登陆注册
14729900000001

第1章

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 Ibecame acquainted with his work. He had already printed a tale--"The Story of a Year"--in the "Atlantic Monthly," when Iwas 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.

同类推荐
  • NO NAME

    NO NAME

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 三法度论

    三法度论

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 菩萨藏修道众经抄

    菩萨藏修道众经抄

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 无能子

    无能子

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 弘光实录钞

    弘光实录钞

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
热门推荐
  • 橙萌厚爱

    橙萌厚爱

    某日,柳橙橙因为游戏被褚翊放鸽子,正在生气中。褚翊意识到自己的错误,决定带柳橙橙出去吃一顿,让她开心一下。褚翊:橙子,今天想吃什么?橙子切开是黑的:我随意,你喜欢吃什么?褚翊:西餐、日本料理、广东菜都可以……橙子切开是黑的:那你不喜欢吃什么?褚翊:唔……火锅吧!橙子切开是黑的:(微笑表情)那我们就去吃火锅吧。褚翊:好……好的!从此之后褚翊就走上了被火锅折腾的虐心之旅。她不开心需要找乐子——吃火锅!她开心了需要庆祝——吃火锅!她心情平稳需要找刺激——吃火锅!结论:火锅大神我错了,请受我一拜!
  • 樱奈绝恋

    樱奈绝恋

    她,孤傲冷僻,心被封锁;他,不喜人近,却只看上了她;他们之间又能擦出怎样的火花呢?
  • 冰山王子萌公主

    冰山王子萌公主

    当我们的萌萌哒公主遇上一位帅帅哒冰山王子时,会发生什么事呢??
  • 一人之下的霸道人生

    一人之下的霸道人生

    【我本霸道,怎奈家有悍妻】我乃神兽后裔,身上流淌着的是玄武的无上血脉。去,给我端洗脚水来。我身负重担,守护一方安宁乃天命使然。你......赶快给我端端洗脚水来。我可凭一人之力,改变暗世界格局,世间绝无能挡我之人。再说最后一遍,给老娘端洗脚水过来!好的,老婆大人。纵然有万千本领,无奈却仍要低人一头。媳妇是女汉子,我等便做了那萌妹子!格萨杰端洗脚水的手微微颤抖,一脸谄媚的跪倒在秦秋丽面前嬉笑道,老婆,看看这水温如何?
  • 尸王重生:相公乖乖,耐心等

    尸王重生:相公乖乖,耐心等

    二十四世纪变异尸王重生,超级强就算了,还长这么漂亮,让不让人活了!不对,还有个尸王克星——尸王相公!
  • 异途归路

    异途归路

    大学毕业生,被来自高等星球的生物谋杀后究竟会发生怎样的经历?引我入异星,必揪起滔天巨浪!为寻回家路,必浴血战尽八方!
  • 观心论疏

    观心论疏

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 曼珠沙华之千年之恋1

    曼珠沙华之千年之恋1

    锲子花开彼岸彼岸花又称曼珠沙华。据说曼珠沙华是黄泉路上唯一的风景,千年落叶,千年开花,有花无叶,有叶无花。相传,曼珠是花妖,而沙华是叶妖,他们虽然是同一朵花,可他们从未见过。有一次,曼珠和沙华背着花神偷偷见了一面,可这事被花神知道了,将他们打入十世轮回,如若在这十世内不能修成正果,将灰飞烟灭。
  • 福妻驾到

    福妻驾到

    现代饭店彪悍老板娘魂穿古代。不分是非的极品婆婆?三年未归生死不明的丈夫?心狠手辣的阴毒亲戚?贪婪而好色的地主老财?吃上顿没下顿的贫困宭境?不怕不怕,神仙相助,一技在手,天下我有!且看现代张悦娘,如何身带福气玩转古代,开面馆、收小弟、左纳财富,右傍美男,共绘幸福生活大好蓝图!!!!快本新书《天媒地聘》已经上架开始销售,只要3.99元即可将整本书抱回家,你还等什么哪,赶紧点击下面的直通车,享受乐乐精心为您准备的美食盛宴吧!)
  • 恋爱的风筝

    恋爱的风筝

    北京是什么?外国人叫这个城市为国都、官称叫首都、网民们叫帝都、民间称之为皇都、不管叫什么都,在刘帅的眼中这个都城就是从身边一划而过而来不及欣赏的一道风景。刘帅和安琪俩人远离家乡来到北京,刘帅的梦想是当一名作家。安琪是刘帅的外表,果果是刘帅的心灵。爱情失败让刘帅患上了恋爱恐惧症,无处排解心中忧郁的他将自己的情感经历以小说《碎心》的形式写出来,果果是第一个读者。果果明白刘帅想通过这种记实网络小说帮助她找到失散多年的父亲很是感动,刘帅的作品获得了年度网络小说作者大奖。安琪告诉果果支撑她活下去的是刘帅,看着安琪诚心的忏悔,果果在艰难中将如何选择她的爱情。