always convince, i.e., we believe implicitly that they exist. We also think that Henry James has made up some sort of story as an excuse for writing his impression of the people.

One sees the slight vacancy of the stories of this period, the short clear sentence, the dallying with _jeu d'esprit_, with epigram no better than, though not inferior to, the run of epigram in the nineties. It all explains James's need of opacity, his reaching out for a chiaroscuro to distinguish himself from his contemporaries and in which he could put the whole of his much more complex apperception.

Then comes, roughly, the period of cobwebs and of excessive cobwebs and of furniture, finally justified in ”The Finer Grain,” a book of tales with no mis-fire, and the style so vindicated in the triumphs of the various books of Memoirs and ”The American Scene.”

Fantasias: ”Dominic Ferrand,” ”Nona Vincent” (tales obviously aimed at the ”Yellow Book,” but seem to have missed it, a detour in James's career). All artists who discover anything make such detours and must, in the course of things (as in the cobwebs), push certain experiments beyond the right curve of their art. This is not so much the doom as the function of all ”revolutionary” or experimental art, and I think masterwork is usually the result of the return from such excess. One does not know, simply does not know, the true curve until one has pushed one's method beyond it. Until then it is merely a frontier, not a chosen route. It is an open question, and there is no dogmatic answer, whether an artist should write and rewrite the same story (a la Flaubert) or whether he should take a new canvas.

”The Papers,” a fantasia, diverting; ”The Birthplace,” fairy-G.o.dmother element mentioned above, excellent. ”Edmund Orme,” inferior; ”Yellow Book” tale, not accepted by that periodical.

1889-1893. Period of this entoilment in the ”Yellow Book,” short sentences, the epigrammatic. He reacts from this into the allegorical.

In general the work of this period is not up to the mark. ”The Chaperon,” ”The Real Thing,” fantasias of ”wit.” By fantasias I mean sketches in which the people are ”real” or convince one of their verity, but where the story is utterly unconvincing, is not intended to convince, is merely a sort of exaggeration of the fitting situation or the situation which ought to result in order to display some type at its apogee. ”The Real Thing” rather better than other stories in this volume.

Thus the lady and gentleman model in ”The Real Thing.” London society is finely ladled in ”The Chaperon,” which is almost as a story, romanticism.

”Greville Fane” is a scandalous photograph from the life about which the great blagueur scandalously lies in his preface (collected edition). I have been too diverted comparing it with _an_ original to give a sane view of its art.

1890. ”The Tragic Muse,” uneven, full of good things but showing Henry James in the didactic role a little too openly. He preaches, he also displays fine perception of the parochialism of the British political career. It is a readable novel with tracts interpolated. (Excellent and commendable tracts arguing certainly for the right thing, enjoyable, etc.) Excellent text-book for young men with ambitions, etc.

1892. ”Lesson of the Master” (cobweb). ”The Pupil,” a masterpiece, one of his best and keenest studies. ”Brooksmith” of the best.

1893. ”The Private Life.” t.i.tle story, waste verbiage at the start, ridiculous to put all this camouflage over something au fond merely an idea. Not life, not people, allegory, dated to ”Yellow Book” era. Won't hold against ”Candide.” H.J.'s tilting against the vacuity of the public figure is, naturally, pleasing, i.e., it is pleasing that he should tilt, but the amus.e.m.e.nt partakes of the nature of seeing cocoanuts hurled at an aunt sally.

There are other stories, good enough to be carried by H.J.'s best work, not detrimental, but not enough to have ”made him”: ”Europe”

(Hawth.o.r.n.y), ”Paste,” ”The Middle Years,” ”Broken Wings,” etc. Part of the great man's work can perhaps only be criticized as ”etc.”

1895. ”Terminations, c.o.xon Fund,” perhaps best of this lot, a disquisition, but entertaining, perhaps the germ of Galsworthy to be found in it (to no glory of either author) as perhaps a residuum of d.i.c.kens in Maisie's Mrs. Wix. Verbalism, but delightful verbalism in c.o.xon affair, sic: