Perhaps Mr. James finds, or fancies, in such words a significance that
escapes our obtuser sense, a sweetness, it may be, of early association,
for he tells us somewhere that in his boyhood he was put to school in
Geneva. In this way only can we account for his once slipping into the
rusticism that "remembers of" a thing.
But beyond any advantage which he may have derived from an intelligent
study of French models, it is plain that a much larger share of Mr.
James's education has been acquired by travel and through the eyes of a
thoughtful observer of men and things. He has seen more cities and
manners of men than was possible in the slower days of Ulysses, and if
with less gain of worldly wisdom, yet with an enlargement of his
artistic apprehensiveness and scope that is of far greater value to him.
We do not mean to imply that Mr. James lacks what is called knowledge of
the world. On the contrary, he has a great deal of it, but it has not in
him degenerated into worldliness, and a mellowing haze of imagination
ransoms the edges of things from the hardness of over-near familiarity.
He shows on analysis that rare combination of qualities which results in
a man of the world, whose contact with it kindles instead of dampening
the ardor of his fancy. He is thus excellently fitted for the line he
has chosen as a story-teller who deals mainly with problems of character
and psychology which spring out of the artificial complexities of
society, and as a translator of the impressions received from nature and
art into language that often lacks only verse to make it poetry.
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